Sputterpub's Blog

The group isn’t what Susan expected. Afterward she admitted that she really didn’t have any expectations about the other travelers, but while on the bicycle vacation she was struck by conditions that shouldn’t have surprised her. There were two dozen other people around, and no one smoked. Some had a bit of extra flesh but no one was obese. All were white and middle-class or richer. They generally seemed happier and healthier than folks Susan saw on public transportation, on cruises, or in casinos. The married folks seemed more in love. This apparent happiness made the group more interesting to Susan than such homogeneity would normally be. She observed them with more attention. She found cracks in the happiness: tales of babies unbegotten, estranged offspring of old marriages, false smiles on salesmen. She saw insecurity in the tanned wobbly thighs of blonde wives and the excessive luggage of all couples. She witnessed weary longing in the faces of males returned to competition. Her observations made her more interested in and tender toward the others, and more satisfied with her own life.

Above everything else, she is surprised at the quality of solitude she has achieved on the trip.

She hadn’t known she would ride alone. But even the wide highway shoulders don’t permit easy companionship; only the engaged couple on the tandem (walking the bike up every steep hill) and the inseparable newlyweds (he tenderly slowing to her frustrated pace) made the effort to converse. Susan saw her fellows, but she spent her days pedaling, braking, leaning, and looking out at glaciation and in at her reserves.

She hasn’t encountered her own heart in a great while, but that happens on this the fourth day of the ride. She knows her cardiovascular fitness; she isn’t surprised that her heart and lungs are up to it, but today she meets her own hearty determination.

Only eight of their 26 opt to ride up the pass. The climb is an unremitting eight miles, into a headwind, and it’s happening after four and a half hours already spent on the bike. Susan and Julie are the only women who try it.

The effort doesn’t take any particular technique, except the trick of maintaining enough forward motion to balance when pedaling in such a low gear. It takes work, and the continuing decision to keep pedaling.

Susan tries to distract herself from her tender crotch and her pushing feet by looking at the scenery. That helps, but it takes more than beauty to start up the third incline. She wonders if Julie is ahead of her chanting “muf-fins, muf-fins.”

Several times she considers giving it up. Once she almost dismounts for good. But she keeps telling herself eight miles equals 12 kilometers equals 12,000 meters; what are 12,000 meters? Do them one at a time…keep pedaling to that post up ahead on the curve…now go for that clump of wildflowers against the boulders…

When she tops the climb and hits the level stretch to the pass marker she begins to cry. These are not anything as corny as tears of joy. She cries hot tears of hard-effort-with-reward. Glorious clean hot tears evaporating in the chill air of the pass, diamonds on her cheeks, as she pumps her fist and tells the world “I did it. Godammit I did it. Like a 20-year old, I can bike. God: I have heart. Yes!”

Greg and Julie and Jerry are waiting for her at the crest. Again. All eight riders made it and Susan is last, but her personal victory is enormous. The cold beer Jerry hands her is the best she’s ever swallowed.

After she and Gregory get to their room that evening, after Susan takes first shower and flops on her bed before dinner, she gets the shakes. She can’t get warm. It’s like her body went into shock after the effort. She doesn’t have much appetite for dinner.  But she has immense self-gratification.

Some of that feeling will stay with her. She has remembered something about the profound relaxation that occurs after hard work. She will improve in shape, but she will fear her success is fragile. She’ll think it isn’t owing to a higher power as much as to a lower one; she’ll believe that with each body lesson she curves closer to her goal, in a race for the rest of her lifetime.

She’ll keep looking fitter, but within she’ll run from the compliments of her friends. She won’t want to replay their praise if she regains.

Julie knows all this. She’s the only woman Susan will ever meet who doesn’t have an eating disorder. She fakes one, chronically, because that’s her entry into relationships with all other women, and she’s observed other women so much that she’s an expert on the subject. She knows the cure. She understands that a sufferer has to assume control over her whole life before she will drop control about calories. And she realizes that behavior modification – whether it’s to eat less or stop smoking or tone down Calvinism or curb shopping – behavior modification is a grief experience, and the modifier has to receive time, support and consolation for the loss of a dear friend.

