[ja]cobdavis

I’ve ridden my bike to work now for a couple of years. It started in Macomb, where I took a summer in at Wal-Mart riding my bike ~4 miles one way. It was a nasty, heavy cruiser with thick sluggish tires and 10 jittery speeds. The rides were always uneventful, heat dragged across my back licked at my shoes. The nights were punctuated by country folk in their pick up trucks and a nineties coupé or two. The ride took me past a graveyard set atop the biggest hill in town, forcing me to look and soak in my mortality.

In Chicago I walked the first year. I became acutely aware of my feet once again, soreness was the usual as a waiter, flat feet doesn’t help anything. Second year in the big city and we moved north, distancing myself from work enough to where biking was an option. It was the first year that I do not remember well enough to say how long I rode to work, but I’m sure it wasn’t year round. Spring broke and I wasn’t ready to get back on the commuter packed trains again. My third year in Chicago saw soaring 90 degree days, heavy downpours, and unbelievable wind gusts that pushed like thick jello though the cavern streets. It was the winters, where night-time seemed to stretch all day – bookending my waking hours, that were the best. The only fear was of a horrific ‘dooring’ or left turn negligence.

Nothing compares to the real fear I have nearly every day. There is something primal in this new fear. A fear so rich and full, I found something out about myself, a horror that grounds and invigorates. I am unsure of the exact problem, I am not afraid of the dark, nor of the woods – but the two together, in a snarly, old wood. The mind runs in rapid images of hidden preteens with rope, small diseased woodland critters, deer with an ax to grind, a bear or two, and a guy ready to pounce on your commute home holding a back with nails impaled though it. I race through the tall open wooded areas, blow past the overgrown shrubs that seem to only grow in blind turns, grip the handlebars extra tight behind the industrial park where my screams would be drowned out by the rumble of diesel engines. I race my heart beat, pumping my legs hard and try to focus on the podcast playing in my ears – loud enough to hear, but not enough to drown out a trailing ravage animal or the rustle of a beast. My freedom lies in at an angled intersection where a pizza chain and a townie bar/restaurant sit across from a long row of natural gas storage tanks.

I enjoy it and dread it – a juxtaposition of emotions I can’t avoid. My new ride ends with a breathtakingly beautiful view of Portland from the Casco Bay Bridge and a hill to my neighborhood. The beast has moved off my back as I roll up the street and carry my bike back inside.

All in a days work.