I’ll Keep On Riding

“Are you going to keep on riding your bike?”

Photo by James Brey

Every year, as the days grow shorter, colder and darker, I’m asked that question, or some variant of it, even by people who’ve seen me pedal through winters past. But I think I started hearing it earlier and more frequently this Fall than in years past.

Perhaps it has to do with living in a senior citizens’ building. But—admittedly with a lack of empirical data—I don’t think I was so queried so often last year, my first in the complex. Maybe it has to do with familiarity:  More residents know me or, at least see me as a familiar face and are thus more willing to approach me.

But I believe another factor is at play. A number of my neighbors have expressed, to me and each other, their belief this winter will be exceptionally long and cold.  Something tells me they might be right. At any rate, whatever the coming season brings, it probably will be harsher than the past few, relatively mild, winters.

Then again, some of the folks among whom I live may be listening to their bodies: Their old wounds are throbbing, and their joints are aching. That, of course, could be a matter of health issues or simply aging. 

I can’t help but to wonder, though whether their personal Farmers Almanac weather forecasts might have as much to do with the political and social climate as El Niño, polar vortexes or the warming oceans, the latter of which causes weather extremes of all kinds.

One fellow I talk to, who was once a graduate student in Political Science and is not given to hyperbole, compares what has transpired since the Fake Tan Führer was re-elected to the Nazi regime’s early days.  If he’s right, and we don’t change, we are indeed headed for a long winter in more ways than one. And cycling through it could be a form of protest or subversion, depending on one’s political and social beliefs.

I plan to keep on pedaling.