Continued from Part II.
Conclusion
Three weeks later, I’m recovering from ankle tendonitis and feeling very removed from the adventurer who found exhilaration, wonder, and the generosity of strangers on the road. Who endured fatigue and self-doubt on dark lonely highways.
Yet, I can recover each day in sparkling detail. I can’t say that about last week, or even yesterday. Writing about mountaineering in Wanderlust, Rebecca Solnit declares that she is fascinated by the “tension between history and experience, between aspiration, memory, and the moment.” Similarly, when reflecting on my embodiment as a long distance bicyclist, I feel both apprehension and yearning. I find there are parts of myself brushed aside, receded into the spaces between the planning, pursuit, and memorializing of feats.
Back to life then, until the next adventure.
Flaming Bike 
insightful, especially the last bit. Can’t say I “understand,” but it is a peek into your experience for those of us who don’t quite and cannot ever understand the particular being that you embody, embodied, will embody. And yet there is that commonality, if only in the apprehension/longing for what we were and can be. And how to reconcile it all. And if we should even try.
Rachel, yes try try try! Until convincing proof of reincarnation, might as well try to live as much life in this one as possible!