One of the most wonderful things about being a snowbird is winter biking — New Year’s Day riding in low wind with clear skies is heavenly. Thankful for sidewalks. Especially thankful for all of the benefits of being either in a canal community or an intentional residential community designed where there are cul de sacs.
Yes, it’s a little harder on the knees and quite a bit slower riding a route with so many tight turns, but the ride becomes more like walking a labyrinth. There’s something so freeing about knowing that you can’t get lost!
You can’t make a wrong turn. You can’t get injured or injure another by being somewhere that you shouldn’t be. There is a soft, easy, simple serenity to not having to think. You can just put one foot in front of the other or, as in my case this morning, just keeping my butt centered on the seat and the wheels turning round and round.
It is wonderful to be in an area with so many places where all I have to do is keep making right turns. This New Years Day route has so many streets I barely recognize any of the street names even thought I’ve probably ridden here half dozen or 10 times during last season and this year so far. I realized how wonderful it is to not feel the need to be vigilant with absolutely no sense of needing to know what street I’ve come from, what street I am now on nor what street might be coming up. I do not need to watch for a turn that might be coming up, or worry what might happen next. I have no sense at all I could be someplace I don’t know where I am, or anyplace other than right where I want to be. This is the freedom of right turns in the world of cul de sacs.
I’m riding with this wonderful feeling in my body I have felt over several decades of walking in a labyrinth. It’s total freedom from fear of doing something wrong. Somatic freedom.
Maybe it’s freedom from guilt.
It also feels like freedom from grief.
I certainly have been feeling a lot of both of those emotions over this recent past.
Last evening we were watching “Society of Snow,” based on the true story (1972) of a plane carrying members of a rugby team from Uruguay to Chile crashing in the Andes. A group of survivors lived through the plane crash, only to face the frigid cold and snow of the mountains, avalanches and, most famously, a lack of food. It is a very intense movie.
Not light viewing, intimately seeing how those who survived the crash and lived 72 days did so by cannibalizing those that did not. At a pivotal ending point I received a text message from Michigan friend, Doris, sharing a photo of one of her granddaughters in the foot massager that had been owned by Michigan friend, Linda, who died in July.
After Linda died and Fred was dispersing her worldly possessions, the foot massager is something I agreed to find a suitable home for. The first time I really felt how important it is to find loving homes for things that are left after a person’s worldly life ends was when John’s mom died. She was a lover of things and we took to heart finding others that would love the things she had loved. It was VERY meaningful….
With the taste of the film in my mouth, I saw the photo and read the text, “Everyone has been enjoying Linda’s foot massager. Much appreciation and gratitude,” and burst into tears.
I didn’t anticipate how hard it would be here in Florida without her. It’s complicated because her parting words for me were to take care of Fred so bicycle riding therapy became a significant lifeline for him and me in those weeks following Linda’s death. Then, quite quickly Fred partnered with their mutual friend. She seems to be good for him so I’m not begrudging that at all. I’m also not denying that I’ve not only lost Linda but I’ve now also lost Fred as a riding partner. It takes me back to other losses (especially those ongoing losses).
I found myself singing in my head the classic song “There’s a Hole in the Bucket.” The first stanza has Henry saying there is a hole in the bucket and Liza begins to coach him in how to fix it, including at the last part when Liza is telling Henry to use the bucket to carry the water! In the final stanza Henry responds: “But there’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza. There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole.”
I heard myself singing inside my head, “There’s a whole in my heart, dear Linda, dear Linda. There’s a whole in my heart, dear Linda, a hole….”
As the days turned into weeks and months, those companions who knew they were nearing death began giving their blessings for their companions to eat them after they died. One young man even left a written note quoting John 15:13: ” Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Touching and timely.
It is considered by many important to remember hearts only break in one direction: open.
