Nerve-Shaken

“Nerve-shaken, over-civilized people really are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains for life.” - John Muir, 1901

Morning cycling temp: 6 degrees F (-14 C). -8 F windchill (-21 C).

Just me and the wild turkey and geese that haunt the Mississippi this morning. No living homo sapien is near. The path is strewn with bird crap because only the birds dare tread over this trail at these temps. The birds dominate the cold and they show it by crapping over everything and everyone.

The cold is absolutely blistering. My hands go numb within 30 minutes and my feet follow about 30 minutes later. I keep pedaling forward. The sun’s about to break to my right, a little solace. To my left, a near-full moon’s lambent glow haunts a navy sky.

“Push through pain,” I keep thinking. “Comfort is your enemy.”

I return home and the warm shower water seems to scathe my toes. My feet are beet red, with small patches of blue and black here and there. Ouch. After about an hour that discoloration fades. It’s not frostbite at least.

Gazing out my window, I see someone chowing down on a burger in his car while waiting at a stoplight.

No one else in this city of over one million was able to bike this morning (maybe someone else was, but no one in my vicinity; I basically had the world to myself). Only a select few dare the winter. This thought gives me fuel.

In the wilderness your senses heighten. My ride got me closer to the wild, but admittedly not fully there. You feel every rise and drop of temperature. You hear the prey animals in hiding and the mating calls of the birds that nest above. Far away, as dawn hits, people are snapping photos of their corporatized lattes.

That ride was certainly a misogi.