Loose Leaf Notes

The State Park I’m camped out in is on 4,000 acres and named for the Indian Chief who once presided over it. My excuse for heading out on my bike this afternoon is to fill my water bottles from the nearby springhouse. Mostly, I want to push through a spell of lethargy that I’m feeling, and I know that once I’m on my bike, I’ll be curious about what’s beyond the spring.
My husband loves maps. He frequently has his head behind one, causing me to joke that he looks at maps the way other men look at centerfolds. Without my husband here as a guide, I know I’ll end up getting lost. But it’s a lot easier to face my fears of getting lost on a bike in a campground than it is driving a truck on the interstate through Boston (which I have come to realize as a rational fear, in my case).
Exploring by myself, I realize that it’s people rather than nature that I’m sometimes mistrustful of. Last week when I left my mother’s house for these few days of camping, a child molester was on the front page of her small hometown newspaper, and when I asked the park ranger if I could swim in any of the park ponds, she said, “Not since some people a few towns over were caught putting live alligators in public waters.” Everyone is afraid of everyone else and sometimes it seems that we have reason to be, especially with so many of us.
But then I meet a very nice couple down by the boat ramp that had flooded with water from a nearby reservoir. Standing in the warm water together up to our knees, wading in-between the lily pads, they offered to lend me their canoe.
I didn’t use their canoe, but their kindness helped me to let down my guard. I hopped back on my bike and went on to thinking about other things…like how I’m not able to fully enjoy the downhill ride, knowing that on the way back the downhill will be the uphill.
If it wasn’t for my curiosity, I problably wouldn’t go anywhere. I always want to see what’s just beyond the bend in the road…just a little further, I tell myself. My legs give out before my curiosity does, and soon I’m pulling my bike up the road with my water bottles sloshing in what I’ve been calling my “saddle pack.”
But if my legs hadn’t given out, I wouldn’t have discovered the patch of wild raspberries along the side of the road. Not only were they delicious, but I looked less like a loser picking them while other bikers in better shape whizzed by.
By the time I pulled into the campground, it was was 6:00 and the whole place smelled like supper…hotdogs, burgers, toasted buns…marshmellows. I think I even smelled some spaghetti.