A trip to the past today. It's important for me to do these journeys - to revisit my history. Some days I'm 10, today I'm 15. I'm hoping to learn lessons about how I gained strength then, and about weaknesses that haunt me still. One question is: How was I stronger before than I am now?

I was late catching the ferry to Bremerton. I want to blame it on poorly timed and too frequent traffic lights, but I know I could've started hours earlier. The 2:20 Chinook was just pulling away when I rolled up, leaving me to take the next available auto ferry. Consequently, I didn't arrive in Port Orchard until 4:30 and I had to catch the 6:15 back to Seattle. There would be no leisurely ride for me.

For the first time in a long time, I wore my headphones under my helmet. C89's Drive @ Five pumped in rhythm with my legs as I hurried to retrace the route I used to ride that summer long ago - that summer when I learned to like myself. The wheels spun smoothly and propelling them felt almost effortless for a long while. The music was loud in my head but it could not defeat the noise of air rushing by. I rode hard up that hill I used to have to walk, past the high school. The high school: where girls learn identity is defined by how men see them. The principal was getting into his car as I pedaled by. He looked at me and I was certainly unfamiliar to him.

On I sped, past the elementary school. I pulled off for a moment to ride around the playground. So small, and now it's been completely covered in gravel. They cut down a lot of trees too. A few of the remaining were ones I played in and around during my time there. They and the earth surrounding them looked exactly the same. I thought how children must use them in the same way year after year. I was so small then. I looked down at those tree trunks from the seat of my bike and thought how giant they were to me when I was six. All of the dangerous toys were gone: the tall metal slide I had to fall from to sprain my arm, and the monkey bars I could never master.

Almost to the highest point of the ride now, just needed to go up a little more and then down Salmonberry hill. But first I detoured onto the road passing in front of the house of the babysitter whose son kissed me once, and whose toilet never seemed to work. Among the large and terrifying memories from my early childhood are images of a toilet threatening to flood and carry me away in its thick brown sewage dotted with yellow corn kernels. Instead, the whirlpool would swell up to the rim and then slowly subside down to regular levels. Nothing ever seemed to disappear through the hole so that we balanced our little bare behinds over a cavern filled with all of our pureed shit. I hated that woman who walked funny from polio and who made me eat peanut butter sandwiches when I didn't like peanut butter. She insulted my shyness, making me feel defective because it was so hard for me to introduce myself to the other kids. Her name was Swan.

Down. The roads are flat or long downhill grades on the return to sea level and Beach Dr. Here is the part when I can settle into a comfortable pace, and into my fantasy world. Where the road rounds to the water's edge, I was greeted by reflected deep blues and bright, blinding whites. A dock was silhouetted in the foreground. Of course I thought of that boy on the sailboat whom I never saw again after that one time. It's better that way: I never had the opportunity to learn what an arrogant prick he was. I cultivated from the image of him in my mind a personality that was exactly what I wanted him to be; and it liberated me from my obsession with a boy who was, absolutely, cruel to me. It was a crucial step in discovering my own value.

There seemed to be a tailwind. I adhered to the smooth surface of the painted white line, pedaling hard. It's so beautiful there, and that's important too. It's impossible not to feel exhilaration in the presence of the blinding kinetic energy of a great body of water. I note boats and birds, the occasional pier, the shipyard off in the distance where even the biggest grey ships look small. Mountains watch over us all from the distance. Those same mountains I admire from Bluejack's roof, from that dramatic dip on Anderson Hill Road. All does seem right with the world and this, this is what makes me feel strong. Powered by my own strength gliding amongst such beauty, music fueling me. This thing I did - that I do - I've shared it with no one. It is exactly my own thing, my own experience. I feel whole when I'm active and immersed in the embrace of such rich, sweet perfection. The movement of my body is an undeniable indicator of life and presence; the music isolates me and I see myself alone on a smooth surface beside a cool living sea. It is what a Heaven must be like.

I finished early. At the Port Orchard ferry dock two kids were making out - practically eating each other alive. They saw me when I rode up, pausing to giggle a little and blush. They were so young, and so nerdy-looking I thought for sure this experience was new to them and probably why, despite the blushing, they decided my presence was not enough to elicit anything but a pause in the activity. They were the only interesting thing and I couldn't keep my attention away from them. I didn't want to stare, so I walked down onto the public dock area where I used to stop for a break during my rides. I carried two dollars in one of my shoes (a key in the other) that I would use to buy a coke and a candy bar at the nearby store. Down on the dock, where out-of-town boats pulled up for a visit, and where some people came to fish, I sat and stared off into the fluid path out of there. I remember this. My whole body recalls it when this close to the turmoil, sitting idle just above this immense swirling entity. It's lapping at the platform I'm on, inviting me to join it. The temptation of the unknown adventure is exciting and this is the moment when I feel most alive because exactly all of me has been called to participate. All systems go.

Camp counselor was right: "No wonder you're exercising so much. What else are you going to do with all that sexual energy."

Yes, what else would I do?

It's just like me to approach the surface of the water, watching the sparkling sunlight just barely touching waves that are disappearing into each other, but not have the courage to become a part of it. It's arms and legs rolling over and over and over to unknown depths. Moisture collecting just above the orgy looks so soft: I want to grab it and eat it, to lick it because I know it's just like the soft velour of bellies. I want to walk over to the edge releasing my grip on this land, falling in and letting my lover's open mouth drench me. The push and pull of soft currents in this vast basin. A relief of my face rises through an oval opening in the fluid surface. It is only the pocket of air in my chest keeping me here. Your air in my lungs. I like the idea of your breath sustaining me. I forgot I was the one who taught you that trick.