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While on Prince Edward Island, I went mountain biking for the first time. Though I made an impulsive decision that day, the desire to try the sport had been brewing for awhile. My husband, son, and friends love the sport, and for the time I was upright and pedaling, I can see why. Riding the trails, navigating rocks, banked corners, hills, and features, for which I don’t know the slang, is exhilarating. A mental game as much as a physical one, mountain biking requires strong instincts and focus. A rider can’t worry about anything except the trail. Distraction leads to destruction. Hesitation, too, as I found out. Spooked on a rocky incline, I slowed, wobbled, and crashed from a drop off, ironically with my husband’s forewarning echoing in my mind: “speed is your friend.” It was a journey to get out of the woods, through surgery, and the trek home. When we finally returned, a week later than expected, our stalwart, old house, lit up by the lone street lamp, looked at once sleepy but watchful like the parent of a teenage driver. As I hobbled in, the hallways seemed to yawn wider than ever, tsk-tsking with the echoing sound of my crutches. My caretaker is back, and she needs taking care of this time, the house seemed to say as it drew me into the living room, where I now spend the majority of my days confined to a big, old chair. The house understands, having survived many healed fractures and surgical upgrades. Gas lighting. Indoor plumbing. Electricity. It lives with the scars of age and accident: planks and pillars restored, a mended crack here or there in a plaster wall, flooring cut away and replaced as coal heat gave way to steam. Renovations take time, and the house had to heal and settle into the change. And so must I. Before this happened, my days flew by in whirlwind of activity, commitments, events, obligations. Do. Do. Do. Move. Move. Move. I was chasing time. Never enough time. Then, came a break—literally.
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