Cycling in the rain

I have always liked a physical challenge. If there is a mountain, I'd like to climb it. If there is a bike path, I'd like to cycle it. I like the feeling of pushing further, beyond tired. I like the taste of salt sweat on my arms and the feeling of all of my muscles contracting, working in harmony. I like eating dry bread and bland cheese on the edge of cliffs, with only the wind and the waves as company, knowing that anything can happen.

This is not to say I push it the farthest, the fastest, the longest. I have many friends who pass me on the ups of a long hill, who have more stamina, desire, motivation but I like the personal challenge, seeing if I am up to it, racing against myself.

Things changed when I had my son. Maybe the challenge of trying to push him out emptied me of my will to keep pushing on. Suddenly the need for adventure, for a body well-worn with physical exhaustion shifted. Travelling with my son I would worry. Sitting in a fly-infested road-side bar, waiting for a never arriving bus in Central America, I worried. I worried he'd get sunstroke or be bitten by a rabid dog or catch some disease from the swirling dust. I never used to worry. I could sit for days on the side of a road, watching the world go by. I could walk all day with only the vaguest idea of where I would stay that night.

I have missed my adventurous self and have been trying to coax her home.

Today, I feel she made a small gesture of reconciliation. I took my son to daycare, on the bike, in the rain. Now, I know what you are thinking. You're thinking: "AM, that really is no big deal." And you are right, it isn't but it was the joy of not being defeated by weather, of not being intimidated by niggles of worry. It was the ritual of kitting my son and I up in our rain gear, of feeling the lashing rain on my face and hands as I pushed off from the kerb. It was the feeling, after so many months of softness, of that little hardness in my muscles, the feeling of "I can do this."