BALM: Week 4 Day 2

I woke up early this morning to the sun rising on the dunes of Silver Lake. The distant line of dunes was broken in half: the left, stark sand; the right, lush trees. These Silver Lake dunes are much like the shore and inland faces of bigger dunes, Sleeping Bear and Arcadia, for instance, where the inland face is lush trees and the shore face is stark sand. These Silver Lake dunes had both faces turned toward a stand of lonely looking tree trunks across the waters.

For most of the day I carried this sense of loneliness with me. I carried it like a bike carries a load, with comfort and little effort. Loneliness on a bicycle can be a wonderful thing. It's the loneliness of missing Ann, Jessie, and Alexa back home. I know they're all in St. Louis, and that's the direction I'm riding. Loneliness can be such anticipation.

Loneliness on a bicycle--especially when you're riding miles a day, thus with time to let your mind wander, wonder, go blank--is like a vague voice that articulates everything you are grateful for: your health, people who love you, people that you love; an outlook that life is positive and promising; the surprise by joy that our time here on this planet is also a tour, the ultimate tour, and so we need to see to the health of the world, the way a touring biker sees to the bike, daily cleaning the chain, adjusting cables, tightening bolts, and cleaning dirt and grime from the frame, all so that the bike will move you forward as long as you can pedal.

Loneliness on a bike is the voice of who you are. At times the voice is comforting, it is the voice of Mother, telling you to be careful and to come home safe. It is the voice of Father, scolding you for not filling the tires with air. It is the voice of Brother or Sister, encouraging you to bike one more mile, or imploring you to get home now and your butt back to work.

A friend of mine was drafted after high school and went to Vietnam, where he was killed when his helicopter exploded in mid air. Randal, the golden boy, who was born the same day as I, wrecked his motorcycle, and for years sank deeper and deeper into anger and despair. He sank so deep that the only way up was to shoot himself. Jo, so much a sister who, when I was poor, always fed me tacos and gave me her car for laundry, died way too young of ovarian cancer. Loneliness is the hum of their voice in my spinning wheels. They hum Be happy for us. Celebrate for us. Live for us. We are with you. Always.

And loneliness is being happy when you forget everything, the living and the dead; when you are deaf to the complaints of your bike, the sandy rasp of the chain, the wobble of the front wheel, the knocking of the rear rack; when you are blind to all the light and shining and glowing of the lake and its geography; and when the two faces of the dunes go blank.

I welcome loneliness. I praise loneliness. I keep it close to me, like the polish of a bike.

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