This is where I am, where I find myself. Pavement hot and black beneath racing tires, prairie sun hot and warm, a breeze of my own creation cool against perspiring limbs. Small wisps of clouds glide across powder sky; a hawk circles above endless rows of corn. From nothing a journey is crafted, space born of churning legs and un-aimed desire. Dust to dust, I venture forth.
This is where I am, where I find myself. Rain drops big and fat, like foam golf balls blasting apart at every contact. Sweat is exchanged for heaven's nectar, and I pedal faster, harder, wilder, rejuvenated. My tempo is matched, then surpassed, by the rain, progressing as it does from occasional drop to steady drizzle to downpour to floodgate deluge. The final long climb becomes a salmon spawn, pushing through streams of run-off, small downed branches and other debris making a series of dams. Even traffic on the highway slows to a near crawl, only just faster than I, so heavy is the rain. And yet I push, farther, up and up and up. Muscles rejoicing at the effort, singularity of purpose, one against the many headed sky, and it alight with the flames of heaven, and I in the skin of the greatest drum. Each breath is re-hydration.
This is where I am, where I find myself. Morning two comes painful and bright, head throbbing, mouth dry and sour, but there are more miles to be had. Down a Nalgene, lace up the flats, and head into the sun, fortune to be found in every footfall. Trail winding through cornfield, groves of aspen, pine, cedar, past grazing cows, it is both familiar from so many months of so many miles and foreign from so long ago.
The water of this favorite river is dark and muddy, cool with run-off and the deepest part of night, swirling with the grime of a thousand troughs, the mysteries of at least a hundred other limestone-lined valleys. The familiar strain across my shoulders, I paddle in circles, whipping s-turns, run back up rapids, flippantly throw water at familiar tubers. We drink beer and explore beaches and collect stones and trade philosophies. The sun beats down and they are in love and the sky is blue and life is beautiful.
This is where I am, where I find myself. Skipping a day of fishing, I seek out memories as only a fool might, piling miles on like a fat kid M&Ms on Halloween. A slight tailwind makes for a perfect forty, two hours flying by in the company of a red-tailed hawk, a shy fawn, several Amish buggies. The town, once home, is unchanged as ever, even as everything is different; smiles and familiar hellos vie for attention with the new construction and re-designed river. The trails are familiar and comforting, as I put in a few miles, another week's century-mark completion; the river is a new labyrinth, a puzzle to work over. The full day kayak in a couple of hours, silently sliding by loons, turtles, jumping fish, sun-kissed towers of stone and winding sandbars, and I unwrap the first layer. The sun calls me her own, and love spreads across my shoulders. Back on the bike, I glide across ridges, dip in and out of valleys and the river's path. The summer's flooding has wrought awesome destruction; even now, much later, bridges lie in ruins, whole trees uprooted to marshes or corn fields. Back just as evening comes on, the campfire is stoked, and the night stretches ahead: beer to drink, fish and corn and potatoes to grill. The river roars and turns and burbles past, and I play with the dogs and try spearfishing and trade more conversation. Stories and philosophies make fine currency, and the rising moon sees us fat with happiness and rich with new wealth. Full and bright, she floats above the bluff and lights the glorious river and prairie flat; it is getting late, and with business to attend to in the cities, the bike once more beckons.
This is where I am, where I find myself. The moonlight filters through the woods both serene and eerie as I clamber back up the bluff, over dead trees and downed limbs, carrying bike and gear, shoulders delightfully aching, alive with the blood pouring through my veins. Back on the road, I float from one county to another. There is only I, no others, underneath the observing moon. Nature pays me no mind: there is only life in this full night, breath and space, time immaterial. Simplicity spreads calm and comfort in the night; there is only what there is, no more, no less, and I lay on the road and drift, untethered, into the stars. A barred owl calls, and we exchange greetings; a baby screams, and a bunny is someone's dinner. The breeze is cool, the air damp, and I soak into the earth, am loam. Eventually the bike calls me back, and as black fades to purple to pink to orange to dawn, morning races on, the earth becoming an oven once more. Prairie grasses and cornfields still dot the rolling countryside, but water towers begin to gather on the horizon, and before long, I find myself back in the suburbs of golf course subdivisions and Starbucks commuters. I long to turn and flee, live life on the road, out of a backpack on a bike, but, damning the responsibility that carries me forward, soon find myself nearing the city, only two bridges and ten miles standing between wondering wanderer and young professional. Despite cramping wrists and trembling fingers, I push on, driving harder, faster, farther. nearly three hundred miles after last sleeping, I finally trip on the fine ridge line between fatigue and focus, careening through a corner and into the underbrush. No real damage is down – and the superficial level, I am just a little dirtied up – but I know my velocity, and how this body bruises. These bruises will linger, deep and hidden. I am proud of the aches I gather, and count it further accomplishment. We are who we make ourselves to be.
I am home now, I suppose, as home as the wondering, wondering journeyman soul may ever be. Another trip in the books: three and a half days, four hundred and seventy miles on the bike, six hours on the river, a bit of running, a bit of beer, a lot of sun, a lot of sights, a lot of friends. It is the company that I hold dearest, the people and places and the still pulse of the earth that has no need of me but tolerates my presence anyways. This is where I am. Where are you?
