Chapter 4 in R.M. Dolin’s book, “The Dangling Conversation,” April 4, 2024
KYLE: “Yeah, I’m a bit worn, it’s long-ride day so, I went for an eighty-miler along quiet tree-lined country roads. Mostly they’re flat and seldom traveled; except of course for farm tractors and uber smart livestock who can’t be constrained by barbwire. When the sun gets to shining though, and wind works it magic through treetops in a way that doesn’t hinder progress, you peddle past all the conflicts clouding your mind and this kind of calm canvases everything making it possible to lose yourself in thought. It’s the only place that happens, at least for me, which isn’t always a good thing mind you, sometimes thoughts have a way of running off the rails leaving unintended consequences creating chaos best left to rest. Today was a rare day though when it all comes together, know what I mean; the legs are strong, the mind is focused, and there’s hardly any negotiation going on between the mind and body. It’s a weird thing about cycling, you’re beat all to hell and tired as shit, but you feel good in ways nothing else can match.
“Back in the day I rode a bunch in Europe, big trips lasting weeks and covering thousands of kilometers; up the coast of Portugal, down the Italian peninsula, along the Spanish Atlantic, and through the Cognac, Brittany, and Normandy regions of France. My multi-year goal was to circumnavigate Europe; mostly I finished but quit before I could really claim I did; can’t say why I quit, just one day I knew I was done and that was that. Spain, France, and Portugal have been conquered, but I still have the Adriatic piece of Italy and the Atlantic stuff north of France. I guess the thrill got gone, or more accurately, the sense of adventure evaporated. I did enjoy it though; I have a special bike for touring I built myself; that bad boy can carry eighty pounds of gear and comfortably go a hundred miles a day. I still take it out for rides every once in a while to relive the freedom of being on the open road with everything I need to survive. Don’t do much bike camping anymore; if I feel the need I take my camper, can’t get around the pampered feeling of air conditioning on a hot day or running water toilets late at night. I still go to Europe when I can and still use my tent when I’m there; guess I’d say a tent feels right when trekking about but here at home not so much; kind of sad really, you don’t see many tents at campgrounds here but in Europe they’re everywhere, not sure what that says about us or them.
“I ride alone on tours cause that’s how God made me; seems no matter what I do or where I go, I wind up alone. Pretty sure people aren’t supposed to, but it nonetheless is the only way that’s ever worked for me. I rode the infamous Paris-Roubaix bike race once; greatest single-day of cycling in the world, notorious for the grueling way going over cobblestones just wears riders out. It’s treacherous too; if you don’t finish the race covered in mud and blood you didn’t do it right. Anyway, I decide for this race I’ll join a tour group with a bunch of Brits who share my desire to abuse their bodies just to prove they can endure seven hours of hell for no other reason than to say they did. So, we do; a hundred and six miles across the wind-swept fields of northern France bumping against the Belgium border; it’s cold, wet, and miserable, but we finish. Then we hit the pubs and drink all night to relive our glorious adventure. That’s how it is with cyclers, suffer all day in the saddle for the stories you can tell. Mark that down as one my better tag lines; a metaphor for why men do the stupid shit we do.
“I was way too focused on cobblestones during Roubaix to get lost in thought, but today for reasons I don’t want to explain, I got to thinking about something you said; in fact, I spent most of six hours on it; even managed to build my own story around your story, so, tell me about your boyfriend from Barcelona who wasn’t really from Barcelona, I’m curious to see how our stories comport.”
ISABELLE: “Certainly odd you’d spend the day thinking about something I said, don’t know if I should be impressed or worried? Guess, as you like to say, we’ll find out as we go along. We met while I was in college but not at college; he worked at a restaurant my friends and I would go to after hours. I’d call him a chef, but he never let that stick; he’d say a chef is someone who creates signature cuisine from scratch and all he did was slap stuff together the same as any other short-order cook. Becoming a chef was his dream though, more of a passion really. He practiced nonstop developing what he called his signature style, and boy could that boy cook. He may not have been the most educated person I’ve ever known, but he’s certainly among the most profound. He had a way of unraveling the world to make sense of things so seemingly senseless; he’d use food as a metaphor to describe everything from geopolitical turmoil to romance. I’m not actually sure he even saw a distinction, just different ways of plating various nonsense.
