Day 601, February 23, 2022

A Life of Consequence

The air this morning was moist and the rivers were swollen and loud. I rode for the first time in a month or longer, the studs on my tires leaving a satisfied crunching on the asphalt and sand. So much changes in a month or two. Roads buckle and crack, give up terrible teeth that fill with water. Christmas decorations wilt and become etched with salt. A new mailbox goes up to replace the one destroyed by the snow plow. A deer with a white muzzle stands aside and watches me pass.

I ride slower, there is more exertion involved, and I need to will myself to observe the surroundings, the glimpse of sky in the break of trees, the fog lifting from the lowlands. I pass two other cyclists, for one we exchange a good morning, for the other she is too focused and she says nothing that I can hear. I am attuned to the smells, the damp earth, the fabric softener in someone’s laundry, a wood stove, a ripe compost bin, the cigarette smoke form a passing car. I am pleased that I have not lost my sense of smell. I stop by the old 1774 church and pull into the driveway. I rest there a moment and draw from my water bottle, refreshing and cold. It reminds me of sledding as a child and stealing sips from the metal sap buckets hanging off the maple trees, and like a memory, I pass a stand of trees festooned with buckets. 

We are all witnesses to this life. This death. Today, as part of my job, I talked to a young woman who witnessed another young woman die. I asked if she needed anything. I gave her my phone number. What does a person need to keep smelling? What does a person need to keep tasting the cold, cold water? A family is in mourning. I try to maintain a matter of fact. I did not know the person, so I can remain detached. I can provide solace, or offer things I do not possess, and then we proceed. Each life on this Earth equally sacred, and also so inconsequential. How can we at once be no more important than an ant crushed underfoot, and yet so devastating as to alter the lives of those left behind forever more?

It is going to snow again. The weather is already turning and it was windy on the ride home, the last mile particularly blustery. The air teased my ears with a rush like an approaching car, but there was nothing. I crossed the highway hurriedly because I did not trust what I could not see, that I could not hear. The wind pushed my body like the gentle firm guide of man with outstretched hands, no go this way. Come here, come follow me. And I do, down my dead end street, into his arms, his broad bare chest, and the wind is rushing as I slow to a stop. The wind is like the river and it is dark. The stars are out. The lawn has become stiff with frost and the chickens are all nestled in for the night.