Lights Pierce the Blackness of Boulder Creek

Speeding down the dark path, I followed the pair of tiny red lights in front of me as they bobbed around like fireflies, weaving through the constantly shifting shadows of tree trunks that were lit only by the peripheral glow of our headlamps. The sound of my tires on the concrete and the rotation of the spokes filled my ears in a constant whoosh.

East of Broadway, and the park there with the little bandshell, the bike path closely followed the creek, looping behind the high school, going along the base of the Hill, and eventually under Folsom Street.

I pedaled furiously in bursts, then coasted over for long stretches until I was almost parallel to them on the path. Then I let myself fall behind again until I needed to resume pedaling. It was a fun way to glide without effort over the little dives and dips along the creek, and also allowed me to modulate my brakes better when I needed.

My leg muscles had initially gotten sore during the first leg of the night's Odyssey, along South Boulder Creek to Table Mesa Drive. But surprisingly I'd been able to resume a good form of pedaling by the middle of the evening. I could tell that my thighs would be in decent condition the next day, not sore from too much overexertion. Still it was a gentle warning about the state of my fitness for what we were all about to do.

I was using a bike Okki lent me from his shed. The brakes of the borrowed bike squealed loudly each time I applied them even modestly, which was sporadic along the gentle stretches, but nearly constant in the tight curves when the path went under a street bridge.

After ten minutes they glided to a halt at a spur of the trail that went up to 30th Street. I coasted up the incline to come to a halt beside them on the sidewalk by the bridge.

Actually we couldn't see any street signs there, but Okki thought it was defiinitely 30th Street. Ash wanted to make sure, since he was the one peeling off the path here, to find his way back home to his apartment just off Tantra Drive, where he lives with his two teenage daughters. Not a single car came by the whole time we stood there on our bikes.

Finally when Okki, using the map on his iPhone, had satisfied Ash that indeed this was 30th Street, and he should turn right to find his way home, Ash swiveled his bike along the sidewalk to head south. Just before he set himself into motion, he leaned over to me one last time, his headlamp pointed right at me, offering me his outstretched handshake in friendship, almost ceremonially.

"See you at Burning Man, mate" he said to me, in his Manchester accent. I shook his hand.

Then he pedaled off up the hill to the south.

It was still a couple miles back to Okki's place. He put on his head phones to listen to music on his iPhone as he rode.

 "For the last year, it's all been about the Thievery Corporation," he had said. But he'd recently switched to listening to Massive Attack.

I followed him in the dark again along the creek, my guidance now reduced to a single red tail light, trailing him as closely as safety would allow. Several times we came upon sharp curves quite suddenly in the dark, and I found myself having to apply my brakes hard, making them shriek like wild animals in the night.

Alter Ego #3

We were both relieved to finally make it back to his mobile home trailer at the end of Valmont Road. It had been a long day. We went out to the deck in back of his trailer with cold cans of Coca Cola. Okki lit the tiki torch jar on the table and then also lit an American Spirit cigarette. I drank my Coke quickly. All that bicycling, all over Boulder, and mostly after dark, had made me very thirsty.

We listened to crickets in the trees along the dark creek bed just below us.. The bike path here cuts away from the creek towards the east.  On the other side of the creek is a large field.

Okki childed me for having been so silent for most of the night. I had to tell him that I get in those kinds of introspective places, especially late at night in busy social circumstances. I call it my "Harpo Marx Mode," when, out of fatigue, I seem to lose my voice but still have an energy of communication in silent funny gestures.

Downtown on 19th Street, while we were all sitting at a well-lit table next to the bar, Okki had seen me leaning over the table, bending at the middle as if doing a torso stretch. I was restless and kept stretching that way with variations of pose.

He mimicked a bullying police officer rudely interrogating me over behavior. His heavy Swedish accent made the his attempt at an authoritarian drawl especially comical.

"What are you doing, son, acting in that strange funny way?" he said.

I glared at him with red-hot coal eyes. "I'm a professional dancer," I said, indignantly. "I must constantly be warming up!"

"Oooh, that's good," he said, turning to Ash.

Now, having reached our destination and no longer requiring a reserve of any to get home on my bicycle, my voice somewhat recovered. 

Okki likes to ask offbeat questions. Sitting on the back deck, he asked, "So, Matt, could you, if you had to, summarize your entire day in one minute or less?"

I took his question as a challenge, and launched into a quick improvisational spiel. He timed me with his watch.

"I woke up in Fort Collins, walked over and picked up my rental car, drove down to Boulder, and then met up with you and Ash here.

"Then we made a tour of the thrift shops all over South Boulder. We bought a bunch of items for Burning Man, including scarves, hats, belts, vests, and various furnishings for the yurt you are going to build, including a lot of cool pillows. We made a bunch of women there laugh thinking we were cross dressers.

"Then we had some awesome empenadas at an Argentinian food place on Arapaho.

"Then we stopped at a liquor store, got some beer and booze, and came back and drank for a while out here on the patio.

"Then we all got on our bikes and rode in the twilight to south Boulder. We went to a Czech wedding reception near Table Mesa with some people that you know. We sat around a camp fire. We did some shots of some Eastern European liquor out of paper cups and said na zdravi. I ate some of the leftover wedding cake. I asked Ash if he knew who the bride was and he said he had no idea.

"Then we got on our bikes again and followed a Czech guy all the way downtown to Pearl Street. We had beers at a couple places. We saw a live band at the first place, and a DJ at the second. "

"Then we got gyros at a late night food stand on Pearl Street. Then we find our bikes again and rode home..."

"Ding! Ding! Ding!" he said.

Later, Okki returned to one his favorite themes---his views about the way to achieve happiness. He is one of the most sanguiine people I know.  I have to convince him at times that I too am happy, in my own way, although I may not look like it at times.

He repeated one of his favorite personal creeds: "If you want to be happy, it all comes down to making a decision that you are going to be happy," he said. "I truly believe it is just as simple as that---making a decision to be happy."