The woods are lovely, dark and deep
I have never showered in a shower truck before, so naturally I had to take a video of the accommodations to show others who might be wondering what a shower truck is like. It is a nice setup: Nicer than showers at campsites or at summer camp, clean and intuitive to use, with enough space to spread out my things. I stop the video and start a task almost more difficult than biking the 50 miles that I have just biked: Taking off my sweaty sportsbra. Many women will know the struggle of wrestling and wriggling one’s way out of a garment that seems determined to stick to your skin, and this on what ends up being the third hottest PMC on record.
It all started with an email. Our offices are closed Juneteenth, and I moved our fortnightly leadership meeting that would have usually been on that Monday to Wednesday of that week. Thursday, my birthday, I had taken off, as well as Friday. The meeting ended and we were all a little loopy, laughing the kinds of laughs that come at the end of the day when work has ended, and you’re in need of a vacation. Our parent company had merged with another company in February of this year, and the other company has offices in Boston, and a group that rides in the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge, an annual cycling event that raises money for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, for cancer treatment and research. Bhavesh had been forwarded an email asking if any Kenshins participate, and inviting us to team up. The email thread was long, this group trying to navigate the policies of their new company. I saved it for later reading; it was time for me to take some time off.
Originally I had planned to take the two weeks between Juneteenth and Fourth of July off, but life had other plans. Instead I was sitting in one of my favourite wine bars, Rebel Rebel, that Saturday, taking myself out on a date, sipping wine and doing whatever I felt like doing. At that moment, I felt like catching up on work: Slack messages, emails, and my to-do list. I scroll through our social miscellaneous or #misc channels, catching up on non-work, too. I notice a new message in #misc-cycling from Edward: Pan Mass Challenge is coming up — anyone planning to attend? Looks like S&P has a team
I burst out laughing at the juxtaposition: A long email thread culminating in the all-company email that would make people aware that S&P has a team, and a short Slack message more efficiently achieving the same outcome. I forward the message to our leadership team and tell the rest of the women at the bar the story to explain why I’m laughing. I love our little company.
A few minutes later I get an email from Bhavesh, forwarding the thread to Edward and me and telling Edward to feel free to get in touch with our interest to join.
Then it hits me: Am I going to ride in the Pan-Mass Challenge this year? I am going to ride in the Pan-Mass Challenge this year.
Memories from Dana-Farber flip through my head like so many still photographs: The yellow johnny that he or staff—can’t remember—would wear because of MRSA; running into someone I knew in the outpatient pharmacy line and realising why they must be there, too; walking the long corridors, especially the bridges; how the view was nice and I hated it. I miss Daddy, and yet he is with me always. Here he is pushing me towards doing this slightly ridiculous thing, difficult but achievable. We have a little conversation in my head about it. It seems like a nice way to remember him every year, right around his birthday.
I sign up, setting more wheels in motion. Thankfully I’ve picked the same ride as a group of others, a 50-mile, Wellesley-to-Wellesley loop Sunday August 7th. I’ve never ridden 50 miles before, but how hard can it be? The longest I’ve ridden was something like 30 miles, but that was accidental, and in Gucci flats and a silk shirt, when Ryan and I were in Burgundy. Certainly having biked as one of my primary modes of transportation around town, I can figure out how to bike 50 miles.
The group schedules a practice ride, my first difficult but achievable step along this journey. It’s not the 30 miles I’m worried about biking, it’s how I’m going to get to Needham for 9 AM. I rent a Zipcar, bike to the Zipcar, drive home, affix the bike rack to the back of the car, drive back to the pickup location to get my bike, and am on my merry way. I think I’m going to be 15 minutes late, but I end up only 5, having had the wrong part of Cutler Park in my directions.
‘O, a 3-speed…’ Gig says skeptically as I walk my bike over.
