It is all about expanding and contracting. Everything does it. In and out then in again. From small to large to small. From seed to flower to seed. The speck of an egg swelling to rounded middle age and then reduced to a speck of dust. The Universe for God’s sake. Sound. Everything. It all comes and goes, grows and shrinks and we dance between it all.
When Oakley and I pedaled across the United States this fall, the world was big and bright and the land lay out before us calling and limitless. The sun softened our backs and turned the prairie grasses golden and red. The mountains reached up into the sky, often spiking up through the clouds. The waters of the rivers were startingly cold, the midday heat oppressively hot, making us run for shelter. Canyons were maze-like and farm fields extended beyond the horizon. People opened homes, churches, fire stations and city parks with welcoming warmth.
“Come in,” they said. “Rest.” “You are safe here.” The world was like an open flower.
Now that flower has contracted. The pandemic sweeping the world has shrunken it. Oakley and I stay on our rocky island in Maine walking, running, rollerblading, and biking around and around looking out at the horizon with longing and some fear. A friend likens me to a caged, crazed fox in the zoo pacing back and forth, rubbing against its bars. Perhaps she is right. I feel like there is no telling whether I rub against the bars because I need someone to pet me, because I want to bite or because I just want to run. Homes cannot open their doors now, playgrounds are closed. It can even be hard to find a smile because of the masks we must wear. It is time to stay safe. Stay home.
Oakley and I live in a house with seven others. We walk the same paths and trade spots on the couch. We know exactly what each day will entail, and what each week will bring. I run my counseling practice out of my bathroom. He gathers his education from the dining room table, learning from a screen. Our world is small.
On good days, I can understand that there is beauty in this. As Walt Whitman says in The Leaves of Grass: “The narrowest hinge on my hand puts scorn to all machinery.” It seems time to find adventure in the little things and to be amazed by the everyday. I admit that this is hard for me and for Oaks. We are thrill seekers and struggle with focus and stillness, but maybe with a little enforced practice, we can begin to try and do it with more grace. Maybe, with all this stillness we can look inwardly with less distraction.
And when I do, I can see that I am not just full of blood and guts, but full of all the adventure I have had and people I have known and beauty I have seen. It is still there, right beneath the skin. The man we met, standing in the middle of a hollow in Kentucky, with his grey t-shirt stretched taut across his little pot belly, his hair hanging limply down around his shoulders, wondering aloud where the black goat that was here a minute ago could have gone to.
The crickets in Idaho that were as big as our thumbs that covered the road in a feeding frenzy, cannibalizing each other, jumping up against our legs and crunching under our tires as we careened down hills and mountain passes.
Bedding down under and beside fire trucks on scrubbed clean cement floors and reading out loud to each other. Feeling filled with delight that we were safe from the cold rain thundering outside because of the trust the small town had in us to stay unwatched with their millions of dollars of equipment.
Hiding from the wind behind scarce buildings on the Colorado plains and eating Pringles and cheese sticks. So tired and sweaty that we could not speak and noticing prarie dog noses popping up out of holes all around us. One barked, and then another. Then they turned into a bunch of chatterboxes and still we just sat. It is all still there.
Once a week, I do escape the island and bike with two friends. I insist that Oaks come and I beg my husband to join us. Things seem to be finally waking in Maine. The daffodils are up and the azaleas are starting to pinken. On every ride, there is more green on the branches. And the sun’s warmth is returning. This week I wore shorts for the first time. We bicycle about 25 miles, just a little bit, but I feel my legs and lungs open up. We go to the beaches and I see the waves rise up and fall.
I know everything will open up again and there are endless adventures ahead of us-all of us. This contraction will expand.
hi leah! luv you are still writing. when i finished reading your piece i had a sensation you pulling me, tugging me taking us from this dark season to promise of a new time. and i like the way you are reliving the trip, it sounds like the memories can help with now and ahead. well done. hello to Twain for me, please. And of course, your son Oakley. Keep going, as i do here on cape cod. ur fan, JaCee…
You need to write a book! Thanks for the update.
Another great piece filled with great images, feelings and thoughts. Your struggle to reconcile your experience in the context of the present makes it real and relatable, as it was so much more than just a bike trip. I felt that same weird restlessness when I came back from my backpack trek around Europe when I was 21, in 1985. I had changed but was the same, I was glad to be home but it felt foreign, I was more proud to be an American but my country looked like a different place that I liked less. I felt distanced from everything that was familiar, but I needed stability. Lots of conflicting feelings. It took a long time to reacclimatize, like decompression at the end of a scuba dive. Now it’s a very fond memory of a real adventure that seems almost crazy do have done in hindsight.
Love the way you take us from adventure to what exists in our present times into the future. There is promise of a future of more adventure and beautiful. Thank you.
Oh, my. You take me out of the doldrums. I can almost feel I am with you on that trip! Beautiful.
Another great piece of writing. Thank you, stay safe.
love <3
Terrific, Leah!
I love reading your posts. I followed you and Oakley across the USA! What a gift that you both were able to do every single day of riding, with all its’ trials, challenges, thoughts of just calling home to say…enough. All while, unbeknownst to you that this was coming. How grateful (and sad) you must feel that you trip happened when it did. I am sure you both feel like horses tied in standing stalls vs being out in the open pasture. Maybe, just maybe, if we knew ahead how this will turn out, we would have enjoyed this time away from the daily race just a bit more. Thanks for this message.
Beautiful piece. Thank you.
The opening paragraph is a stupendous opening into exactly what it is you have gained. Blessings
Beautifully written, as usual.
What an amazing contrast you are experiencing right now. Being so free to roam not quite a year ago, and now being so confined. You really did a good job of explaining that dichotomy. Glad you’re able to get off Island and bike around. Hang in there!
Beautifully written.
Beautiful read. Thank you.
Always best wishes of health and happiness to you and your family.
Now that this pandemic has closed the doors on the outside world I have finally had the chance to trawl through my emails and read your biking story from start to finish. I have enjoyed getting to know Oakley and learning about your country, your experiences, and the people you’ve met along the way. So impressed by your endurance and perserverance during your cycling trip, and I’m really enjoying the reflective nature of these more recent posts too.
You know, you might have a book here. Well-written!
I love this…gives me hope. Thank you for continuing this blog.
Leah. Thanks for continuing to write.
Have you thought of publishing shorter pieces, such as this, that come from forced incubation?
Your writing reminds of Tennyson’s:
I am a part of all that I have meet.
Yet, all experience is an arch where through gleams that untraveled world
Whose margins fades forever and forever when I move.
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.