Race

#32 Hartford (inside)

The sky is textured with peaks and valleys, gradients of gray billow across the sky. Still as mountains. No wind, no drama, or rather, stillness as drama. The backdrop for the crowd of sixty astride bikes on the grass. Most look at the ground, some stare straight ahead, everyone tries not to think of the off-camber road ahead, now is a time to think of the fallen of the past. Glancing at the still gray cliffs in the sky  I duck my head and pull my shoulders up to my ears, reflexively trying to avoid a cranial collision with the low hanging weather.

Patience is really hard

The zipper sound of something sliding through wet grass. I glance up from the grass through lashes to catch the tail end of a smile on the face of the rider in front of me. Another zipper and he shifts weight and turns to face the people in matching blue jackets at the front.

The buttoned up blue sport coat is well pressed. Deep lines etch across his broad angular face. His bushy eyebrows and ears distract from his bald head. His pupils are dilated and his deep blue cornea lock onto mine, then flicker about my bike. He nods. I nod as well, another reflex. Behind his head, amongst the low ceiling of the clouds, the stillness is disturbed. A flurry of movement above his bald crown, whirls up the side of the cirrus mountain in the sky. I lose track of the whirling cloud dervish as it disappears behind a billowing outcropping. Cowbells erupt and the crowd of bikes in the field surge forward with great haste. I hurry to mount my bike as I'm swept up in the stampede.

Rising

#21 Calicoon (outside)

The woman in the bed is half awake. Maybe half asleep. It's hard to tell. I come to her side of the bed while I pull bib short bracers over my shoulders. I lean over, kiss her cheek and put my hand on her thigh in a hurried half-carress/rub. Across the room at my dresser, I pull out a wool jersey and slide it over my goose-pimpled torso. Through the open pocket doors and left at the top of the stairs, I lean in close to the mirror over the bathroom sink. Holding my eyelids open with both middle fingers, I use my right forefinger to place the tiny lenses carefully in my eyes. Finding it where I left it the night before, I take the heart rate monitor from the dresser top to the bathroom and run it under water. I pull my jersey up to the top of my rib cage and thread the strap between the bib bracers and my body.

She's still half asleep. Or half awake, or whatever.

My phone begins to vibrate and play a repetitive series of tones, a repeat performance from ten minutes before when I was still in bed, this time for her benefit. I walk around the bed, silence it and turn to the sleeping form, blankets up to her ears. My eyes drift to the small shape laying on my side of the bed. Her eyes are open. She rolls over, turns and arches her back to see her mother is still asleep. Whispering mischievously to the large sleeping form next to her, she drapes her whole body over the side of it's hip.  Twisting and craning her neck from it's place on the pillow, lifts her right arm and peers through her armpit passed her elbow, looking at our daughter through one sleep encrusted eye. The child looks up through my wife's armpit making eye contact and squeals in delight holding on tighter to her hip and waist. I laugh too as I reach for each of their armpits. They retreat from the bed quickly.