a currency of gifts
A few months ago, when preparing for our ill-fated fleche, our team met for dinner at Redbones in Davis Square. There, amidst plates of ribs and pints of Guinness, we talked about bikes, riding and collective insanity. One of my teammates, K, had been to Paris and was hoping to go back. He told us this story about how, on his way out of Fougeres, he was pushing the very limits of his sleep deprivation and finally, in the darkest Breton night, gave in and pulled into a little village to find a place to nap. A villager found him and opened up his barn. There, K spent a couple of blissful hours resting, and when he woke and was about to depart, he asked his host if there was something he could to repay the hospitality. The fellow wouldn't take money and instead pointed him to a wall of postcards and just said,
"Send me one when you return to your own home."
That was when I knew, in the deepest part of my heart, that I wanted to do this ride.
I had arrived in Fougeres on late Thursday afternoon, a little before 4:30. A little less than 24 hours was left in the ride, but I had less than 200 miles to travel. Somehow, a seed was planted in my mind that, as much as I enjoyed Julie's ham sandwiches, I needed to sit down in a restaurant and eat something warm. I didn't want to deal with the controle cafeteria and instead told Julie and Bruce that I'd just find a restaurant somewhere along the way. Bruce was getting a meal in the van and would just catch up, but he said that he'd be running slow because 500 miles on the road was starting to catch up to him.
I stopped at one more patisserie ('ooh ... clafoutis with apricots? well, sure, why not?') but my search for a restaurant didn't yield anything promising and before I knew it, I was beyond the city limits and in the midst of empty countryside. I stopped at a boulangerie in the village of Laignelet, but it was already past 5pm and the fellow was closing up shop. Still, he told me in French, if you go on to Gorron, you will find something there.
Not sure what that something was, I headed onwards, and 12km later, I rode through Gorron and found, by the roadside a matronly woman manning a small table with her daughter. They had a table with coffee, water and homemade sponge cake. The cake was tasty, and the coffee was instant but at least it was warm. There was also a sign behind them offering up their stone shed as a dormitory and I asked them if they were serious about letting people sleep there, and the woman nodded and pointed at a small album; an album filled with postcards.
As we've grown to be so accustomed to turning everything into a commercial exchange, there is something really precious about moments when people revert to the currency of gift, gesture and favors. There are, as the commerical says, some things that money can't buy, and it's of course, no coincidence that those things are the ones that we come to treasure most. I think that the thing that I found most touching about this whole business was not that the family were willing to offer all of this without taking any money for it, but that they had been out here, in the rain, for two days, and as long as riders were out on the road, doing whatever they can to keep up our spirits up. And all they wanted from it was a postcard.
I had climbed hills in the middle of a dark forest at 2 in the morning, and listened to a teenage voice at the top of the rise yelling to us, "you are almost there! Go! Go! A street light is on the other side of the hill and it will be dark no longer! You can do it!" I rode past hamlets with ten houses that lined the streets and seen five families clustered in the wind and the rain, cheering us on. I saw a man in a wheelchair, with a bicycle helmet on his lap, clapping for every person who rode by. And I distributed an innumerable number of high-fives to a never ending supply of children, who lined the road and would hold their hand up as I went past.
I looked through the postcards in the woman's album, but didn't see K's name in there and while the family offered me the place to sleep, I told them that I was sorry, but I was hoping to make it to Villaines before it got too dark. Bidding them adieu, I pushed on, but then stopped scarcely 5 km. later at a creperie where a husband and wife were making crepes filled with raspberry jam. I still had not seen Bruce yet, and figured that I could hang out for a while until he showed up. Jake rolled up and I waved him down, and convinced him to have a crepe, but his knee was hurting and he needed to keep moving, so he didn't stay long. A cluster of Canadians and Germans were there as well, and while I admired the Canadian PBP jersey, they said that unfortunately the jerseys themselves were in short supply, but that as an expat, I was more than welcome to sign on to the listserv and remind the admin to get more printed up. But, they said, you'd best come home and ride around BC for a while before you wear it. There's always some new incentive.
The creperie, like the family before them, wouldn't take any cash for their services either, and instead pointed out their own collection, posted next to their restaurant and pointed me to a bowl with slips of paper with their name and address on it.
It was as I was tucking that slip of paper into my saddlebag and getting ready to go, that I could hear my cell phone ring. Picking it up, I got a weak signal and heard the quiet voice of silentq telling me that she had arrived in the apartment in Paris and that she'd be seeing me tomorrow. It had been a week since I saw her last, and two and a half days since I heard her voice, and suddenly I felt this immense surge of sentiment swell within me. I wanted to see her again, wanted to share everything that I'd seen, but instead we resolved to have me call her when I arrived at Dreux, the final control before the end, to let her know when to get on the train and meet me in St. Quentin.
So, then with that, I got back on my bike and rode in to Villaines, arriving just after 11pm. Atrocious time, but still, in my mind, time well spent.