‘It’s a 5-speed!’ I respond, sounding more defensive than I intend, to this woman standing in a full bike kit, next to her very excellent BMC road bike. At least I’ve bought bike shorts, but I feel a little exposed. I’ve never done this before. But luckily the group are welcoming, warm, and helpful. We bike 30 miles and I don’t feel that self-conscious when I ask to stop for water or food. I don’t even have a sport cap on my water bottle, and I have only one water bottle instead of the two that are typical (one for water and one for electrolyte water, drank in equal proportion to prevent over-hydrating). We pepper the veterans with questions for recommendations, what to expect during the ride. I am happy to learn I won’t be biking 50 miles by myself. I learn that I have a lot to learn, but luckily I love learning.
At the end of the ride Philippe reiterates his offer of lending me his extra rode bike for the PMC, and we stand next to each other to measure our respective hip heights and torso lengths to make sure I’ll fit. I accept; it seems like a better idea than riding my hybrid.
Another day, fresh off a 40-mile training ride, I saunter into Idle Hands and sit down next to two guys at the bar. One of them has also done a bike ride, he tells me. ‘I just biked 26 miles,’ he says, ‘What about you?’ I grin and gloat that I’ve just biked 40, glad of the opportunity to upstage the boys. I tell the bartender, John, that I’d like a big, light lager, and want to try Gretel, the go-to pilsner, and Emelyn, a Vienna lager to better determine which one suits my current mood best. John cheekily brings back only the Emelyn and tells me that I don’t want Gretel. Gretel is on rotation year-round, but Emelyn is special. I get an Emelyn, not because I’ve been convinced, but because there is no arguing with John. I chat up Ben and his friend Mark, and they both donate to my ride. Ben’s dad Ron is a PMC legend, having ridden in the first rides back in the early ’80s. He tells me how special it is, tells me about volunteering and finding out his dad is a celebrity in this circle, how others tell him about how his dad is ‘a beast.’
Ben (hi Ben! if you ever read this!) will be one of the many gifts that my father gives me this summer: Generous and supportive, my buddy at the brewery, welcoming and warm into the circle of regulars or just when I need someone to talk to, who hypes me up the Friday before the ride and gets the whole bar to cheer. Ben is a genuine human, a real one. Ron should be so proud.
Don’t forget to look up.
Ron Sivonen
Saturday before the ride I spend the day resting, hydrating, checking in on the longer PMC rides that have started, and preparing for the big day tomorrow. I have had to figure out a lot of things to get to where I am now, but I have figured them out, just like I knew I would back at Rebel Rebel the Saturday after my birthday six weeks ago. The biggest challenge was having to constantly go outside my comfort zone to ask for help, something I don’t like doing lest I make others feel uncomfortable or obligated. But I found confidence in the fact that I was asking of others things I would happily offer myself without thinking twice: All of the very generous donations to support my ride (100% of which go directly to Dana-Farber), advice for biking in general and tips and tricks for the ride, Philippe’s extra road bike (I will never forget when he opened his garage door to reveal an early 2000s Miata; Miata owners are always good people), my local bike shop squeezing me in to tune up said bike the day before the ride, Edward bringing that bike along with his own the day of the PMC (because it won’t fit in my Miata).
This wasn’t about me figuring out how to bike 50 miles; that part was a given. This was about me figuring out how to accept and even ask for support, just like I had to do that one day in Killarney when Daddy thought I was trying to kill him with a bike ride.
The morning of the ride, I wake up at 4:15 AM to ‘Here Comes the Sun,’ Daddy’s ringtone, so that I can shower, make coffee, and be on my way in time to arrive before the parking lot closes at 6:15 AM. I am aiming for a 5:45 AM arrival to give myself some wiggle room. I leave just after 5 AM, which should give me plenty of time to get to Wellesley at this hour, even with whatever PMC traffic there will be. I play ‘Here Comes the Sun’ again in the car as I set out, and I have myself a little cry for just a moment in the dark while driving down the side streets from my house. Crying makes me start to laugh, grateful that I have had such a steadfast love in my life that I should lament it being gone. Grief is a many-headed Hydra, but when I ask myself why I’m crying when I’m crying, it’s usually for selfish reasons: It makes me sad to live in a world in which there is one fewer person who loves me so unconditionally; it makes me happy that I lived in that world for any time at all. And he would be so proud. At a light the car next to me calls out something, and I turn down the music so I can hear. It’s a hot, humid day: Already approaching 80ºF in the dark at what is the coolest part of the day right now before 6 AM, and it will reach almost 100ºF as the day goes on. I have the top down, and the driver of the car repeats his question in a heavy Eastern European accent: ‘How much you pay for your car?’ I answer him honestly, and add that it’s a really affordable sportscar. He moved here somewhat recently, and uses his car to drive for rideshares. I tell him that if he has a goal and he saves, I’m confident that he, too, will own a Miata someday. I sincerely hope he does. They bring so much joy to the world, a world always in need of a little more joy.
