Melancholy... or something stronger.
Looking at the bike gear in the bottom drawer of my bureau.
Aging. Spandex stiffens like my joints.
Elastic no longer expands graciously—
it snaps.
Once, it clung to me tenderly,
hugging my underbelly as I rounded the curve,
tires skidding joyfully,
shearing graceful lines in the soft mud,
the trail carving me as much as I carved it.
A different ache rises now.
Not the fire of protesting quads
or hamstrings tight with effort—
but a guttural silence,
a ghost with a jackhammer
ravaging the quiet insides.
The specter of my identity
snatches the piece of me
jacked from within.
My ethereal doppelgänger
drips trail sweat—
that sacred cocktail of grit, bugs,
and the dirt-devils of summer air
made humid and holy.
Hard to breathe
and harder to remember
how those solo Saturday rides
got buried so deep.
Six pairs of padded shorts.
Two front zips—at least two sizes too small now.
Colors still vibrant—
they mock me kindly,
laughing at my wistful ambition
to resurrect an old illusion
I once called Self.
I liked that me.
That sinewy version
who threaded gravel switchbacks,
bounced over rocks and roots,
finished rides like silent victories
no one noticed but me.
A hobby?—————
No.
When a thing you do
becomes a thing you are—
it's not pastime.
It’s prayer.
Devotion.
Stitched into cellular memory
like mitochondrial gospel.
Then grief came screaming,
a thief in the night:
“That part of you is dead to me now.”
Panic scrambled the vibration in my throat,
silenced me.
The vacuum that followed
swallowed me whole.
I wasn’t that person.
The woman who had saved me.
Then... who am I?
I turned to face me.
Who am I?
All quiet.
No hurry.
Just be.
I sank deeper.
Below memory. Below muscle.
To the place where there is no “she.”
There is only Me.
This... and That.
Here... and There.
Not moving from and to,
not riding or not riding anymore.
Not a rider. Not a quitter.
Just being.
The forest.
The tree.
The bike.
The rider.
And the watcher above it all.
Endings can be elastic.
Stretching wide to include all of you.
Not loss—
but reunion.
That projection of self—
that fantasy girl—
was never who you were.
But the voice in the forest?
Egging her on?
Oh yeah.
That was you.
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