“He always talked about Barcelona because he went there after high school; said it’s where he fell in love, not only with cooking, but life in all its wonderfully divergent facets. He liked talking about the deeper meaning of things; those elements of existence that elude most of us. For him, everything we strive to find, whether it be a cooking style, the elusiveness of being happy, or the passion of romance, could be brushed in shades of Barcelona. “Everybody has a Barcelona, Isabelle,” he’d say, whether assessing the quality of an omelet he’d made for the hundredth time or holding me late at night in a tender caress, “a place they go to escape life sucking the life from their soul; a place you’re allowed to be anything you need, feel anything you desire.” I never found my Barcelona, at least not on his level, but boy there are times I wish I did. You’re lucky to have bike riding like he had cooking, to have Nadia just as I’m sure he has someone now; someone clearly and obviously not me.”
KYLE: “Some buddies in high school started a band; it doesn’t have much to do with your Barcelona but is every bit a part of the same Venn diagram. These guys played all our dances back before DJ’s were a thing. They were an eclectic bunch for sure, from the bank President’s kid down to someone whose family hailed from the other side of the tracks; boy could they play though. It’s interesting to ponder how these hard living guys who looked like rockers playing their country guitars to 70’s love songs wound up. By most societal standards we’d say they’re unsuccessful, but the greater question we’re reluctant to ask for fear of what it means in our lives, for what it means to your Barcelona, is whether they’re happy? Only one of them went to college and I don’t even think it was for anything interesting, the others found different ways through life but that doesn’t negate their probability or potential for being happy.”
ISABELLE: “Can’t really say why we stopped seeing each other, I mean I know the mechanics of how it all went down, but struggle with the reasons we allowed those mechanics to push us over the edge; or allowed ourselves to stay there once we’d arrived. I do remember the night it all started to cascade; still so vivid in my mind, like it’s even just now happening. I’m sitting outside in the courtyard of a mostly empty college bar right around sunset listening to Chopin while sipping a bourbon; I never drink bourbon but for some reason the mood of the moment seems to demand that extra bit of something unfamiliar. Everyone’s left for spring break, but I stay to complete my senior project; at least that’s what I tell everyone. It’s quickly growing dark and the snow that’s been falling all day has turned to rain. I’m under a metal covered portico so the sound of drops colliding against the roof seems syncopated with Chopin’s melancholy chords. I don’t realize it, but it’s the first time since November I’ve been alone and between that and the melting ice in my bourbon, I’m reflecting on things probably better left alone.
“I start out wondering about graduation and what it means to have this phase of my life end, about what stepping out into the real-world entails. Obviously, my boyfriend, the emerging chef, is a big part of what comes next, at least to me, but what I find myself questioning is whether I’m part of whatever his future holds. I’m sitting there alone with rain putting our relationship on replay; so much of my life has been lived since we met and yet, so much remains the same. I fell out of a shallow relationship that was never destined to last before he and I fell in love. Since leaving for college, I’ve had more adventures than most women dare to dream, yet always came home, to the place I most belong.
“He always talks about Barcelona as if it was real, but here I am, alone in this courtyard with bourbon I never drink, wondering why it seems such an impossible place to be. I start wishing I’d said to hell with classroom responsibilities and gone to Barcelona for spring break, or perhaps, at least, it’s someplace I should go after graduation. There’s always a reason for things we do though, right; or should we say for the things we don’t do? The more I sit there thinking about the this and that’s of what comes next, this unsettledness comes over me as I start to see how things really are between him and me. Like any good accountant, I’m adding up all our pluses in one column and that’s not helping at all.”
KYLE: I tried the ledger of life thing after Nadia left DC and you’re right, it’s not helpful. Eventually I meet someone, and we date for a bit. I try to love her, actually think I do, but I keep coming back to this mental ledger; one column containing the ways she’s the same as Nadia, the other column the ways she’ll never compare. Each time I do the summation one column always comes to naught. Nadia, and what she means to me, can’t be reduced to a ledger. No matter how much I try to convince myself that my someone new is better, no matter how many well-reasoned reasons I contrive to convince myself my new reality is optimum, it always gets tossed. At the end of the day, it’s possible to find someone new but Nadia’s the one I want to be with and no amount of accounting magic can alter that.