Julie knows enough not to offer that wisdom until she is asked. And she never is asked.

Gregory and Julie are waiting for her. So is the van and Jerry, along with the 18 folks who have decided to shuttle over the pass. She describes her encounter to Jerry. He tells her the animal was probably a coyote but maybe a wolf. If Susan could give a better estimate of size or color (was the scruffy coat more grey or brown?), Jerry would have a better idea, but Susan’s adrenaline response had been more to power her feet than to enable her eyes. He assumes it was a coyote.

He also assumes Susan will ride in the van, but she tells him otherwise. “At least, I was planning to try the pass,” she says as she unwraps her sandwich, “but the look of surprise on your face makes me think maybe I’m making a mistake?”

“No. No. Do the pass. I don’t mean to discourage you.” He takes a break from racking bikes to look at her. “It’s just that I assumed everyone who was here was waiting for me to finish the racking so we could go. I think it’s great that you want to ride it. Do it. Really.”

“But come on, Jerry. How hard is it?”

“Oh it’s a slog; don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to mislead you. I’d rather you finish it and give me shit about making it sound too hard than the reverse. But the thing is… anyone who wants to do the pass does it.”

Greg and Julie wait for Susan to finish her lunch and they push off together, but they pull out of sight on the first of the three long inclines in the 12-kilometer pass. Susan returns to her own thoughts, safe in the knowledge that the route is obvious and won’t permit a wrong turn.

She didn’t realize that she was on her fourth course to fitness when she booked them on the bike tour. She had always wanted to try a bicycle vacation, and Gregory was now well enough to enjoy one. She thought it would be an adventure to share. She figured it would be good for him to experience the exertion and reward.

They travel well together. That isn’t a big surprise; they live well together too, but each has a separate bedroom at home and different schedules and intentions. For the trip they are spending nine nights together and ten days in close proximity. On other vacations they’d gotten on each others’ nerves after three days. But not this time. They pedal 30 to 60 miles a day, and hike a bit too, all of which make her too tired to worry and him too beat to complain.

She can see the good effects on him – his glowing face, new muscles starting in his arms and calves, the improved posture and vigor in his paces – but she’s not sure whether he has noted them. Once only, on the second morning of the ride, as they pushed off on the road again after stopping so he could shoot pictures of a natural terraced waterfall against granite and limestone walls, Greg marveled aloud about how wonderful it was to travel so far through beauty on one’s own power. “Wow,” he sent his words back to her as he pedaled down right foot first. “I can’t believe I’m moving through here on a bike. I feel so sorry for these people in cars…”

For herself, Susan thought the trip would give her a lot of exercise and some quality time with her son. She was a bit nervous about the exercise. Even though she is active for her age, her sports consist of a stationary bike for 30 minutes a day and a lot of walking. She knew that a week of full-time cycling would be a challenge, and she was anxious about that before the trip and edgy again each morning as the guides described the hills and turns of the route ahead. As it happened, she calmed down each day when she began pedaling, as if her nerves were really an adrenaline factory that begged for activity.

Of course she got the exercise she expected, especially since she opted to skip the support van and ride the full route. She was surprised that her legs gave her no trouble: no aches or cramps or strains. But she felt the ride in her extremities; she strained both hands with all the downhill braking, and she often had numb feet when she first walked after some time on the bike. She was surprised about the genital tenderness. Everyone commented about the fundamental problem before and during the trip, many brought gel seats or covers with them, and all added layers of crotch padding as the week went on. Even so, Susan wasn’t prepared for how much the pressure on her pelvic bone got to her.

“Oh you poor baby,” Julie blurts. “You didn’t realize that giving up cigarettes was like a death. You needed support. You needed time.”

Susan looks at her with a mixture of disbelieve and awe. She even cocks her head to the side like a bird. Julie wonders if she said too much. She sits back and recaptures a receptive attitude.

