Let's get this right out of the way. This post is going to be flowery and poetic, and
I'm going to label it Sentimental Crap. You are more than welcome to listen to Jim Gaffigan talk about pie instead. I won't be offended. You have been warned.
Every now and again, I stumble unwittingly into a moment of
restrained euphoria. It's a wave that comes unexpectedly and
disappears just as quickly. There's nothing a person can do to create the feeling, and in fact; attempting to manufacture it always assures it won't arrive. It's the moment
John Mayer sang about in Clarity.* It's the fleeting moment when everything seems perfect, the world seems good, and everything - everything - makes sense. It's nice.
*Seriously. Dude nailed it: "By the time I recognize this moment / This moment will be gone."That's exactly the trouble with the whole thing. It washes over you, and
by the time you realize what it is, it's gone. Maybe if a person could be content to experience the thing rather than analyze it, it might linger. But it doesn't happen. It never happens.
--
The
wind does weird things to a cyclist. It's a relentless foe. It's indefatigable. It's not like boxing. In boxing, if you hit the other guy hard enough, he'll stop hitting you. You can ride at the wind all you want, and
it is never, ever going to let up because your effort has somehow overwhelmed it. No, you're just more tired than you were a few moments ago. You will always be at the whims of the wind, and the
wind is nothing if it's not whimsical.
Occasionally, the wind is less a tireless foe and more a
flaky ally. Sure, it may help you along, but you can never ever rely on it. One moment, it can blow fiercely at your back; the next it can turn and blow in your face. If it does that, it means that there
might be a tornado coming. This, suffice it to say, is the meanest thing the wind can do.*
Get off the road.*
Also, the wind could be in your face as you ride to work. Then, while you are in the office, it can change directions simply so it can blow against you on the way home. You might be thinking that the opposite could happen; that it could blow at your back both ways. You'd be wrong. That has never happened to anyone ever.
Then there's the matter of roads. Most roads are laid out on
east-west, north-south grids. It's a clever system. Unfortunately, the wind hasn't bought into it. The wind almost never blows strictly in cardinal directions. That means that you'll
never have the full strength of the wind behind you, and you'll inevitably end up fighting some
minutiae of crosswind.
Wind can also be loud. In your face, it catches the sails that are your big ears* and it fills them with a
rustling that hides traffic noises. Blowing across, it's like listening to a stereo recording with one headphone;
nothing ever sounds right.
*My big ears. I have big ears.
There is one exceptional quality to all of this. When the wind is at your back - and I mean, really and truly at your back, 100% -
it makes no sound whatsoever. And for as long as the wind's whims remain unchanged, you'll pedal on air with nary a sound in your ear.* In that moment, everything seems idyllic, there are no worries, restrained euphoria takes charge, and life makes sense.
*
What a sappy sentence. It kind of makes me want to puke.Of course it can't last. Your awareness of the moment will ruin it. The wind will change only a bit and that might ruin it.
Or, as you are enjoying you biannual moment of Zen;
you might get hit by a truck. Again.
Seriously, people. I'm right there.
On the shoulder. I know you can see me.
Please stop hitting me with your trucks. And if you do feel, for whatever reason, that you must hit me with your truck, why in the name of nirvana do you have to do it right in that very moment? And yes, I'm okay,* but would it have killed you to have stopped (or slowed down, or maintained your constant speed, or
done anything besides sped up) to make sure?
*
Mom, I really am okay. I was more of a man about it this time. I didn't fall, I didn't come loose of the bike, and I even maintained the wherewithal to slam my fist against the dude's bed as he came by. I hurt my hand doing that. My hand hurts.**
**Remember that episode of Full House where Joey "let go" and Michelle rode her bike right into the bushes and scraped up her knee? I remember watching that as a seven-year-old and thinking, "Seriously? Bushes are thing that's going to make her scared of bikes? Bushes?" After two of these truck-hittings,*** I would like to say that I am vindicated. Michelle Tanner is a grade-A wuss.
***That entire episode takes on a different meaning if Michelle gets hit by a truck, doesn't it? Man, I would watch that.