“So, here I am, alone in DC with someone new, who at best, is locked in a battle they can’t win against a ghost they didn’t even know exists; and that’s unfair to her, which leaves me feeling ashamed. The only thing I can do is be alone, I don’t want the responsibility of causing someone else to feel the emptiness I’m carrying. I’m not being noble, mostly taking the cowards way out; that’s how it seems, a courageous man would see his cause is lost and move on, but I can’t. A brave heart would abandon the field, but I can’t find the strength, not as long as there’s hope; the razor’s edge of life, difficult to dance along without getting cut to your core, like the cold way wind cuts through layers of clothes when you’re on the road alone and wondering what it means to hold on to something already lost.”
ISABELLE: “What does it mean to be me? That’s what I’m asking myself in the courtyard as rain taps empty echoes on the unsympathetic metal roof; challenging every simple answer I concoct in ways that make clear I’m a woman without answers. In what ways do I matter? An equally weird question, but based on bourbon, I start wondering if anyone attends my funeral, does anyone really miss me if I just disappear; walk into the woods and never walk out? I imagine going somewhere deep in the mountains to contemplate life, wondering how living there makes any difference in my life right now. Not physically or geographically, but spiritually and metaphorically. I’m not in crisis, just curious; that’s the beauty of being in college about to graduate and walk into the real world, I’m allowed to ask questions without any expectation of an answer.
“It’s almost the one-year anniversary from when I met my boyfriend from Barcelona; such an unexpectedly amazing year that it scares me. When we met, he’s a cook struggling to become a chef and I’m trudging toward graduation, today we’re both still struggling and trudging, and it scares me to think how precarious our situation has become even though so much remains the same. Life has a way of getting lived while we wait for it to start; nothing has changed, except for discovering we have in fact been changing all along. If this were a novel, one of us must be the protagonist, but who? Would it be the boy from Barcelona who passionately looks at life for what it provides right now, or me who looks long-term with grave uncertainty? Our story can go either way as it portrays two sides of life as it’s really lived; neither having a dominate position, and I have to say, it seems the hard rain on the uncaring corrugated metal agrees.”
KYLE: “I look at houses; seems absurd given all my uncertain chaos but a house locks me down to the reality I can’t bring myself to accept; Nadia’s not coming back, and a house forces me to acknowledge what I’ve become quite skilled at denying. It’s stupid I know, but there’s nothing to overcome a mind set on creating its own reality any more than trying to use logic to counter the illogical nature of love. It’s a bold move for sure; but one that’s suddenly become necessary. I need to find a place where I can escape my world, where I’m free from all the stuff strangling my soul. That’s how I end up with a cabin in New Mexico; I take a leave of absence from the State Department to teach graduate math classes at the University in Albuquerque and wind up living high in the Jemez Mountain wilderness. It’s a remote place with no neighbors that I only leave to teach two afternoons a week. Not only is it a far cry from the intensity of DC but it provides a needed sense of sanctuary.
“My cabin’s surrounded by giant Ponderosas that reach way into the sky providing a canopy above the forest floor that keeps things cool in summer and protected in winter. It’s mostly flat on my little piece of the mountain but tails off to the valley below; the only thing missing is a river running through it, or at least a small stream. The cabin itself is way too big for just one person, but I suppose in the back of my mind, I’m still hoping that one day there’ll be a plus one. The cabin costs more than I can afford but how do you put a price on sanctuary? I don’t get there as much as I used to; it’s a long story for another night but I’m not entirely certain I’m welcome in New Mexico; I sometimes feel like a dust devil dancing down an arroyo, interesting to consider from afar but a bit to awkward to touch. But, like I said, that’s a story for another night.”
ISABELLE: “I sit in the courtyard long past everyone; don’t want to be at my apartment but can’t bring myself to go to him. It’s not that I’m not in love, that’s never in question; you know how it is; right guy, wrong time and all that stuff we spend the rest of our life second guessing. It’s cliché I know, especially in the moment, but at the same time, not so far off either. I can bore you for hours with reasons we’re brilliantly right for each other, but I’d then be compelled to sadden you with concerns that can’t be ignored any better than they can be explained or rationalized; in the end, none of it comes close to unraveling how I get from there to here with all the stuff that happens in between, but you already know the in between and there’s no point re-dissecting that private piece of hell.”
