Strange spell: Susan about to cross the
Mississippi river into Missouri.When you cycle day in, day out, you have no choice but to fall into step with nature's rhythm. You wake when the sun leaps into the sky and you go to sleep when it gets bored of lighting your journey. You ride until the heat taps you on your shoulders and politely urges you to seek some shade. You could argue, but you won't win. When roads go up you climb them, when they go down you coast them and you begin to understand that nothing in life is permanent - the pain of the ascent will end as will the sweet feeling of the descent. Your body is no longer an object for your mind to batter into a pair of size 10 jeans but the place where your soul and the world meet. You learn to treat both with care.
I feel like someone cast a spell on Missouri years ago but I can't work out whether it was a good one or a bad one. Something about this land feels enchanted but not enchanting. Climbing through the Ozarks and bursting out onto the plateau full of fields and farms with neat bundles of hay, pretty cows and little towns is akin to Jack stepping off his beanstalk and into the perfect lands of the giant. As the roads roll out towards Kansas it is a delight to cycle but I can't help feeling a bit like Little Red Riding Hood as squeaking store signs rocking on old hinges behind piles of burnt and trashed metal give a picture-perfect scene a slight shiver.
Constantly moving forward is a very positive feeling. It makes it difficult to be lonely as I am continually meeting interesting people and getting myself into unique situations. It also means every morning I can wake up and leave the previous day behind, taking with me only what makes me feel good. From Missouri I'll be bringing with me Chris and Roger who I met going the other way but who live only five minutes away from me in south London. Beers have been booked. I'll take the most amazing sunrise where fog rose like ghosts off wet fields. And I'll take the smell - of pine and firewood, of crisp rushing Ozark water, of hay cooking in the sun and tended herb gardens. But I can leave behind the busload of blokes who drew alongside me and yelled abuse. I can discard the truck of blokes who threw empty beer cans at me. And I can erase the memory of the hooting drivers, the cars which trailed me until I felt scared and the one car of hollering boys whose idea of fun was to park up and make a grab for me as I cycled past. I have experienced a sexism in Missouri which was dangerous in its ignorance and intensity.
I don't know if I'm being overly sensitive, I don't know if my experience is unique and I don't know what makes these men behave like this. But I do know that we are going to have our work cut out making people respect something as complex, fragile and challenging as the natural environment, when they can't respect something as simple as a girl on a bike.
Peace out, people.
