It's strange how the mind makes connections sometimes.
I realized the most startling fact about myself and my writing while perched atop my Trek 950 mountain bike one Sunday not too long ago. You see, as a cyclist, I'm a non-risk-taker. There's something inherently abhorrent about the prospect of picking rocks out of my broken teeth or never being able to wear a skirt again without having to explain my scars. As a result, I'm a chicken. I hate killer hills, I hate stumps, I hate boulders, I hate crashing.
That wouldn't be a problem, except I'm married to a competitive cyclist whose idea of fun is careening off ravines to see if the round side stays down. He revels in pushing forty- five miles per hour on something devoid of seat belts and air bags. And he likes company when he rides.
But back to that fateful Sunday.
I tend to ride slowly while studying the ground for tire- biting rocks and potential traps. I rarely cut loose. That day we'd gotten a late start, because I'd been glued to the keyboard all day--not working on my novel, mind you, because I was afflicted with that certain something one particular woman in my critique group insists is a myth: writer's block. But, fact or fiction, I had it. Full-blown. I'd been sitting on chapter one of my first book for months, literally unable to continue. I'd moan to my friends about not knowing what to write next and fearing I wouldn't be able to make the switch from short stories to SOMETHING THAT LONG. In short, I had first chapteritis.
So regardless what I'd been writing that day, by the time we'd pulled the bikes off the roof rack at the Waterton Canyon trail head and donned our helmets and gloves, the sun burned low in the sky. The route, which winds along the Platte river into the Pike National Forest west of Denver, totals about thirteen miles, out and back.
"Do you think we'll make it before it gets dark?" I asked my husband.
"If we bust butt," he answered.
That should've been my first clue.
We made it halfway while enough light remained to allow me to keep my omnipresent vigil on the ground. My husband had politely suggested that I light a fire under my slow-pedaling butt several times on the way in, but, true to form, I ignored him, plugging safely along.
To my dismay and alarm, darkness fell quickly on the ride back. And I mean, slam-into-the-tree-you-didn't-see-two-feet-in- front-of-your-face darkness. I strained my eyes more on that ride than during all the illicit, under-the-covers reading I did as a kid when I was supposed to be sleeping, combined. I struggled vehemently to maintain control over my fate.
Then a wonderful thing happened. I couldn't see the ground anymore. Period. Suddenly, whether I was going to hit a rock and fly "endo" over my handlebars was out of my hands. I simply could not see. So I just rode. I tore through the darkness like a wanton, nocturnal creature, heedless of my self-limiting fears. I held my head up, for once, and let the wind whip against my smiling cheeks. Do you know what happened?
Nothing.
I didn't crash on that carefree, risky ride any more than I had on the countless, conservative, stare-at-the-ground rides which had preceded it. I surprised myself. It was...A Moment for me.
And as we were loading the bikes back onto the roof rack, and removing our gloves and helmets, I was struck by a connection between that Moment and my writing.
I hadn't been working on my novel because I feared making errors, getting stuck. In a sense, crashing. Having to pick the rocks of literary failure and rejection out of my broken teeth. But if I took a chance and wrote with the same carefree abandon that had allowed me to conquer my cycling fears, maybe, just maybe, I would enjoy a similar success with my writing. Who said just because I rode a bike I would crash? Who said just because I wrote something long, I would fail?
I did, that's who. And I was wrong.
So I began writing my novel with zeal, heedless of what the future might hold for it. Now, three books later, I haven't looked for traps, I haven't been conservative, I haven't succumbed to my "what if?" fear. I haven't crashed.
And it has been one hell of a ride.
Originally printed in The Writing Self, Sept./Oct. 1996 issue.
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