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| “Puget Sound” By Jason Byal |
Tom, Phil, and I went on a bike ride before the end of 2016. One more chance to put a little good into a year that will sting in my memory. We road along Beach Drive in Port Orchard toward Manchester. The morning sun was bright, glinting off the dancing waves. In the distance, past Bremerton’s skyline, the Olympic Mountains hid in the clouds. I imagined them wrapping the clouds around themselves like blankets, snuggled up on a cold winter morning. I envied them their cloud-blankets. On the water, ducks bobbed along in small groups looking like a flotilla of misplaced decoys.
Beach Drive wanders along the southern coast of Sinclair
Inlet. It is flat, and, as a result, caters to the sort of riding that feels
fast and effortless. We started slowly and allowed the road and the riding to
accelerate us. We complained about cold hands and cold feet in the way people
do on these rides, more out of tradition than trying to convey information. It
is a ritual to complain about the weather when starting a ride, being careful
to stop complaint from slipping into negativity.
In search of warmth, Phil guided us to Hillcrest. The
road is well named in that it is comprised of a hill that ends on a crest. Going
east on Beach Drive, you cannot see Hillcrest until you are passing it. It
meets Beach Drive at an acute angle, and turning onto it requires you to nearly
stop. It is as if Hillcrest demands that you climb all of it. There will be no
coasting the first few meters on momentum.
We grunted and groaned and shifted our bikes into their
easiest gears to grind up the hill. We separated, each man finding his own
cadence, his own balance of speed and pain. Each man weighed down by the
effects of too much Christmas candy. I saw the top, what I thought was the top,
so I accelerated a little to get the climb done with.
“It doesn’t end where you
think it does,” Phil said.
I rounded the corner that I
thought was the top, and found myself less than halfway up the hill.
“I see that,” I wheezed to
Phil.
At long last, we crested the crest promised in the road’s
name. We were a mess of wheezing and mucus and sweat. Phil smiled.
“This next part is fast. Like a roller coaster.”
We began to rocket downward, but we put on our brakes
shortly after starting. A deer stared at us from the ditch on the right side of
the road. The deer cocked its head, and we slowed to a crawl. Partly, we wanted
to see it, and partly, we didn’t want to hit it. It bounded across the road as
deer do, grace embodied.
Four smaller deer followed with less grace but more
frantic determination, the edges of their furry coats catching the light as
they moved. We rolled slowly past as the deer bounded across a sun lit
meadow. The image was perfect, almost staged. It made me think that the rush to
get across the street was less fear and more like actors being caught out of
position before the curtain rose. I wondered, as I let off my brakes and let
gravity do the trick that it does, if God put them there for us today as a
reminder of beauty.
We rejoined Beach Drive and followed it into the forest
when it turned south, away from the water. The flatness of the road softened
into rolling hills surrounded by forest. It felt like backpacking, like we were
heading out on an adventure, into the magical forest to slay a dragon or find a
treasure or search for candied houses.
Manchester boat docks has this wonderful view of Seattle.
The world is trees and hills and green until you take that left that drops you
into the dock and suddenly the world expands and Puget Sound flows into view.
It is vast and blue and, at the same time, so very small. Seattle’s sky
scrapers rise out of the water, Atlantis found, the Emerald City just out of
reach.
Between us and the city, empty container ships sat
anchored, vast and steel and rusty. They felt like dock workers posing for a
photoshoot. Blue collar, hardworking, rough edged, and beautiful despite and
because of all these things.
We rolled back the way we came. Back into the dark of the
forest. The road disappeared beneath our wheels, blurred and stretched. Miles slipped by as we labored and talked and laughed. The forest ended and the sea began, and our
breath caught in our throats as we saw the Olympic Mountains glowing in the
full light of the sun, their snowy capes catching the light and throwing it
back into the world in a sign of royal generosity.
This, too, felt posed. Not in a bad way. Not in a disingenuous
way. But as if God set aside this ride to end the year for us with visions of
beauty and grandeur and the awesomeness of creation. In the midst of the year,
all the pain, all the disappointments, all the everything, there exists the
silver thread of God’s love. And this ride felt like a unsubtle hint that He
was still there, still loving, still tending to the mechanisms that keep this
universe whirling in the vastness of space and time.
It was fitting, then, that the ride ended with bad news.
That I should find out then, at the tail end of this doctoral thesis of the
Creator’s wonders, that another small tragedy had entered my
life.
I wanted to leave that last paragraph off. To end this
post on the high of beauty, but it felt disingenuous. Because part of
recognizing God’s beauty and love and grace in the face of pain is
acknowledging the pain that we face. I find joy in my Creator not because life
is easy or perfect or painless, but because He provides me the strength
necessary to make my way through the pain.
P.S. The tragedy is not mine, and will not be discussed
on the internet… at least by me.
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