Warren Grove to Lennox Island, PE
Traditional territory of the Mi’kmaq
60 km
Magnificent sun, breeziest of breezes, 15 ºC
It starts to weigh me down, heavier than all the stuff we’re lugging around (we weighed our bags for the first time yesterday*), all these goodbyes. At what point in your life, do the farewells have a higher cost than the greetings? Bon voyages are better.
I’m not young enough to blissfully believe that I will get around to seeing all the people and places I love once more. But you hope and pray that you do. The idea of a massive potluck somewhere down the road is an exciting one. Something like the imagined death of Edward Bloom, narrated by his son.
But, I digress.
We woke up early and were treated to a large and scrumptious breakfast by the Sandersons. Homemade raspberry jam, delicious toast, I had water, tea, and coffee all laid out in front of me. Incredible hosts in more ways than I can possibly retell, recount, or restate.
We had a long day ahead of us and the forecast looked perfect. Until Jonathon discovered a broken spoke. We’d just been to the bike shop in Charlottetown yesterday(!). Murphy, you and your laws. I’ve written, briefly, about disc brakes and we’d just pushed the limits of Jon’s wheels chugging along marvellously without being retensioned. Alas!
One of our hosts was the incredible David, who almost four years ago upon seeing me emerge from my tent while walking his dog in the aftermath of one sopping day invited me over for breakfast. It all felt like a strange loop. We loaded the bike on to his truck, drove back into Charlottetown, patched the bicycle up (kudos to MacQueen’s + Vanhawks for being as supportive as ever). Then David proceeded to drive us back to their place, made us PBJ sandwiches, and drove us another 40 km so we could make it to our destination on time.
Before sending us off, he also treated us to some ice cream and gave us some wonderful tales.
If gratitude were a country, I’d be somewhere between Emperor and Court Jester. We bicycled along past small communities and towns, hopped on to the Confederation Trail for the first time, an old railway bed now a recreational trail and utter delight.
*I am too embarrassed to share these numbers.
ps. We’re sitting in the tent and Jon tells me that it is the anniversary of Maya Angelou’s death. I bought a collection of her poems for my mother a few years ago and she will always be a giant tree with an immense shadow for us traveling through. On that note, let me share one of her poems here:
When Great Trees Fall
by Maya Angelou
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.