Stephanie Pearl-McPhee - The Amazing Thing About the Way It Goes: Stories of Tidiness, Self-Esteem and Other Things I Gave Up On

Another for my book-loving uncle Tupper,with profound regret that what he really wanted meto write couldnt be written until after he had to go.Neither of us have ever had great timing.

As with everything good I have ever made, this book would be a twisted train wreck if I were in it alone.

First, my thanks to the good folks at Andrews McMeel Publishing, who had faith where I didnt. Thanks to my old editor, Lane Butler, who saw this book through its pregnancy, and my new editor, Christine Schillig, who somehow jumped on a running horse, figured out how it worked, and then brought it home.

Thanks to my agent, Linda Roghaar, who always knows what do to, even though I am probably rather crazy.

To my friends, who have been read to, cried at, and endured endless discussions about this booklong after any other people would have admitted they were tired of it and begged me to stop.

Last, but never least, to my family. This book was born during a remarkable year for us, and without their help, support, and leeway, there would be no book at all.

In particular, my long-suffering husband Joe remains a man of incredible kindness, intelligence, sensitivity, and good humor, even when hes trashing the kitchen.

As I lay bleeding in the dirt, I was thinking about the mistakes I had made in my life that had brought me to this moment. I was tangled in my bike and couldnt get up, but I wasnt bleeding a lot, so there was no reason to rush. Ive tried to be a mostly good person, and other than that mean thing I did to Suzanne T. in grade eight, I dont think I really belonged where I was. I admit, I had made a decision that was pretty inexplicable, considering that the sport I do best is knit. I had been inspired by someone to get involved with a long-distance charity bike ride to Montral, all the way from Toronto. About four hundred cyclists were to ride together for six days, covering 660 kilometers (410 miles), and as I lay there, I tried to remember who I had thought I was when I signed up. Ive got a soft spot for epic adventure, but cycling? What had made me think I was that kind of person?

Peer pressure is usually at the top of my list of reasons for doing such things, and a lot of people I knew had done this ride and lived. My best friend, Ken, had done it, but he hadnt so much inspired me as impressed me, since he is almost terrifyingly fit and competent and he has an excellent sense of proprioception, which is to say that he almost always knows where his body is in time and space, and he seldom walks into things. There are a thousand things that Ken can do that I am never going to be able to manage; miracles like walking through the house without smashing his hip on a table or falling up the stairs. Two of my three daughters had already done it, and the youngest was signed up, but as impressed with them as I was, their commitment wasnt what set me on the path either. I was proud of them, but they were young and perfect and teenagers, and theyd never be any stronger or more lovely than they were when they did that ride, and I know that Im past the days when I could just blast through anything. I didnt class myself with them for a moment. My sister, though, she had done the ride and lived to tell the tale, and thats what got me. Erins not sporty. Erin doesnt jog. Erins only five years younger than me and not really fitter than me. The only functional difference between Erin and me is that she accessorizes, but to my way of thinking that likely wasnt what made it possible for her to pack up one summer and ride her bike for six straight days like it was a job.

That, I thought as I moved my head off a rock, might not be totally true, or it might be, or who the hell knew, because if training for this ride had revealed anything to me it was that somewhere, somehow, there was some other tiny little difference between Erin and me, some magical string of genes that was on her code and not minesomething that may be related to how her hair always looks cute and mine doesnt. Whatever it was that made Erin want to find a matching scarf for an outfit, apparently that gene sits on her DNA right next to whatever it is that keeps a human being from falling off a bike, because there I was, off my bike, lying in the dirt, bleeding, and it wasnt the first time. It was the thirteenth. I already had so many cuts, bruises, and abrasions that I didnt look so much like Id taken up riding a road bike but rather like I had been beaten with one. I spat out a bug that had crawled in the side of my mouth and resolved to lie there a little longer.

Ive been riding a bike since I was five, and, aside from this phase, there have been little to no difficulties. There was the year that I rode into a ditch on Prince Edward Island, but it was dark, and I didnt lose control of the bike or my faculties. I just lost track of where the road was for a minute and cycled straight into the abyss. It made sense, it was really the only accident Id had in years and years, and the worst part about it wasnt even falling off my bike. It was that my family didnt really see that Id dropped off the radar and left me there, lying amongst the lupines in the dark. Even as a kida remarkably klutzy and bruised kidId always managed my bike okay, and the worst bike accident I could call to mind was one that Erin had. One summer day, when she was about ten years old, shed learned to swoop side to side on her bike, like some great wheeled bird, and Id gotten her to show my friends what she could do when one big swoop (empowered by ten-year-old bravado) went a little wide and Erin went straight over the handlebars. She just about knocked her teeth out, and there was an emergency room visit and blood and gore, as well as a little perpetual guilt that Id been the one encouraging her to try it, but the important thing to think about now is that I was unequivocally not the one who had that bad accident. Erin did, and that was on a bike and, as far as I could think, that meant that she was no more coordinated than I was (except with accessories), and that emboldened me. If she could do it, so could I.

The training rides for the Friends for Life Bike Rally start a few months in advance. I showed up for the first one and noticed a few things straightaway. First, out of the few hundred riders, I was the only one on a big, clunky bike. Second, I was slower than almost all of them. I also noticed that I had more body hair than anyone there, even though the majority of them were men, but, as much as they might like to believe so, I didnt think that was what made them faster. I was pretty sure it was the bikes, so the next day I went to the bike shop and got a road bike. It was turquoise (like my big, clunky bike, which meant that now I had the start of a fleet), and the gal at the shop assured me that turquoise was the fastest color. (Apparently red only looks the fastest. Its an illusion, I was assured. At the time, I believed her, but now I wonder what shed have said if I had tried to buy a yellow one.) Since it was a road bike, it had clipless pedals, and that meant I had to clip in.

Clipless pedals are the wildest thing. First of all, their name is inappropriate, considering what they do. You wear special shoes that have little cleats on the bottom that attach to the pedals. You clip in by attaching your feet to the bike, then swing your heel out to unclip and free your feet when you want to stop. When I heard about them, I thought they were nothing short of insane. Attaching your feet to the pedals to make it easier to ride seemed savvy, I grant you that, but there was another side to the efficiency game, which is that you and the bike are now a unit. Once youre joined, its impossible to put your foot down on the ground without first unclipping, and that seemed like a risky layer of complexity. While I was moving I could pull up and push down on the pedals, which does let you use energy more efficiently, but how efficient was a broken leg going to be?