The escape goes here, down a narrow, hilly road with a rough surface that slants through a woods. It’s a splash of pink in the ditch that causes me to pinwheel my bike and stop.
How is it I’ve never seen this before?
Amidst a thick tangle of blue chicory are lighter pastel flashes. Same type of stalk. Same narrow leaves. Same aster-like flower head. Only the color differs.
My eyes are open now.
Above and to my right are pimpled pale shells the size of golf balls, the wombs of a buckeye tree whose five-fingered hands stretch wide and extend out, as if calling for attention.
At the base of the hill I’ve just climbed stands a doe in the center of the road. Perfectly still. Watching. Waiting for me to move in a way that declares whether I am a threat.
Like the tree, I raise a limb and wave a greeting, then clip into my pedals and move on, leaving behind the deer, the buckeyes, the chicory.
For a day that began with the frustration of dealing with supposedly civilized people, I regain a bit of sanity among all that is wild and free. This is a road I don’t ride often enough.
14.98 miles — Henry County
