Detoxify

As I soar around the bend from the little industrial estate to Canley Road, I have a dozen things on my mind. The fine rain working its way down my neck is only one of them – the oaks lining the road spread their green limbs and shake their heads at my worries (perhaps they delight in them – I've heard it said that all oaks hate Englishmen, and I don't know if they can tell that I am at least part Welsh) – and I have everything on my mind bubbling away beneath the nervous glances over the shoulder, craned looks around the bend and heart-pumping effort which comprises the state of mind of cyclists everywhere.

The rain suddenly graduates from coarse drizzle to pelting cloudburst, and in a squeal of brakes I pull to a halt under a spreading oak, right next to the old bridge. Water gurgles in the brook; the birds continue to sing their hearts out in the downpour; the noise of the busy road around the bend behind me is stilled by the rain; all I can hear is the rushing of water in motion: falling, dripping, gurgling, dashing headlong to the sea a hundred miles away.

As it slackens, I pull cautiously out into the rain again, only to have to dash for it again for the more dubious shelter of a weeping willow. The first stop had me calming down, the adrenaline in my system from the mad dash from campus slowly filtering out, and now I close my eyes for a second and breathe in the smell of rain; hot dust and cool water, like the land itself is exhaling for the first time in months. I feel the tension in my shoulders un-knot slightly, and the wound muscles in my scalp relax as the water trickles down through the holes in my helmet.

Again, the rain stops.

Again I start up the hill.

One last time, the heavens truly open, and I pull to a halt under an overgrown hedge, still enjoying the rain until, without warning, the rising breeze blows a set of wind chimes on the other side of the hedge, and I am suddenly filled with a sense of longing for a place and time I'm not sure even ever existed.

The smell of dust.

The sonorous peal of wind chimes.

Something changes, and something stays the same.

I ride away detoxed.

Roll on the summer. I'm ready.