Monday, July 30, 2012

Free Will


The sun rose behind mist as we coasted down the big hill at the start of the Ride Across Indiana. Indiana was uncharted territory for me, but I was here to remember someone, a friend who had died three months before of melanoma. 

Will Streeter was a big, humble, thoughtful guy. One time I asked him what kind of mountain bike rides he liked. He replied, deadpan, "Gnarly," followed by his disarming "heh, heh." Serious and funny at the same time.



He liked this long, rolling Indiana ride and had two sons who were scheduled to ride it with him this summer. I flew in from the desert Southwest to join this ride honoring a man I admired. My job was to help them finish the long ride and maybe to learn something along the way.



One hundred sixty miles waited for us ahead of this fun, adrenaline-laced beginning. I wondered how it would go today. Would I embarrass myself? Run out of energy? Get lost? Fail to do what I had come to do?
 
The thoughts ran across my mind as the matching jerseys with “Remembering Will” printed on the side joined a rolling serpent of color and excitement – cyclists on the course. This I could relate to. The freedom of motion, of effort, of surrender to whatever the day had in store. It was time to show up and to let go, let the day be what it would be. This was my life and with gratitude and openness I would remember Will in a way that might do him some justice.

I was riding his bike and it flew. The wheels danced over the cracks in the pavement, the debris in the road, the railroad tracks. I was infused with peace and energy. The fear and anxiety of the day going bad slid into the background. It was time to be here and to feel the breeze. I settled in and rode alongside Steve Parker. His easy smooth cadence spoke long hours on the bike. We talked about the day. He had reminded us that we were here for Will and Will’s family. We were reaching for contact with something Will loved: long days of effort, physical challenge, breaking out of limits, finding the peace that can be found on the other side of pain. We would all be challenged and would be given the opportunity to push past perceived limits.

Will knew pain. He had lost an eye to melanoma a year before. His father had left him early in life. But he had found a way to cope. Richard Rohr, a friend and mentor, had taught Will that pain can be transformed, can be transmuted. It does not have to ruin a life. It is not something to fear, but something to meet and embrace. Will told me that Rohr felt that if one's spiritual teacher did not speak often of death, it was time to fire your spiritual teacher. 

Will did not run away from hard questions. He had met his death head-on. And he loved to ride, and had spoken of this ride often as we rolled over the roads and trails around Tucson. 

The ride was a vehicle, a metaphor for living. In itself it would not give an answer to questions that seekers ask. This was not about winning or just about speed, or results, though all of those figure into the experience. The ride was providing grist to mull over. What do I want? Where am I going? 

Terre Haute unrolled as we cruised through downtown. People cheered us on. We were on a path, pursuing a goal. Will’s sons Mark and Eric, his wife Kathe, along with friends Kathy, Toby, Tim, Miriam, Brian, Karen, and many others. SAG drivers would leapfrog us through the day, providing material and moral support. 

Rural Indiana lined highway 40 as miles began to accumulate. Rolling hills and a breeze passed by as we formed groups and chatted quietly as we settled in. Sun and heat rose together and I began to sweat. Eat. Drink. Draft. I reminded myself. It was going to be a long day.

About twenty miles in, Kathe, Will's wife, hit some sand and went down. In spite of a nasty bruise, she hopped back up to examine her bike. "Is my bike OK?" she asked before examining her injury. Bike first, then body. What a statement of how important this ride was to her. Strong woman I thought. Like Will. 

The ride progressed as all rides do and priorities took the shape of speed and distance.

Toby, Tim, and I formed a pace-line on the flats and opened up a gap on the group. I started to calculate time and speed and results. This was a habit and had become a trap for me in past rides. Average speed became a kind of god, and my state of mind depended on whether or not I met a goal. Those old habits, Will had shown me, were not the real gold of doing a ride like this. 

I had deified many things and become a prisoner to them, thinking they might redeem me, ease my pain. I thought that things might do it – a new bike, a better car – or that being faster, skinnier, wealthier. The list is long. The only way out was into and through the pain, but I am a slow learner. Will helped me to remember. He had come to Tucson to ride El Tour and we had talked – a lot. He became part of my family, part of the brotherhood of rolling through the desert on epic mountain bike rides. 



He thought hard and liked dark beer. What’s not to like about such a combination of traits?

So we rode across Indiana. The first forty miles was gravy. At the rest stop we grouped. The day was getting warmer and some of the honeymoon glow of novelty was wearing off. Our little group got organized and we began to share the effort again, but somehow lost Mark.. I decided to wait and meet the group at the lunch stop. I had time to think as I waited. Why was I here? What was I doing? I remembered that it was not just about the bike.

When Mark did not show up after half an hour, I rode again, but this time alone. It was fine, but I realized I did not want to ride alone and would find out what had happened at the lunch stop. I would ride with Mark or Kathe or Eric for the rest of the ride. This was about Will and about what he was learning. It was about heart and sharing and doing something together. 

The heat was adding to the likelihood of cramps and dehydration. They had hit Mark and he needed to refuel at the lunch stop. It happens. He was fit, but something was a bit off and he would have to respond if he wanted to complete the ride. He rose to the challenge and ate, drank, and drafted. 

We hit the road and made good time for the next sixty miles or so. It was time to go deep, to push through, to eat up the distance. Mark settled in and took breaks when he needed to. 

Shadows lengthened as we closed the gap on Richmond. Tom, Tim Stoner, Kathy Parker-Streeter, Karen, Seth, and others charged us up with cold Cokes and encouragement with twenty miles to go. Mark and I then began the detour onto quiet, narrow roads through cropland. Between rows of corn, we pedaled easily and I told Mark what I thought of Will, why he had been important to me. This was the reward, the soul of the ride, the real dirt, the taste of freedom and heart. I hid my tears as I spoke of Mark’s father. 

Of course, good and true stories don’t end at the easy moments. We had the longest hill of the day still to climb and the pain of the effort returned. We both leaned into the hill like horses straining against their traces and pushed again through the limits. Richmond rose on the horizon and then closed in as the miles surrendered to our efforts.

The group was there, cheering. Mark and I crossed the finish with more than an hour to spare. Kathe, Eric, and the family circled around us, hugs and tears and smiles all around. Then they took the bike, Will’s bike. It had crossed the line. It had made it to the finish, the real and imagined. 





The effort had paid off, but by itself was not the point. We got a good result, a tangible reward for a good day of straining against limitation.  But the result was not the end, would not ease the pain of missing Will. 

Will would know. Will was free of such easy answers. He would understand why my heart was so full.
  

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing this intimate story with the wider world. You are a good man and you're not bad with words, either.

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  2. Metaphors, cycling cross-country, have this power of symbolized meaning that can allow or access meaning the might not be reached any other way. Your photos are wonderful. Maybe some day a photo will also reveal what the heart has experienced.

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  3. Thanks for sharing, cousin. Felt like I was riding alongside.Good to see you and hear from you.

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