Muses

Rashida, a bike and the turtle.

Rain drops trickled from the sky last Friday midday.

Sitting outside on the porch with a tomato sandwich and book, a voice called to my right. Or it might have been a voice, I wasn’t sure. In the middle of two of my favorite pastimes, I figured if someone wanted my attention, they’d make it clear.

Hearing the voice again, I looked up to see a woman on a bike.

The rider stood stride a mountain-type bike outfitted with two large red all-weather storage satchels off her seat on either side of her rear tire.

Standing face-to-face in the light rain, I thought she wanted to know where Dixie Highway was. That was an easy fix.

But the more we talked, she had just come from Dixie Highway and needed help getting to . . .

get this.

South Carolina.

Suddenly, this became quite interesting.

She was the sweeper for a cycling group headed to the South Carolina coast. They started their journey on the west side of Atlanta. After spending last night at Hard Labor Creek (a park 10 miles from me), this leg of their journey took them to Hamburg Park in Mitchell, Georgia.

Taking out a sheet with her directions, the paper so damp it disintegrated in her hands. The extended downpour had separated her from the group but she had communicated with them by text.

Oh. And her phone was now dead.

I offered a portable charger from some conference SWAG bag. She laughed that it wouldn’t help, saying that she calls herself analog her phone is so old.

With no GPS, a disintegrating directional sheet, no phone, no idea where to go, I offered to get my bike and show her another way to Bethany Road through town.

* * *

I dashed back home through the raindrops filled with a since of urgency. I had a mission! A purpose!

Grabbing my bike, shoes, helmet, I trotted back up to the corner relieved to see my friend still waiting.

“Oh wow, you got a bike,” she said after seeing my road bike.

“Yes. She’s 10 years old. My midlife crisis.”

She laughed saying that she will be 40 in a few months, “Maybe that’s what this is?”

How was this woman going to get to Mitchell, Georgia in the rain by herself?

Riding along in the rain, I started a little small talk.

“What do you do?” I ventured.

“I’m in the energy conservation field. I work in San Fransisco with the . . ”

“YOU LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO?”

My new friend riding a bike in the rain through the Georgia country side, lagging far behind a group heading to Mitchell, Georgia was not from Atlanta but from California. She worked installing energy effiencent lighting. She had gone to graduate school to study carpentry. Bad timing on that, she laughed with a little sigh.?

I learned that she was born in Memphis and lived all over the south and had been in San Francisco 10 years. And her 40th birthday in a few months would be spent climbing Machu Picchu.

When we got up to the highway she was to cross to get on Bethany, we dismounted.

Remembering she had no phone and disintegrating directions I said, “You need my phone number. Please call if you need anything.”

She began sorting through her packs for a paper and pen.

And pulled out a turtle.

“A turtle, NO WAY. I love turtles!” I told about me being the turtle wrangler and pulled up my twitter background.

“This is magical!” Rashida exclaimed.

Yes. Somewhere in the searching for paper, the writing of my number, squealing over shared love of turtles, we exchanged names.

So after I googled Mitchell, Georgia and found out it was an hour by car (three or four by bike she thought), Rashida packed up her turtle and road away.