I grew up in really small towns.
Circle Back, Texas: Population 4.
McCamey, Texas: Population 2500.
Veribest, Texas: Population 16
These west Texas towns are mere dots lost on the maps, off rural roads and an hour away from a supermarket.
The schools I attended were respectively small, and all of us were bussed in from the farms. Miles separated us. Playdates were only on birthdays.
The tumbleweeds were friends. So were the stray cats. I even had an invisible best friend for a while. We?d talk about boys and ride our bikes down the dirt roads. Technically, they’re caliche roads, but nobody knows what caliche is unless you?re from west Texas.
Imagine gravel but bigger and dirtier. That’s caliche.
My bike was my savior. We didn’t have television, internet hadn’t been invented yet, so on sunny days, I’d take my purple bike out into the expansive caliche parking lots of the neighborhood churches. I?d pedal as hard and as fast as I could, allowing the wind to cool the unforgiving sun on my face.
I was ten years old, which isn’t old enough for a real bike. To brake, you?d pedal backwards. Caliche didn’t hold much traction. You’d ride hard, brake, and slide out of control, hoping for the best. My hair smelled like the dusty wind and to this day I swear there are small bits of gravel embedded in my bones from the many tumbles I took, flying off the bike, sans helmet, and across the parking lots. Each burn and scrape a challenge to try again.
Pedal hard.
Brake hard.
Skid.
Land it.
Success.
***
I wasn’t afraid of falling. Of bleeding or the sun.? I never looked down, only ahead.
As I became a teenager, I got a different bike. We moved to Abilene and I’d ride on the quiet streets of our neighborhood. They were paved. Smooth. And I could still pedal fast, racing the cars on the street running parallel to me.
And then we moved to Dallas. Where we lived wasn’t safe. The bike disappeared.
I became an adult.
I stopped riding.
(I stopped doing a lot of things).
Sixteen years later, I’ve committed to riding across the country in the summer.? I buckled down and bought a bike. A good bike.
The next day, this last Sunday, I put on all my gear: a cushy pair of shorts, leg warmers, a helmet, a knit cap, two jersey shirts, a heart rate monitor, and began to pedal.
The bike and I went down a safe road with a few small hills. There wasn’t a lot of traffic and there was plenty of room to move.
I was shaky. My hands, unsteady, trying to remember how to keep balance. My fingers fumbled as I shifted gears as my brain tried to remember which side did what. Was it the left side that made the major changes and the right side to tweak? Oh crap. A hill. Click the gears. They stick. That can?t be right. I pedal up the hill. My legs won?t move. I hop off, and walk it to a turnaround.
Downhill time.
Maybe this will be easier.
Gripping my brakes like my life depended on it, my bike and I flew down the hill with the cold wind burning my face. I needed more traction. I tried to shift down. Nothing happened. I really need to learn to use these gears. The hill I am on is a baby, maybe three hundred yards or so and not very steep. When I run in the morning, it’s my favorite.
But going downhill on a bike? I’m terrified. I feel like I’m going ninety miles an hour. It’s probably closer to twenty. I think to the future. This is 300 yards. In six months, I’ll have miles and miles of downhill coasting.
I can’t stay in a straight line.
Where is the girl who embodied me twenty years ago? The girl who wasn’t afraid to eat gravel or bleed? Who didn’t care what her windblown hair or chapped face looked like?? The girl who pushed her pedals up and down until her legs became numb but she always believed she could go a little faster?
She grew up.
(Oh, little girl…you are still there somewhere. I’ve buried your spirit in a mess of insecurity, comfort, and safety.)
It’s raining outside as I write this, it’s midnight, and I’m half asleep on a sleeping pill that is proving ineffective. My new bike sits in the corner of my living room. She and I have exchanged awkward glances all day.
“Can I trust you??” I ask her.
She remains silent.
“You have so many parts. What if a spoke breaks? What if a brake breaks? What if my chain breaks? I don’t know how to nurse you back to health.”
Silent, still.
“Seriously, bike. You weigh less than my cat. How are you going to handle this trip??”
“No,” she finally speaks. “How are you going to handle this trip?”
“What if you fall? What if you bleed? What if you don’t know what to do? What if you have to ask for help? What if you look like an idiot?”
“Well, yes,” I say, ignoring her unrelenting stare. If she had arms, they’d be crossed.
“So what if,” she snaps again. “That’s what you?re afraid of?”
“Listen, bike. I’ve always been in control. If you knew my old bike, you’d know I didn’t need anyone then. My old bike would say that I have trust issues. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust me. I don’t really trust others right now. You?re making me want to start drinking again.”
“Get over yourself.”
“Why am I even talking with you? You?re a freaking bike. Bikes don’t talk.”
“We don’t? I may be a bike, but the bike you had when you were ten made you feel fearless. I can do that too, if you?ll let me.”
“Just don?t make me fall.”
“Nice try. Everyone falls.”
“Well, at least be there when I get up.”
“I’ll be there.”
Fearless. Risk. My ten-year-old heart was so much more secure, more confident than my thirty-year-old heart.
Braver.
One thing I am going to search for as we cross into the West Texas plains in June is the ghost of my ten-year-old spirit. I left her there without her bike, so she had no way of escaping.
I need her.
I need a lot of things.
(I need people. I know that. My heart stops there. Does bike riding help remove those walls? Can you buy a sledgehammer when you buy your pedals?)
I think the first step is admitting that.
I’m still working on imagining what the next step will be.
When it will come.
Unexpected, probably.
Painful, probably.
But worth it.
I hope.
And when I have no trust, no courage, and no strength…hope I can always find.
So, hope. Here’s to you.
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