I arrive at the PMC parking lot around the time I expect, shockingly on time instead of my customary 15 minutes late. I text team members and in their responses realise that I’ve been a bit over-enthusiastic, earlier than everyone. This isn’t necessarily something you have to arrive early for. By myself, I set out to see what events are going on. I hear some opening ceremony speeches, hear them deeply and start to tear up a bit again. Cancer is such a terrible thing, turning your own cells against you. So stupid that anyone should have to succumb to such a fate. So wonderful that so many manage not to, with better research leading to better treatment options. If I can figure out how to bike 50 miles and do all the hard things I’ve done to get here just to reduce the possibility that any one person should have to die of cancer, I’d do it a hundred thousand times again. It’s 5:57 AM, too early for these thoughts. I remember to look up, taking in the sun’s early rays against the clouds.
11 minutes later Edward texts the group that he’s also here, and in my enthusiasm I scan the parking lot. I see his bike on top of his car and text that in response, and pocket my thoughts about cancer and death and memories alongside my mobile as I jog over towards the beacon of his turquoise bike. It is Gig’s response to his text that lets me know our faux-pas: ‘Early!’ she says. Whoops. First time for everything.
This is incredibly hard for me, in so many ways: The situation, thinking of Daddy, it’s so early, what are everyone else’s reasons for being here? are they OK? how can I help?, all of the people—including so many children—who have died too soon, it’s so early… Luckily for me the fact that it is still a going-to-bed time and not a waking-up time has salvaged me, and helped me help myself through this emotional day. It’s too early to be too sad. It’s just early enough to be excited for the ride.
Through the 6 AM hour the other team members arrive, and we meet up alongside one side of the parking lot, listening to the opening ceremonies continue. Gig offers sock monkeys, which I gleefully accept, and which Edward asks if he’s allowed to decline. He’s allowed to decline, and I declare mine Helen, she/her. Gig’s is Pat, they/them. I don’t mention that Helen is named after Helen Marcella, my grandmother, Daddy’s mother, also dead too soon from lung cancer. I just zip-tie Helen to my helmet. She’s ready to go, and so am I.
The official start time for our 50-mile ride is 7 AM, but Philippe has other plans. A little before 7 he corrals the group and asks if we should set off. Should we set off? We all set our Strava rides to record, and bike out through the Babson gates and turn right…
We watch out the first couple turns, taking care not to crash. Because we’ve set out earlier than the horde, though, there isn’t much traffic. It’s humid and not cool, but not baking yet, and it feels nice to be biking through these New England woods, over rivers and around bends, taking turns following and leading. When my thoughts threaten to overwhelm me I can ground myself by staring at the calves of the riders in front of me. I can breathe. Philippe sets the pace, for which we are grateful. It calms me down to be biking with others who know the route, or at least can follow the blazes. I don’t have to think. I just breathe, and bike… breathe, and bike.
We pull over at the first rest stop and I take it in—it being…everything. There are snack and water stations, bathrooms inside. There are bikes littered everywhere—kickstands apparently ruining the aerodynamics of bikes, so everyone just leaves their bikes chain-side-up on the grass or pavement. I take videos and refill my water bottle. Philippe asks Edward about the PMC app; Gig tells us about Sarah’s troubles with her tires.
