When I was 19 years old I dropped out of college.  A few months later I moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand with the intention of volunteering in an orphanage for HIV children.  I remember calling my mother from a payphone half way across the world and asking her, “What if I can’t do this?”  The fact that I was literally moving across the world to a country I’d never been to finally hit me.  It wasn’t just a fantasy anymore.  It had been years since I’d asked myself that question, but a few months before I left my home in San Francisco for St. Louis, I began to ask myself the same thing:  “What if I can’t do this?”  It was as if I was standing in that phone booth all over again, terrified of what lay ahead of me.

The first few months I lived in Chiang Mai, I rode a yellow bicycle everywhere.  It had been years since I’d ridden a bike, but in Chiang Mai it was my only means of transportation so I got “back in the saddle” so to speak.  I can distinctly remember the first thing I did on that bike:  I rode it less than half a mile down a major road – the Chiang Mai-Lamphun Road – to a “western” grocery store, bought peanut butter…and jelly…and bread, rode home and promptly made myself a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.  (Hilarious, right?)  That yellow bike had to be at least twenty years old.  Half the paint was chipping off and one of the wheels seemed to “miss” every single pedal stroke.  But I got used to it.  Eventually I didn’t notice.  I rode that bike to the orphanage every morning at six, down the Chiang-Mai Lamphun road, underneath a canopy of gorgeous “yang na” trees.  I can still remember the smell of burning trash on the side of the road in the morning and the sound of roosters.  The orphanage was in a neighborhood and just as I turned off the main road, there was always a pack of feral dogs waiting to “greet” me.  I remember the first time I rode past them.  I almost fell off my bike!  That’s how I learned that dogs “speak Thai” too and someone coached me how to yell at them in Thai.  I rode that bike all over Chiang Mai.  I’d get lost on purpose and force myself to ask for directions in Thai and figure out how to get home.  My Danish friend Hanne and I found a bicycle with a “passenger seat” on it and we’d ride to the orphanage together, with her on the back.  In the midst of all the hard days we had working with children who were often sick (and often died), riding bikes made us laugh.  It made us feel like children again.  It made us feel free.  I have no idea what happened to that yellow bike after I stopped riding it.  I have only a single picture of it.  In fact, I had completely forgotten about that yellow bike until last week…while riding a different yellow bike here in St. Louis.

A few months ago I asked a friend of mine how I could become a faster cyclist.  “Buy a fixie,” he said (as if to say “duh”).  “A fixie” – for you non-cyclists – is a fixed gear bike, a bike with ONE gear.  That means as you approach the hills there are no small gears to shift into.  It’s all legs.  When I moved to St. Louis – mortified by the lack of hills to climb – I decided to bite the bullet and buy a “fixie”.  I figured it was my only hope if I wanted to keep up with my friends.  It’s a cheap bike.  Some people might call it “a piece of crap”.  I actually have no idea who made the frame.  I bought it from a local recycled bike shop for…cheap (remember, I’m a student!).  I ride that bike everywhere.  And you know what?  It’s working!  It’s keeping me in shape and just like my yellow bike in Chiang Mai, it gets me where I need to go.  I ride that bike after it has snowed.  I ride that bike when it’s windy and when it’s 30 degrees outside.  Training for AIDS/Lifecycle for me this year is far more than training to ride 545 miles.  Riding that yellow bike is a kind of training of my soul.  I still haven’t found a new cycling family here in St. Louis.  There are no ocean views, no mountain peaks, and as far as I can tell we have an arch, a couple of rivers, and a lot of … “riverfront industry”.  (I did come across a rather picturesque riverfront view of a junkyard on one ride.)  But I realized last week – when I remembered my old yellow bike – that this year, riding is an exploration of myself.  Knowing that come June I will join hundreds of other dedicated cyclists in an amazing demonstration of support and fundraising for people infected and affected by HIV keeps me pedaling.

You know the problem with writing things down…they can come back to haunt you later!  While logging into my fundraising participant center for AIDS/Lifecycle last night, I came across words I wrote in a message after last year’s ride:  Always Forward.  This was the title of the last e-mail my grandmother sent me before she passed away a few years ago and these words came back to me inside an old Catholic mission in Central CA on rainy Day Two (110 miles!) of last year’s ride.

Training this year has been remarkably different than last year’s training.  My training has consisted of many much shorter rides when I can squeeze them in, between snow storms, hail storms, nursing school storms, tornados, lightening, and thunder.  After four months here, I’ve decided that the weather in Missouri is Mother Nature’s version of mental illness.  I’ve learned to get on my bike when the skies are clear because they may not be clear in an hour.  I haven’t been able to spend the number of hours on the bike that I would like to, but I have learned to appreciate the miles I’ve been able to put in.  Training hasn’t always felt good – and neither has living in Missouri! – but I keep moving forward.

I deeply appreciate the support that each of you has provided me in the months leading up to the ride.  “A Donation Was Made on Your Behalf” e-mails and messages of support are often the highlight of my day.  AIDS/Lifecycle has always reminded me how interconnected we all are, how much we depend on each other, and how much we can impact each other’s experiences.  The San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center provide invaluable services to some of our most marginalized fellow citizens.  As I’ve said many times before, AIDS/Lifecycle is much more than a bike ride.  It’s a community.  And you are a part of that community.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping us get this far!  Love, Alic alic.shook@gmail.com

Past Student of St. James, Perris, where our Sisters of Mercy served for many years: US Province — monthly donor to Mercy Retirement Fund. Alic has given permission to share these reflections.

US Province