KYLE: “Soon after buying the cabin, I bump into this rather rugged guy who’s apparently my neighbor though it’s never quite clear where he lives. He’s just the sort of person you expect to find in the remote wilderness; he drives a beat-up Ranger Rover and mostly hunts and fishes for food, only he hunts whenever he wants and doesn’t pay attention to fishing limits. His firm belief is that it’s up to nature and not the government to decide if he’s allowed to survive; that’s pretty much how everything breaks for him. Until you run across someone like that you don’t really believe they exist, but once you do, you realize movies and media don’t go far enough explaining them or their crazy conspiracy theories.
“He’s nice in a brash wilderness way; my first winter he gives me a pair of skis, says he can’t have it on his conscience that he allowed a novice like me to die because I can’t ski. I tried buying them because I get uncomfortable with folks giving me things; reminds me of growing up poor and my Mom rummaging through thrift stores so I can have the same stuff as my friends while she’d try convincing me someone’s discarded crap is just as good. Anyway, this mountain man gets all insulted, says I have a lot to learn about friendship, however, I now need to find some way to do something nice for him in return. Isn’t that what friendship boils down to, each begin nice to each other while making sure the balance sheet stays neutral? I like giving gifts expecting nothing in return, just not sure how the reverse is supposed to work. As weird as he could be at times, it’s comforting that we were friends; there’s a value in just having someone in your life even if they enter and exit on a rhythm that can’t be deciphered.”
ISABELLE: “Sometimes, all our life plays out as one unrehearsed sonata drawing structure from one disastrous decision that plays on a fatal flaw in our logic; one mistake we wish over and over again came with a redo. That’s what I’m thinking about as I sit alone in the courtyard. It’s cold, dark, and calmly quiet; my fingers are numb and the steam coming from my breath blocks the view to my laptop, but my last bourbon’s only half gone so I must keep typing. I’m thinking about the trip he and I were supposed to take over spring break before I canceled because of school. I imagine the many wonderful things he talked about doing and want so much to be as excited as I know he is.
“When I cancel the trip, he wants to know if something’s off, says he senses it between us. He wants to know if I notice it too, but I have no answer, choosing instead to let his imagination run wild. I regret that but at the same time can’t bring myself to talk about all the unsettled feelings I have. He admits to feeling unsettled, even a little sad and scared; wants to know if it’s just him or is there something off track between us. I don’t appreciate then how much I’ll come to appreciate a man who shares his worries and concerns. He says he can sense me being nervous around him, especially after everything blows up at his restaurant the night my college friends get a little out of control and insult him. He tells me up front how hurt he is that I didn’t come to his defense; not that he needed me to handle the situation, he needed me to pitch a loyalty flag. He then talks about how things between us have suddenly seemed forced and wants to know why. How can I possibly respond when I know everything he’s saying is spot on, but I have no answers; at least not the ones he expects.
“From then on there’s a weirdness when we’re together, but each time not only is it different, it’s more distant. As we approach our one-year anniversary he insists on knowing two things; first, if I feel the same right now as I did when we first connected. He’s brutally honest in saying his feelings increasingly grow stronger. He understands I’m under a lot of stress with school and that he in no way wants to add to it; says he hopes he doesn’t but worries he does. He asks me not to give up on us or the weirdness of a future accountant being with a cook whose passion is to become a chef. “
KYLE: “The year I rode the Paris-Roubaix there were seven in my group; the race is an individual effort to be sure, which means once things get rolling, we don’t ride together. It is, however, nice having mates along the road should anything go wrong, like getting a puncture in the Arenburg Trench, which happened to me about two-hundred meters in on my practice ride and Scotty, whose ironically from Scotland, stops to help me get a new tube in. Paris-Roubaix is a race of attrition and before we even start, one rider is killed in a crash after being hit by a car in London; then, two of his mates bail the following week. Hearing that story causes me to appreciate how lucky I am not only to have survived being hit by a car, but that I was able to return to training in time to properly prepare. With those three out, it means we’re now down to four before the first flag even drops.
