It has been a really long time since I sat down and wrote about what I saw riding my bike around today. I was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in June, 2024, and it has been a whirlwind. It was the best kind of cancer you can get, sort of, I guess, but the way you treat this cancer, especially the second time around, is by cutting out and off everything. I had three surgeries in five months, and even when I got on my bike between surgery #1 and surgery #2, my heart wasn’t in it. I knew as soon as I got back to my old fitness I’d get knocked down again, and also I was just still so tired.

Actually, I was fatigued. If you have dealt with fatigue–looking at you, pregnant people, people with autoimmune conditions, chemo peeps, chronic illness folks, etc.–you know that fatigue is something else entirely. No matter how much sleep I got I was dragging. Like, my head was filled with cotton balls and Elmer’s glue. I look ok on the outside, and I can fake my way through teaching like the trained professional I am, but it has been rough.

My last surgery was in early December, a total hysterectomy. As the always-overachieving person I am, my uterus was double the expected size, so they couldn’t get it out via my vagina. That meant an unexpected abdominal cut that is turning into an amazing scar. So many people told me this would be the easiest recovery of all. S. was out shopping the next day. E. barely remembered it, it was such a non-event. It was not like this for me. It has been hard, and the fatigue has lingered and lingered.

And then I started to feel actually really better. I walked to the bookstore, saw a book about something I know little about, and was like, I want to know about that! I bought the book, and I’m reading a chapter a day and learning so much. This might not sound like much, but for me, curiosity is what makes me feel alive and the most like myself, so to see that glimmer…I can’t tell you how happy it made me.

I started going to the YMCA to walk on the treadmill. I joined a beginners CrossFit class taught by a woman who had a double mastectomy and no reconstruction. Seeing a body that looks vaguely like mine in the wild was revelatory. I took my bike into the shop for a service and cleaning, and I was ready to ride. Sort of.

I love my body. I think it’s amazing. It has been through so much, and it just keeps going. We have so many adventures! And I don’t totally trust it right now. Will I be able to ride, and especially, will I be able to ride up the hill? There’s been another part I haven’t said out loud to many people–will I like it still? What if I get back on my bike, it’s too hard, and I don’t love it like I have for the last 15 years? It’s not a problem for me to change what I love doing. I am a woman of brief habits–bread baking, cigar collecting, home fermentation, plants, Orangetheory, running, the list goes on and on–so why would I care if this biking hobby faded too?

Because riding my bike around is fundamental to how I want to interact with the world. I want to say my good mornings and how you doings to my neighbors. I want to pay attention to how the world around me changes. I want to notice the geographies of the places I go, attend to them with my attention. It is the way I remember, every day, that I share this world with other people who are nothing like me, but we are here together, and I’m so glad for that.

Monday I did it. I decided I’d just go for that bike commute, see what might happen. Oh, the biggest smile, almost immediately. The ride downtown is downhill, so it felt great. I saw L. walking her dog, rang my bell, big smiles and hellos. Good mornings as I raced down the cycletrack, cold wind at my back. Yelled at a driver or two to let them know I’M HERE DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT MAKING THAT TURN. Reminded myself that a bike can be in the bus/bike lane, that driver can just be patient, I belong here I belong here I belong here too. I locked my bike up at UMMC, walked to the transit stop, and just felt so proud of myself.

The ride home was a little different, mostly because it was after a full work day, so I was already tired, and the ride home is uphill. My entreaties to the city to reverse itself have long gone unheard. I snapped this picture of the construction that has been going on forever. I hadn’t ridden by it in a couple of months, and it’s still got so far to go, but look! Fancy facading is happening! Oh, and they’re doing something at the dental school/museum. And there’s new asphalt on a couple of side streets. And drivers are still trying to do too much too soon and too close to each other and me on Paca. Things change, so I gotta keep my eyes open so I don’t miss anything!

Home again, home again, in so many ways. I can take a lyft, use my car and let my wife take a lyft, take the bus, catch a ride with a friend or colleague, but none of that is what I want. I want to be able to travel without negotiating with anybody. And more than anything, I want to be able to be myself in the world, riding my bike around, wondering why “around” looks like it does, and reminding myself that we’re in this together. I’m so, so happy to be back on my bike. What a gift.