Dear Grandma,

As I tried to get myself into sleep mode last night my thoughts drifted to you. I went back through time and was thinking about my happiest childhood memories. Most of which were with you and Grandpa. I reflected on my young years playing outside at the Edgewood/ Milton house. I thought about the one and only time you ever spanked me, I was between the ages of 3-5 years old and I had crossed the street to check your mail. I thought I was being a good helper and in turn my good deed was rewarded with a swat on the bottom, followed with hugs where I was almost drowned in tears and almost died from having the life hugged out of me. I felt so loved!

Other firsts:
You wrote me the first poem I ever received , it was on a little piece of notebook paper: It went something like:
As the sun shines on your golden hair and eyes of blue and your mind is worry free
I will think of you, will you sometimes think of me?
Love
Gram T

Plum trees, gardening, swinging on the swing under the apple or was it a pear tree in the back yard? Making daisy chain crowns and of course picking dandelions. I have planted a plum tree at every house I have ever owned. This house I planted two. I prefer to spend time in the yard than doing housework!

I remember laying on my back in your back yard looking at the sky and watching the clouds I was certain that the earth was moving and not the clouds. I remember talking with you about what animals I saw in the clouds. Bunnies always bunnies!

I remember the man who tried to get me to look in his car so he could give me a bunny? I was riding my bike on the hill near your house and a man in a little red Volkswagen pulled up and tired to give me a bunny. I rode my bike as fast as I could back to your place because I was sure he was trying to abduct me. He count figure out why a little girl wouldn’t want a bunny and followed me to your house. He really had a little bunny which I was allowed to keep but once at home our tom cat pounced on it and snapped its neck.
Bunnies!
Going to Wyoming to visit Sharon and Paul with you and Grandpa and Uncle Randy for Easter was also one of my childhood highlights! I still have a photo Randy took of us standing in front of an old cover wagon that was parked off the side of the road near a filling station. It snowed for Easter and I got the most adorable yellow bunny. If that rabbit should talk! It’s 41 -42 years old eyes falling out and I think its being held together with a combination of snot and tears love and a bit of dust. I have carried that darn rabbit around with me every where I have gone. I took it to church summer camps, military boot camp , honeymoon, vacations, it’s been kidnapped and held for ransom by different friends at least a dozen times over the years. Three of my most favorite things are things I received from you and grandpa, The Swan Princess book, and the little gold swan ring holder / box and yellow bunny.

You get all the credit for introducing me to music and sharing with me some of my life long favorite silly songs:
Listening to you play guitar and yodel what fun! I remember once Auntie Sharon drawing faces on her toes and having them dance while you played and sang!

Birdie, birdie in the sky dropped some white wash in my eye
I am a big girl I don’t cry
I am just glad the cows don’t fly.
(This song still makes people giggle)

I had me a chicken that wouldn’t lay an egg so I poured hot water up and down its leg
The little chicken hollered and the little chicken begged but the little chicken laid me a hard boiled egg! Yee haw!

Cottage cheese, I had some at your house and I remember throwing up on the floor in front of your fridge. I still can’t eat cottage cheese unless of course it’s mixed with potatoes in a dumpling.
Bread pudding & milk toast were never better than if you made them they are still my comfort foods.

You made me feel so important by letting me play messenger for you when you were mad at Grandpa, I can see the house and the rooms as if it were yesterday! He was on the living room I seem to remember birds and greyhounds on the sofa or the wall paper I got to go tell him he was an old poop! He then gave me a message to give to you. You were in your bedroom and you had the neat red wall paper that always reminded me of a bandana.

I remember waking up at your house one morning and coming down stairs an having to follow a string around the house which eventually led me outside to find my first bike. Oh the joy and excitement!

My love of riding hills must go back to the early days of peddling from your house up the hill towards the house where I lived as an infant.

I wrote this a while back to share with my cycling team at a fundraiser event. There is a bit of fiction for appeal but most is from my heart.


The Church of Bike is Always Open

In the Church of Bike, I would be a sweat-slathered gospel singer belting out praises and stepping side to side to the beat of the divine cadence. My Lycra robes would be soaked and I would throw toothy smiles to my bike, who would lean on an indoor rack in the front most pew. Membership is easy in the Church of Bike. It only requires one to speak of the possibilities of cycling. All are welcome in the Church of Bike. It is compatible with any faith.

Cycling has the potential to be a spiritual act. By spiritual act, I mean an act that leads someone to access that which is intangible, that which is of spirit, that which is greater than the self. Possibly, you think that “spirituality” is for people clad in loose –fitting organic hemp who place crystals on corresponding chakras to balance their energy bodies. However, you can identify with the Church of Bike if you know the elation of beginning a descent after a brutal climb or if you have been seized by overwhelming love for your cycling buddy. If you find deep satisfaction in returning home from a ride covered in mud and bleeding from at least two different places, or if you have figured out a tiny aspect of your life after a long ride , then you understand the church of Bike.

I have not always seen the correlation between cycling and spiritual practice. I begrudgingly began riding as a child. My grandmother thought it was really fun to outfit me with a bike and weird gear and drag me out to nearby trails. Even though I was embarrassed about grandma’s neon bike outfits, I still evolved into a bike enthusiast. The correlation between biking and spiritual practice became apparent to me while I was trying to learn about meditation and yogo a few years ago. Sitting still just has never worked for me.

When I started incorporating spiritual practices into my life, my experience unfortunately were not always revelatory or drenched in white light. Mostly, I came to recognize that my mind is like a Tasmanian Devil who darts in circles and on occasionally clunks herself over the head with a large mammals femur. However, along with the discouraging realization looking at yoga and meditation also gave me a path to calm the whirling mind. As I began to bike more, I realized that cycling clears the mind just like other spiritual practices. While charging up a hill on my bike, the femur-wielding Tasmanian devil can hold no forum. My mind has to assume complete focus if I am to ride to the best of my ability. An Intense quiet takes over. It is, in fact, a meditative state.

The purpose of creating a serene state of mind is not solely to enjoy a reality more pleasant than tumult. Rather, in a serene state of mind, truth becomes clearer. And isn’t the pursuit of truth the point in this insane world of exultation, devastation, birth, life, and death? Cycling, like mediation or yoga can create a frame of mind where truth is present

In the Church of Bike, Cyclists take a refuge under the vaulted dome of their own toil. They relish in the beauty of knowing that the God’s vehicle takes the form of a simple machine underneath their butt. Will I have figures of Lance Armstrong and his incarnations on a shrine in my house Definitely not. Will I wash my bike in holly water probably not. However I will subscribe to the Church of Bike because cycling is a cherished practice, and I will be a dedicated practitioner until my body doesn’t work anymore. Halleujah.

C. Freese


Thanks so much for the encouragement you have always given me!

I have just signed up to do a fundraising ride for cancer. This time my ride will take me around Lake Tahoe. It’s 100 of Americans most beautiful miles which includes a nasty 8 mile hill that is a major altitude climb.

As I ride my bike in the cold wet snowy weather I am able to separate myself from the chills and numbness and pain as the pain of pushing oneself on a upward incline on a bike is nothing compared to what people living with cancer face daily.
When I ride no matter what the weather imagine the sun shines on me and my mind is free from care and I can think of you.


Love,

Your first grand daughter


Cynthia

PS. For my 50th birthday I am planning to ride my bike from Washington State to Washington DC in 30 days! I still have a year or two to train!