August 15, 2004

The following is a transcript of the notes I wrote on August 4th, the 21st day of my bike tour:

Alone, alone, all, all alone I drifted away from Collingwood leaving behind overwhelming days of bliss and excess. My legs felt like lead and my eyes were blind to the mountains and lakes that welcomed me as I approached Meaford.

I tragically missed my loves, and not even Meaford with its harbours, lighthouses, and blue waters managed to quench my melancholy. So I got on my bike and rode up endless hills until I found a cemetery on a quiet country road a few hours later. A sign outside the gate informed me that the pioneers of the township were buried beneath my feet, and because I had to stop for dinner. I laid my bike on the green grass and strolled among the gravestones with my sandwich.

The setting sun painted the graves orange, and I thought how odd it was to have all those bones buried beneath me, those pioneers who once performed courageous deeds and struggled against the wilderness and each other only to be forgotten.

Who remembers you, wife of William Crawford, who recalls your death in the winter of 1904, aged 76 years? And who can be bothered to recite those 76 years of living and hardship? You are forgotten, wife of William Crawford, the way we and our struggles will also be forgotten.

And I left behind those gravestones and the dead men’s bones, and cycled until the sun was no more. Because I couldn’t be bothered to set up my tent, I fell asleep in a field under a starry sky to dream of Collingwood and my loves.