this is following
In the last gasp of day, Kevin and I wind our way along unknown streets, all squeaky springs and clacking chains. These bicycles are the picture-postcard kind, sherbet-colored, lemon and mint, with earthy baskets bobbing at the front. I imagine mine brimming with trailing flowers like they do in greeting card photographs, except that would leave little space for groceries or the phone I tossed in for taking pictures, nowhere to stow my sunglasses when the sun finally finishes its crescendo.
I imagine us explorers on first discovery, gesturing back and forth as we notice buttery stucco trimmed and arbored by cascades of fuchsia blooms; the house with nine cats (I counted them as we meandered by) gliding and curling and dozing with flickering tails; the traffic circle paved with colonial brick. As we travel closer to the waterfront, traditional street signs give way to small stone pillars, looking for all the world like tombstones carefully engraved with street names.
Kevin rides just a holler ahead of me, and I watch his head swivel slowly as we coast toward the intersection. In truth, he scouted out this road before I traveled here. In the mornings, he ventures out for exercise on a bike better built for speed and scopes out the terrain for later wandering. So, he already knows the bumps and curves in the road, the pits in the pavement. He’s already seen the stucco house, though he smiles indulgently when I wave toward it. When we venture out these late afternoons chasing water and breezes and sky-splitting light, Kevin naturally plays the guide, gently taking the lead. On the other hand, I have no idea where I’m going. In fact, I’m not usually the author of our vacations or our adventures. Kevin is my map. I ride through the streets with my hair flying and laughter trailing, embracing our–my–blind adventure with so much joy it beams and pours.
When Kevin crosses the street, I whiz through too without a care, aware that he would never go on if I can’t safely follow. He turns and I turn, clacking across a place where the sidewalk is cracked and uneven, and there, leaning against a storefront, is a sunny bike just like mine, with a profusion of beautiful blooms spilling out the basket, multiplied into a river by reflection. Down from the seat hangs a small wooden sign tied with pink ribbon. Someone has painted the word welcome in script, bright like the flowers, and seeing it, I smile. It’s as if he read my mind and conjured the very thing I imagined. Like a treasure to stuff in my pocket for home, I take up the look of that bike leaning there against the shop window.
Further on, the traffic thickens and whizzes, and I feel balanced precariously on the edge of danger. For myself, I would certainly have designed a wider, smoother way. My front wheel wobbles in response, and I look ahead, focusing on the path Kevin blazes instead of the jetting cars. I watch when he steers a little closer to the shops, when he slows down, where he goes and what he avoids. And I pedal on behind my beloved, in search of sunset.
“Just a little further now,” he says to me, his voice flying back on the breeze. “The rest of the way is much quieter.” And so it is. One more turn and all I hear is the squawk of shore birds and the whomp whomp of my tires; and all I feel is that salty breeze on my cheeks; and all I see is the sun ripping through the sky like a ball of fire, sending sparks across the water.
We glide out on an empty pier and stop just to celebrate, and the still, quiet voice that quenches me speaks:
This is following when the one who leads is the one who loves me; the one who goes ahead of me; the one I trust.