“I kept working out, but I also kept giving in to late-night urges for quantities of fatty and salty snacks. I just couldn’t seem to stop. Every morning was a new vow and every evening was another binge. And Gregory got fat along with me. He’d always been more sedentary than active, inclined to sit in front of the TV either watching or playing, and he began to get wider. I suspected Greg wore the fat to get back at his father, and I knew from personal experience that there was nothing a mother could say on the subject that would be effective, so I didn’t talk to him about his weight. I worried, though, and I bought a lot of carrots and cucumbers.

“He started getting better when he was 13 and was quite an altered child by 15. He improved once he got old enough to have more power over himself; once he understood it was up to him to make a person of himself he took to the job with a vengeance. It was almost as if he wanted to get back at Jack by being the better man, but Gregory began to sculpt his own personality. As he improved and received returns for improving, his rate of improvement increased. Soon he wasn’t eating as much.

“His awakening was infectious. Before long I was eating less too. At first I overate to counterbalance him; whenever he was ill and lost his appetite I tended to eat more myself, as if we’d be okay if as a twosome we consumed the usual amount. When Gregory ate less without being ill, at first I reacted out of habit. But I settled down after a short time. Greg’s example showed me that it was simply unnecessary to overeat.

“He slimmed down fast. Not only did he have the benefit of youth and increasing height, but he had the passion of a born-again. His middle-aged mother kept exercising regularly and eating too much but less, so she slowly got smaller and firmer.” Susan smiles now, as she always does when she notes Greg’s improvement, and she looks toward the adjacent room, from which she can hear the sounds of social pleasure. She laughs a little at her videogame-addicted son, obviously enjoying a deck of cards and good company.

The next day everyone rides slowly at first, as if they are pacing themselves for the climb ahead. Even so, Susan soon falls behind the others. Lost in her own thoughts, it’s awhile before she realizes that she can see at least half a mile ahead, and the sight contains no cyclists.

She keeps pedaling but she pays attention. Within a few kilometers she concludes that she’s lost and she pulls over to consult the route description. She’s sorry she didn’t take one of the maps.

She has to bear down on her memory to recall the route she’s just traveled. She soon satisfies herself with dissatisfaction. She has to backtrack about five kilometers.

That wouldn’t be so bad, except she thinks she came downhill before the last turn. She prepares herself for a climb.

Getting lost may have been her biggest fear about this trip. She’s a ready worrier, quick to envision calamity. But as usual her fear realized is less than her fear imagined. She settles into pedaling.

She passes a bear warning sign. They are placed at irregular intervals on these roads, and they advise the traveler to stay in the vehicle. There’s not much protection on a bicycle, she thinks. Some of the women in the group have expressed bear anxiety, but Susan didn’t go there till now. She tries to calm her what-if thoughts by reminding herself that it’s the cute little ground squirrel, popping up and startling cyclists, that sends most folks to the hospital around here. Then she hears panting.

She thinks it has to be herself. She’s climbing the last stretch back to her wrong turn, and she’s breathing hard. But she can’t maintain that theory, not after she quiets her own respiration and the sounds continue. Behind her. Something else is climbing the hill, and she has no reason to believe it’s human.

She checks her side-view mirror. Nothing. The noise is more from the right. She turns her head that way briefly.

It isn’t a bear. It’s a serious-looking dog-type animal. It does not look friendly.

She shriek-gasps, and pedals harder. Maybe the animal doesn’t like the sound she makes, but it peels away and down the slope to the right. Susan’s relief is immense. Maintaining her increased speed, she finds the route and soon arrives at the lunch spot.

The ride is easy. Jerry said it would be; he indicated it would be like the calm before the storm of tackling tomorrow’s pass. The group had energy after dinner. Gregory joined the guides for a nostalgic tour of card games. Julie asked for the next chapter of Susan’s diet history, so they lingered over green tea.

