The Bike Trail

Our August autumn continues. The days are cool for summer. The evenings are a delight. Too cool even for the usual hordes of mosquitoes on the bike trail.

Biking is working for Kevin. Less painful than walking--it eases the painful tingle on his feet and doesn't come with the tripping hazard. He can switch hands between the sometimes painful task of grasping handlebars without interrupting his ride. Sometimes the two mile trail comes easy for several passes and other days it's an effort to make it in and out once. He enjoys the effort, the success of being able to endure the effort.

Me? I can tell how he's feeling by how many times he laps me on the trail. Always at least once, usually repeatedly. I meander along. Stop to photograph a wild flower. Wait for some deer to cross the trail ahead of me. Peer over a bridge to see what's happening in the creek.

We are, always, together yet we see the view through slightly different lens.

Kevin feels like a year disappeared from his life. He is driven to reclaim what he missed. The time, the plans, the opportunities that were pushed aside by an unwelcomed interruption.

For me it was a year that lasted forever. Everything clamored for attention in a deafening roar. The moments may have slipped away under the din; the minutes I remember. Days and nights that were sometimes counted in miserably slow minutes.

I balance against a bridge while I wait for Kevin. We're somewhere in the middle of the trail. We know where we began but we can't see the end of the trail from here. This is a good place to be.