What I remember most

What I remember most about my Scanlandia bike ride from earlier this summer:

Crossing the mountains
Crossing fjords on ferries
Impossibly high bridges
Moose meat stroganoff
Long, slanty light
The sun
Wishing for the sun to come out
Wishing for the sun to go down
Winding down on switchbacks, thinking
      this could be the last day of my life


Mostly what I remember is the fear
            a knife-edge, precipice-inducing fear
            the awful feeling you get
                        when lost
                        when there are no maps
                        when no one knows your name

and you speak an entirely different language

the fear that drives you to make a way when there is no way,
            a fear that numbs you into submission, to accept
that things might not go right, but no matter what you have to keep going

the kind of fear that creates

that makes life exciting

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