“My second slim phase started about a decade later. That’s when I finally broke up with my crazy college lover and rediscovered fun with my old friend Jack. We rode bikes together. We walked. We backpacked and camped. We’d been an on-and-off couple in high school and we reignited. In time we married and used our bicycles to commute to first jobs. In more time we got pregnant and had Gregory. My body was toned to optimum fitness about three years into our ten; I could bicycle up anything I could walk, and I ate anything I wanted. I had taken up smoking when I was with my starving-poet college lover and I didn’t give up tobacco when I gave up sorry Fred, but cigarettes didn’t slow down my exercise, and smoking had no noticeable effect on me then.

“I stopped moving as much and started munching more as I became dissatisfied. Couple counseling led to individual therapy, where I guess I learned the cause of my disorder, but understanding didn’t bring remedy. Okay: so food is a metaphor for like everything. And little girls do tend to be overprotected in our culture. I was the youngest and only daughter in a tight family of four kids, and my parents and brothers hemmed me in on all sides. I’m convinced that exerting control over food is a natural response to that. But knowing isn’t healing. I was unable to revisit my pre-verbal self to counteract anything that had been done then.

“Being fat again didn’t stop me from being married again. I met Larry four months after Jack left, and I married him as soon as the divorce was final. He seemed stronger than Jack had turned out to be. He acted like he’d be a good father figure for Gregory. And the sex was good. He declared his love with flattering certainty; talk about compelling… I even lost a little weight in the beginning, but I soon resumed a steady upward roll. We degenerated and hassled each other, and after eight years I started understanding it was over. That’s when Larry took up cigarettes again. He had been a heavy smoker in college and graduate school but he had given it up, cold turkey and proud of that, a dozen years before we married. It was like he made a final grasp at intimacy by taking up my nicotine addiction. That didn’t work either.”

Julie speaks. “Twice divorced, huh? I’ve only tried it once, but I have a friend who’s looking for husband #5 now. It didn’t work for me.”

“Me either. Both of my exes are remarried and apparently happy. I think I have to conclude that I was the problem.”

“Oh, it’s always more complicated than that.”

“True. And kind. Thanks.”

“Do go on.”

“I now believe that Larry was a step down from Jack. Not that I should have stayed with Jack: no, I’m best left alone. But Larry wasn’t stronger; with both, I mistook silence for strength. And Larry was more of an alcoholic.”

“You had one (or two) too? I knew my Matt was moody when I met him, and I concluded he was depressive by the time I married him, but I had no idea he was alcoholic till our second anniversary,” Julie comments. “I mean, he was high-functioning and a good driver and I’d been raised to think drunks passed out in the gutter. You know?”

Susan nods so emphatically she almost tosses her curly hair. “I wouldn’t even use the term “alcoholic” with regard to Jack except that he took up drinking for several years after I left him. That didn’t directly affect me, except for the few times he became redundantly abusive in a late-night phone call. But Jack’s drinking affected Gregory; as I found out when Jack hit him in front of me, Jack’s depression and anger mixed with red wine and whiskey to exacerbate his temper problem. Greg had been hit, hard and often, and yelled at too much. I made threats then and stopped Jack from hitting, and Jack’s remarriage seems to have reduced his drinking, but damage was done.

“Larry on the other hand drank when he was happy, drank when he was sad, drank when anxious, calm, tired or wired, drank gin when he said he drank tonic, drank vodka when he said he drank water, drank boring white wine with coffee, and then drank some more. I’ll admit that his drinking enhanced the brief affair we had before he moved in, but afterwards it only made him stupid and sentimental. I didn’t care then if he quit drinking or not; I just didn’t want him around me after he’d had more than two. I see now that I was behaving in classic co-dependent fashion; I wanted him to stop but I was worried that stopping would change him, us. In time, Larry chose his drinking over me. He chose his drinking over his relationships with his first and third wives, too, with his children, and with his sinking business. Looking back now, I see that he grabbed me as he rounded age 40 (he already had the red roadster), flamed with sexual and creative passion for a year, and then began a long slow slide. He’d be in big trouble if it weren’t for the moat of old assets he has from his prosperous 30s and the ballast of some family money.