“Two days out from the race start, me and the remaining group arrive in Roubaix to ride four of the thirty cobblestone sections. Scotty has done the race multiple times, and since it’s my first go at the cobbles, I lock onto his rear wheel each time we enter to a section to learn how best to navigate the tricky terrain. Cobblestone sections are rated 1-star to 5-stars depending on how treacherous and long they are. The first section in our pre-race training ride is 4-star, which for me, is truly baptism under fire. It’s impossible to describe how wicked the cobbles are; first, you bounce about so violently you literally can’t see; all you have is this vague notion of where you’re going but no clear vision of any obstacles that might need to be avoided, which leads to plowing through potholes and divots.
“I remember the advice Scotty gives before attacking the cobbles, “go as fast as I can mate,” he says with a patented sardonic Scottish grin, “no matter what happens, just keep peddling; nothing good happens if ever you stop.” With that he accelerates in the cobblestones unaware I’ll do whatever’s required to stay locked onto his rear tire; and me of course not knowing the hell that kind of fearless commitment requires. All I can say is that nothing I’ve ever done has so abused my entire body all at once; my legs feel as if the muscles are being torn from bone that’s bouncing around so much they ache; my shoulders and arms are numb within the first minute and I get a headache from slamming my brain about the inside of my head. Once we exit the first section and are back on smooth pavement, my internal organs feel as though they’ve been re-arranged; having internal organs trying to sort themselves out is a new and bizarre feeling.
“On the good news side, I keep pace with Scotty through each of our practice sections while the others fall far behind; plus, I feel I’m far from finished, which means my months of high mountain training are paying off. Of course, we only practice four out of the thirty cobblestone sectors, but still, there’s no longer worries I lack the strength or endurance to finish. Of course, there’s still the risk of getting caught up in crashes or having a mechanical, but those are outside my control so no sense in worrying.
“The goal is to keep to the center of the road as best as possible. It rained both days we practiced, and the stones get slippery like ice on glass when wet and my bike keeps sliding toward the shoulders no matter how much I try to hold a center line, which is dangerous because the shoulders are lined with soft mud that’ll cause a certain crash. It’s virtually impossible to keep from slipping around and if you don’t peddle properly, the back tire sputters about unable to gain traction. All you can really do is just keep peddling and hoping for the best. There’s one section of cobbles ending in a steep downhill with a sharp ninety degree turn at the bottom, a brutal piece that had its share of crashes on race day so I’m damn glad we had the chance to practice.
“Our last training ride was down the infamous Arenburg Trench; a two-and-a-half kilometer, five-star mass of uneven cobblestones representing the most brutal and treacherous part of the race. Last year they stopped counting broken bones carried out and locals still retell the tale of the guy who went over the top of his bike when his front tire punctured planting his face so hard on the cobbles, he busted all his teeth. On hearing that story, the boys and me agree on race day, we’ll text each other on the other side of the trench just to know who made it out. As one might imagine in a hundred- and six-mile race, there’s a lot of talk about nutrition and hydration, with everyone having a strategy sure to provide an edge. I’m no different, I did my share of research into how the body consumes energy and water during an endurance race, and how important both are to preventing muscle breakdown; the issue becomes how to consume enough food in seven hours to offset the six thousand calories your body requires to reach the velodrome.
“The fun part of hanging with Scotty and the remaining guys from England is that we go out for beers after our rides and while they of course speak English, I understand less than half of what they’re saying, which makes for some rather awkward moments. One of the boys has a girlfriend who owns a hotel and restaurant in the Pyrenees on the French side of the border. The way he’d talk about her and her efforts to establish a restaurant of farm-to-table cuisine reminds me of your fellow from the other side of the Pyrenees; so even I have a Barcelona connection, although it’s based on cuisine and not romance, but you see the link to what you’re saying right?”
ISABELLE: “His last words to me were “Everybody has a Barcelona, Isabelle, don’t you see that?” It’s uncomfortable the way those words still echo with reoccurring resonance on endless nights of regret; times when I can’t help but think he was wrong, maybe not across the board wrong, but not everyone is lucky enough to have a Barcelona. There’s a different reality for the rest of us, the horrible fact for me is that I “had a Barcelona,” but let it slip through my fingers for reasons that long ago stopped making sense.”