The second rest stop is Gillette, my first time at Patriot Place. There is more food here, and I grab what I think is just a pack of peanut butter that turns out to be some kind of peanut butter snack, and someone with a camera asks me for a promotional photo. Sure. Edward eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich straight to the face, and I eye the yellowjackets hovering around the jelly jar that the volunteers are scooping from to continue making sandwiches. One yellowjacket rests on Edward’s sandwich and he wonders whether they are attracted to him because they think he is one of them, one big bee in his bright yellow helmet. I try to sweep the wasp away from his sandwich so he can finish it, like the men I would breakfast with in Tanzania used to do for me. I am curious to find that my desire to make sure that Edward can finish his sandwich is greater than my fear of bees. Edward asks if I’ll take a picture for him, and I do, and in return I also ask him to take a picture of me with the Patriots cheerleaders. There are even more bikes littered across the parking lot here.
We set out on our way again and I take the lead. I’m still so excited; I had texted our cousins’ thread the cheerleader picture at 9:01 AM, so it’s still a time when most people are waking up this Sunday. I am a bit outside time and space. I am also on a road bike for the first time, and it is so, so fast. I pedal along, trying to be a good steward, but without instruments to guide my way and set our pace. I fight the urge to overtake each and every biker in front of us. This is not a race, after all.
Edward pulls up alongside me with, ‘Hey, you should maybe slow down a bit, you’re doing like 18 and we should be closer to 15 or 16.’ I try to contain my laughter in response, thinking that letting me lead was a bad plan for all involved. I am riding a road bike for the first time! I want to go so fast! I am going so fast! I have none of the equipment to let me know I should be going slower! I have Edward, riding up alongside me to let me know I should slow.
At the third rest stop, mile 35, we hydrate some more again. Edward gets into conversation with some Italians who tell tales of travelling to northern Italy just to get their bikes. They work in some shop in the area and give him their card. He feels a bit bad for keeping us, but he should know that no one minds. We’re all just chatting and laughing in the shade.
All this time, Philippe has been reminding me that while I have energy now, I should continue to check in with myself and see how I’m feeling at the last rest stop before spending too much of it. But here I am now. I know what it feels like to bike 15 miles. It takes an hour or so. I know how I feel now, still so good and fast and full of energy. Equally hydrated and keeping up with electrolytes. Sufficiently snacked. I want to race, and I know that this is not a race, after all.
We set off the last 15 miles and they’re beautiful: Over sweeping hills through residential areas I’ll only ever dream of being able to afford, the sun rising higher and beating down, making the piney shade breaks all the more refreshing. We practice safe biking, since we’re biking on open roads, after all. When cars are coming our way, someone yells ‘Car up!’; when cars are coming from behind, ‘Car back!’ We points towards objects or obstacles in the road. We say ‘On your left’ while passing, or, as I enjoy doing, ‘On your left’ with the name of the person you’re passing, if their name tag is visible. ‘On your left Sarah, you got this!’ ‘On your left Michael, you’re doing great!’ ‘On your left Ellie, enjoy your ride!’ On the downhills, Philippe and Edward pass Gig and me, and on the uphills our lighter weight gives Gig and me the advantage. On one such downhill Edward pulls up alongside me, in the middle of the road, apologising. ‘I’m sorry, I’m really not trying to race, it’s just physics…’ he starts. ‘You sure you’re not trying to race?’ I ask him cheekily. ‘Maybe the last mile,’ he answers, coasting off away from me.
We cross back through lights and roads that seem increasingly familiar, from our training ride or this morning’s route I can’t tell. I try to check Strava to see our mileage, but it’s a bit of a pain because of my particular phone holder. We’re at mile 46, 47. I keep wanting to go faster. We speed up a bit, all of us feeling good, sufficiently warmed up to say the least, enjoying the ride. We carve through residential streets and stare at houses; we are cheered on by residents and spectators with signs, clapping, cheering, celebrating our silly sock monkeys on our helmets.
We get to the last stoplight just as it’s turning red. I watch it turn amber and then red in frustration, daring to stop me, stop us. I feel like I feel in my car: Foot on the clutch and gas, waiting to thread that when the light turns green. I am impatient and Philippe can tell. ‘The horse smells the barn!’ he calls out to me, setting off a fit of giggles. I want to gallop back. All this ride, shifting back up into the ‘big ring,’ the larger / harder front gear, has been giving me trouble. Philippe’s spare road bike still isn’t perfectly tuned after the sufficient but swift job JRA Cycles did for me yesterday, and I have to hold the shifter in place longer or try a few times to get it into gear. It happens again as I crest the hill after the left-hand turn from the last stoplight. I’m staring down between my feet trying to make sure the bike is in gear when Edward flies by me on my left, shouting ‘We’re racing now!’ as he passes me. I get the bike into gear and pedal as hard as I can to catch up.
