Singing (and biking) in the rain

It was pouring buckets and I had no umbrella... I was soaked through to my skin, my sandals squelching, my burgundy leather purse streaming with water, and I was as happy as I'd been in days. I was slowly riding up the sidewalk on my sister's bike, the pace tortoise-like, squinting into the water that was splashing up around me. It was Wednesday afternoon and I had left work with a mild headache, planning to pick the bike up on my way home, a loaner, assuming the weather held. The weather, of course, hadn't held, but I had missed the start of the downpour when I fell asleep on the bus and missed my stop. By the time I woke, the rain was coming down in sheets and I was three stops from my unintended destination.

As I pedalled, my dread at the situation dissipated, shifting to joy. It had been 10 months since my last bike ride, and my legs ached against the effort, and yet the ride filled me with joy. There is something freeing about cycling that you can't get in any other mode of transportation. Walk and your pace is slow; drive and you're isolated from the world around you. On a bike, the world passed at a leisurely pace, but you were part of it... The slight inclines felt like proper hills, the bumps were real, the road solid beneath you. The quickening of a bike as you started down a descent filled you with a lightness, an airiness at how easy things could be.

It was a short ride, maybe 15 minutes, and I was ill-equipped for task, but there are times you have to do the thing your heart wants to do, times your body is tired of a desk or a couch or a bed and needs to pick up the pace. In my child-free, Montreal, downtown living days, I was an avid biker; three or four times a week I would take off for a 2-hour ride, often along the Lachine canal, joining the community of cyclists who knew the peace an outing could bring. The wind that you make, or the wind you fight against, is your main companion on these journeys, and it lulls you, pushes you, nudges you, until the momentum can carry you. I will take the momentum of that first slow ride and let it carry me to another, keep the pedals turning, even if these days my trips are not as long, and my route is not as scenic. But next time, I'll skip the rain.