“As bad as it had been for Gregory, with Jack’s fists and Larry’s neglect, the end of my second marriage was good for both of us. I focused on Greg and found him a good therapist; the road was rough but it was a road. And I embarked upon a journey toward health. I discovered aerobics and began cardiovascular training combined with some weight work, and within a year I was as fit as I’d ever been. I faced my nicotine addiction; at the end of that summer I stopped smoking.

“Well, it was like my metabolism ground to a halt. I started gaining weight immediately, and I was not eating more. Between the frustration of that initial weight gain, and the depression that came with quitting, I was thrown completely off course.”

“I’ve got to stop eating like this,” Julie vows, as she spoons granola into her well-shaped mouth. “Desserts after dinner and now these…” She uses her other hand to indicate the blueberry muffins on her plate. “Even with all the exercise, I understand most folks gain weight on these vacations. That’s not what I came for.” She swallows her cereal. “You know the one steep hill yesterday?” Susan nods. “Well, I was chanting ‘pan-cakes, pan-cakes’ with every pedal stroke. That’s what got me up there – the idea of working off the pancakes I had for breakfast.”

“Oh come on,” Susan blurts the words. “Not you too.” She looks across the table at trim Julie of the thick blonde hair, smooth-faced, bright-eyed Julie who looks maybe 30 of her 43 years. “The last thing I thought I’d find on a bicycle vacation was a bunch of dieting females.”

Julie watches Susan’s mouth with a bit of wonder. Susan has a very expressive face, and Julie is surprised at Susan’s surprise. Julie just assumes all women diet, always and all ways. (Except herself, and that’s her secret.)

“I’m single and childless and healthy; what could I talk to other women about if not weight?” Julie states it lightly, though she knows it’s too true. “I’m sure you have a story too.”

“Sure,” Susan says. “I’ve battled a weight problem for as long as I can remember. My mom told me I was thin before the tonsillectomy at five, but I can’t recall it. I can pull memories of being afraid of the front-loading washing machine, of shitting in my underpants, of coveting a neighbor’s doll carriage, but I can’t recollect being skinny.” Jerry comes by with the coffee pot, and Susan pauses while their cups are filled. They both nod their thanks to him and while Julie stirs cream into hers, Susan resumes. “That operation was what, over 40 years ago? I’ve managed to experience relative slimness three times since then.”

“Tell me about it.”

Susan does. “The first time, ironically, was triggered by my fear of PE. Coming out of 9^th grade and looking toward high school, I found out all members of the pompom corps would take gym together. I was terrified about PE; I had to be with friends. So I signed up for the corps. I learned how to make tissue paper pompoms, fresh each time, and my mother had to sew a thousand silver sequins onto my green corduroy costume. I bought bright white marching boots with green tassels, and I learned to step out, tassels snapping, inner heel grazing knee, guiding right.

“We began practice weeks before school started, parading behind the band in the streets near the school. We worked every day in 3^rd period PE class, as well as afternoons during football season and before competitions. We performed in every home-game halftime, and we competed in every parade. With all that marching, everyone slimmed down. About 60 pairs of teenaged leg got toned.

“As silly as I thought the corps was, of course the exercise was good. And something else: we won the Maytime band review. We were the only pompom corps competing; the rest of the state had gone to drill teams and our school was about to make the switch too. We were the last high-stepping, fluff-wielding corps to compete in California.

“I’ll never forget that day. We marched our hearts out in the May heat. We guided right for all we were worth, we drove their knees up as if we would knock our chins, we snapped those pompoms out, up and around with the synchrony of Rockette legs. And we won. It was so awesome. Everyone should have the experience of trying as hard as possible, and succeeding.”

Susan pauses to drink from her cup. “Uh oh,” she observes. “Time for the talk.” She collects Gregory and they move with Julie to hear Jerry and the other guides describe the day’s ride. When the group has been oriented they push off in their joint and several ways, and before long Gregory is in front, Julie is somewhere among the middle, and Susan is near the back of the pack, alone with her thoughts.

Considering the power of effort/effect and the ecstasy of being in shape, she is still surprised that she backslid from her high school fitness to college obesity. Why did she? She was of course aware while she gained weight and lost mobility back then, so she ought to understand how it happened, but she doesn’t.