Nowhere (Mon)Soon

So the other day, there I am about halfway through a ten mile climb towards a summit of about 1600 ft., it’s raining, pouring really and has been since we woke up at 7:30 am, and my ipod has finally succumbed to the damp and cold and has ceased to sing. In the space it leaves between my ears, all I can hear is the sound of my own breathing.

Soon, other sounds tune in as well: by the tone and volume of each vehicle that approaches from behind, I can start to estimate its size and speed without even looking in my rear view mirror; in my lowest gear, my chain has a tendency to rub every so slightly which creates a small whir;  and the rain drums a constant, freeform beat on my helmet.

Perhaps at the rainiest moment, at almost the top of the coast range, just out of sight of the summit, I was brought back to a moment from this past May. A couple of friends and I were on a pre-season paddling trip in Clayoquot Sound. Day one and two had been fabulous with bright sunshine and clear skies. Day three had deteriorated rapidly from overcast to torrential downpour. As we paddled along that day, it took most of our willpower to distract us from the clearly unpleasant situation at hand. The rain came down so hard that it bounced back up at us from the water.

As a game, we started to, theoretically of course, bring our other friends along, just to see how they would fare. And so, one by one, every person we knew made a brief appearance in Clayoquot Sound in the middle of a rainstorm. Some were better sports than others. Some cracked jokes, some merely endured, and some really raised group morale. All without actually being there.

As I was biking along the other day, feeling pretty epic and relatively hardcore, I started playing the game again. What would she/he do in this situation?

There are a couple ofthings that make this game interesting. First, it does not even consider the reality of whether or not all of the people I know would every actually choose to put themselves in that situation. And second, it renders questions such as what am I even doing in this situation thankfully irrelevant.

As we cooked noodle soup in the overhang of a rest stop bathroom that day, Alex and I compared notes on which parts of our bodies were the coldest. I could barely feel my feet, and Alex wasn’t even wearing gloves. The power of soup and shelter is boundless, as we also discovered on that rainy paddling day in the spring, and so after an hour or so we are back on our bikes again, feeling pretty optimistic.

And while I know that most of my friends would never have wanted to join us for those few very wet and cold hours that morning as we slowly spun our way up the coast range, I know that every single one of them would have agreed with me in saying that it was all worth it as we raced down the other side and on into Portland.

mer/brookings