the ride

Having struggled and prevailed against the Seven Devils, I was overtaken by a mighty wind in the afternoon near Bandon. My friends had delivered; my spirits soared. Am I using religious language? I’m just reporting the facts. But you’ve been warned.

I played Brian Eno and David Byrne’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. It overlays driving African beats with historical recordings of preachers in American charismatic traditions: sermons and an exorcism. The beats alone are great support for hard aerobic effort, while the words stir a different breath.

There’s no escape from him.
He’s so high you can’t get over him.
He’s so low you can’t get under him.
He’s so wide you can’t get around him.
If you make your bed in heaven he’s there.
If you make your bed in hell he’s there.
He’s everywhere.
Woo! Help me somebody.
…
Come with us.
Learn the truth.
We will appear to you
From time to time.

I stopped at the Coquille River crossing to report my position and good spirits. I had ridden about 50 miles since morning. My destination for the night was Sixes, a little north of Port Orford, about 25 miles more.

I flew down 101 into the drier country south of Bandon. The tailwind was so strong and warm, I felt no effort in top gear. I wasn’t riding a bicycle anymore. I became a thistle seed on the wind, floating free. The road began to flimmer in my sight, an effect I had noticed with fatigue before, but I felt none now. As the wind carried me, it felt nearly still, the noise of its rushing stopped. In the stillness sweet spicy smells unfolded of alfalfa and resinous pine. The scrubby conifers reminded me of the Piñon of northern New Mexico, birthplace of my closest friendship, site of my graduation, and of my wedding and honeymoon eighteen years back. I smelled vanilla, as from the crevices in the bark of Jeffrey pine in the San Jacinto mountains of childhood summer camp, where I learned to love wilderness. I smelled smoke, too. Applewood, and hickory. Barbeque, the good stuff!

Dinner was going to be a can of local albacore or smoked sardines and crackers, again. Or, I could find the source of that delicious smell. It could only be upwind. I turned around, and felt the impressive force of the wind that had been helping me. I pressed through it a mile or two to find on the west side of the road a large pit smoker in front of an old schoolhouse turned restaurant, Joy’s BBQ. Before I opened the door I heard the owner telling the two patrons that the smoke always makes passers-by turn around. I entered with a big smile of admission, and laughter. The customers were overjoyed about the food. I needed no persuasion.

Would I take the brisket or the pork shoulder, both studded with whole garlic cloves and slow-smoked until falling from the bone? O, I couldn’t decide! Could he make a combination plate, to go? I’d pay extra. Whatever he recommended, I’d take! He obliged, bidding me sit down as he prepared my carton. I told him that I couldn’t sit, that I was floating, that sitting would be like trying to hold a beach ball under water. Or if I did sit, I would stiffen not to rise easily again.

I stepped into the empty room in the back, decorated with pioneer tools, and took a photo. Stepping forward, I chatted amiably with the owner about his relations with the health inspector, who had compelled him to tell me solemnly that to-go orders must be eaten within two hours. But isn’t smoke a preservative?

As he rung me up, I looked into his kind eyes, and saw a tinge of worry. And vividly in my mind’s eye, I saw sutures in the tender abdomen of his mother. As I was held in this strange clear vision, he said: “My mother is in the hospital recovering from a hernia operation.”

I shuddered softly in crystalline deja vu as he detailed the procedure. I left a huge tip, bid his mother well, and moved quickly toward the door. He told me his name was Jeff, and would I sign his guest book? “That’s my first name, too, and my father’s” I told him. I signed the book with a few words about the smoke, the wind, where I was coming from and where I was going. I began to tremble in recognition of what had just happened, of what was still happening.

Did I really see the sutures before you told me, Jeff? I’m not asking you to believe so. I am saying that my perception of time that afternoon began to wrinkle and shift, with before and after losing significance. But if I had not seen them first, why did I shudder when you told me? And why did you tell me, a stranger blowing through with a take-out order, if you did not see that I saw? I hope your mother is well, Jeff.

Meal packed, once again on the road, and now alert to the privileged state I was entering, my transport became more complete. Drivers know how, when stopping after traveling at speed for some time, their field of vision appears to be pulling toward the center, now still yet receding. My view of the road changed somewhat like that, except all points to the left of me were flowing forward, moving faster the further left, while all points to the right were flowing back. The line I held, near the white line, did not move! The wind and the road itself carried me, as on a conveyor belt.

I began to see into things, as if a transparency slider slid a few ticks toward clear. I saw, beneath the road, the roots of the trees on either side running, enmeshing capillary in the center, under the forward-streaming asphalt. All living matter around me glowed softly against the dead. I shuttled through a lattice tunnel of living, shining wood, open at the blue sky. I felt no fear or confusion, but ecstatic, bathed in warm white light and love.

I was not in the least bit impaired, as in a psychedelic state. My senses were functioning perfectly. My body has never moved more easily on or off a bike. My ecstatic vision was seated in a parallel thread of awareness, not supplanting or interfering with ordinary perception.

The miles vanished. I arrived at Sixes in long shadows, beautiful country ablaze in the gold of sunset. Checking the map, I saw that Cape Blanco State Park was much further west than I had registered earlier, some six miles. Setting off again, I realized from my unsteady grasp of the map that my bodily energy was spent. I was running on euphoric fumes into falling light. And there were hills, and the tailwind turned cross, opposing me in parts.

I began to see myself from above and behind, as though a bird or flying insect. I recognized the parts of my body as distinct entities. I saw and felt my muscles warm, wet and rosy umber working my bones like collies working sheep, joyful even in their exhaustion, doing all they exist to do. My sinews slipped over cartilage, their former aching now singing high and groaning low like rosined hair on gut string. All my senses opened exquisitely wide and sharp, marking every rustle and exhalation of every leaf, flowerhead, fruit and seed pod shaking in the wind. A mouse scampered and a snake slithered across my path; a doe stood still on the road’s edge as I approached calling to her not to cross.

Rising out of the lovely river valley to the final seaside bluff, I rode past the pioneer cemetery, where Father Hughes from Ireland had built his church Mary, Star of the Sea. At the last turn to the campsite, I arrived at the instant of sundown to behold in otherworldly silhouette Oregon’s oldest, highest, and most westerly lighthouse.