Adventure, part 2

I wrote about adventure last week – and then promptly went on one. It was no Wild, but it was, for me, both demanding and empowering: I embarked on my first-ever solo biking and camping trip.

The uncomfort zone I inhabited – an adventure is not an adventure if you don’t make yourself at least a little uncomfortable in the process – was not what you might expect. It was not so much about the physical challenge. I’m not saying that riding 70 miles over the coast range on a loaded bike was easy (especially on the lady parts), but I was in shape to do this. Getting my body to perform was a challenge, yes, but I knew I could do it.

The uncomfort zone was the woman-alone thing. Anxieties about the bike: flat tires and broken chains and assorted road mishaps far from bike shops and towns – and often out of cellphone range. Anxieties about camping alone: animals and people who act like animals and things that go bump in the night.

It took maybe 40 miles to stop feeling that particular all-body zing that, for me, signals being on high alert. This embodied anxiety feels almost like a low-level electrical current — not actually unpleasant, but insistent and distracting. But as I cycled through wetlands and pasture lands and forests, as I crossed creeks and skirted farms and edged around a lake, I began to forget all the bad things that could happen – because so many good things were happening: the greener-than-green landscape, the cloudless sky, the smell of mown hay, the solid power of my legs. I didn’t make a decision — Now I am going to cease being a scaredy cat start enjoying myself – but it happened. It’s weird to say that my body, busy pumping out the sweaty miles, actually relaxed. But that’s what happened.

And, after I successfully established my camp site and pitched my tent and started a fire in the fire ring and ate my dinner with my feet dangling in the Siuslaw River, I felt deep-down good. And ready for the next adventure.