Futile

With no way to move forward we jammed our paddles into the reeds and hunkered down to wait things out.

It was somewhere in the mid to late-1970s and we were canoeing down the Colorado River, a normally placid portion of the river. The map said it was the same stretch, but this looked nothing like the river we had paddled down two years earlier, a trip that had been made under sunny skies and fair breeze, where we could just go with the flow. There was nothing sunny about this current trip, grey skies overflowed the canyon tops and threatened to cascade down to the river. The river was already turbulent enough, its wind-whipped surface a topping of whitecaps over black depths. Worst of all, though, the wind was not behind us. It hit us in the face, pushing us backward against the current. We were paddling forward, but moving the opposite direction. We needed to try something different, so we moved in closer to the shore, in tight against the reeds. Still, we continued to lose ground. I thought that maybe, if we got across to the other shore, we might find some relief over there. We set off across the river, over the whitecaps and the black depths. We soon realized that we were going to sink before making it half way across and, after losing another fifty yards, back over to the reeds we went. Things were getting desperate now, arms were near breaking, and wits were being frayed. We would wait for little breaks in the wind and then make our dig. Invariably, though, the howl would come across the river and we would lose whatever distance we had made. We thought to shove our paddles into the reeds and leverage our way forward. Nope. Mixed in with the curses of frustration was, I am sure, a laugh or two.

It was futile, and so we anchored ourselves to the reeds and waited.

A few years ago, and though I did not connect it at the time, I, while covering the San Dimas Stage Race, heard that laugh again. It was a laughter of madness, made by one racer, off the back, adrift and alone. The task that racer had set for himself, at the beginning of the race, had become futile.

Monday evening I was riding some laps. On one of those laps, I turned onto Mills heading uphill. There was a red flashing light up ahead, a cyclist, and I went into pursuit mode. Pursuit was unnecessary, the rider was not moving fast. He was not wearing kit, his bike weighed at least twice my own, hair to his shoulders, beard and, most telling of all, two plastic grocery bags stuffed with the effects of a shopping trip, and ready to rip with the strain, one each dangling from each side of his handlebars. I slowed as I passed, but by then it was immaterial, I might as well have had a hidden motor.

In that instant, as he realized the futility, I heard it again. That same laugh, unmistakable and clear.

 getting in the "spirit" around here on the evening loops