He stays ahead of me the last mile of the race despite my best efforts to beat him. At one turn I call out to him, thinking he’s missed a right, but realise too late that the blazes here are misleading, pointing into a parking lot when it’s clear that the right turn we want is the second one, the back Babson entrance, back to where we started, back to the finish line. The back road through campus to the finish line is lined with posters of faces of people who have died of cancer, young and old, indiscriminating, equitable in the cruellest of ways. When seeing their faces gets to be too much for me I stare at Edward’s red-orange shoes going ’round and ’round his pedals and I try to catch him up, still failing. I’m grateful to him for having given me this gift, this gift of distraction. It doesn’t matter that we’ve just biked 50 miles; all that matters is that we’re right here, right now, just racing each other through a college campus, with no need to think of anything else. I’m panting and I can feel my face turning tomato-red, silly rosacea. It feels cathartic to exert myself like this, spend the last of my energy. Finish the race with nothing left in the tank, nothing left to give.
At the last zig before the final zag into the parking lot before the finish line, a teenage boy crosses at an inopportune moment and I almost hit him. I shake that off and dip down the hill, zag left, and focus on the finish line. I’m laughing as I cross it, exhausted and happy, hot and sweaty, proud and full of grief, but full nonetheless. And not alone.
I bike to the upper parking lot where Philippe’s car is so I can return my borrowed bike. I walk back down to my car, switch some things out, head back to the tent. Contemplate a flavoured seltzer water for too long, land on lime. Sit for a moment to eat some dried mango I’ve left over, my favourite snack I didn’t need since the rest stops were so well stocked. We’re all overtired and it’s barely past 11. We’re proud because when we were setting out, we had asked what a good time was, and Philippe mentioned that once he finished before 11. Even in the heat, with our stops and our reasonable pace, we’ve done well.
‘Any plans?’
‘Ice cream…’ Philippe wonders, looking around to see whether there’s an ice cream truck or stand as there has been in the past.
‘A nap…’ Edward says.
‘I am heading to a colleague’s celebration of life for her father…’ I start, others looking up. ‘And then to crash a family pool party.’ Incredulity. ‘And after that, the biggest, lightest beer I can get my hands on.’
I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.
And that’s how I end up in a shower truck, trying to figure out how to wash 50 miles of morning riding off me so I can be presentable for another moment of grief. And I do.
Later, at the traffic circle south of the Chain Bridge, it starts downpouring, that summer kind. I pull the top up on my convertible, which I can do without having to pull over because it’s manual. The rain stops by the time I’ve driven the last mile to Stephanie’s house. I let myself into my cousin’s backyard through the fence. I chuckle when everyone cheers; I curtsy and stick the wine I’ve brought into the cooler.
On the drive home, I stop for groceries, figuring what’s one more thing today? I get home, put away my groceries, and forego showering, wanting too badly to head down to Idle Hands for an Emelyn. It’s about quarter to eight, and I want to get there with a reasonable enough amount of time before last call, not to be a nuisance before close at 9 PM.
I arrive in a drizzle and it’s dark, almost too dark despite the clouds and rain. As I approach I realise Idle Hands is closed; I’ve miscalculated, and it closes at 7 PM on Sundays, not 9 PM. I walk up to the door to take a picture to prove I did indeed make it here, just too late, when I see Ryan sitting alone at the bar. I knock on the door, too softly in the rain in an otherwise empty brewery. I knock again, more loudly this time. He turns around, then stands to let me in.
I sit at the bar next to him, unable to articulate the length of this day. He’s grabbed a can of Trillium’s Pilsner that they’ve just dropped off for industry friends that day, served in a dappled half-litre mug. It is exactly what I pictured as we asked each other on our ride what treat we were waiting for at the end of the day, everyone else’s ice cream.
Cheers. Prost. Sláinte. A dog’s death. Here’s to next year.
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