Three Little Hills

A few weeks ago, I drove over to our nearest forest preserve to go for a walk. Christine mocked me, somewhat rightly- it’s quite close and I have a bike, recently oiled and air-filled by the Bike Fairy, aka Doug. So maybe 3 weeks ago (ish) I set out to bicycle my way to Cabot Woods, only to immediately be confronted by my East Coast Nemesis: The Many Mountains of Newton.

Ok, they are more like hills. Possibly even inclines, if you grew up here. But if you grew up in a place where the only hill is Mount Trashmore, the filled over garbage dump, they all count as mountains.

There are three. Going towards the woods, there is the smallest and shortest hill, from the corner of Waverley to the park. Walking your bike through the park, you can get a break before the endless hill up Park St to Sargent, which starts gently and then gets ever steeper, thus making it the meanest. Luckily, it’s all downhill to the woods after that. Unluckily, you have to come home, and that lovely downhill stretch becomes the very formidable, steepest hill up Cabot.

In t he beginning, I had to walk up all three. It was deeply embarrassing when small children on tricycles would pass me, pedaling away. After a few rides I discovered that using my 3 gears was actually quite helpful, and that the biggest problem with the Waverley hill turned out to be that the sidewalk was too narrow and I kept crashing into the bushes. Once I started biking in the street it was a lot easier, and by the end of the week  could get up it no problem.

The other two hills I figured were “someday” fantasies, like maybe after I had biked the Tour de France I could do the Cabot hill. I did notice myself getting just a little further up Park St each time- just to that driveway! Just to that tree past the driveway!- but it is a looong hill.

Tuesday morning I biked to the high school, just past the woods, to hand out computers to families. With the two hour pause to hand out laptops, I ambitiously used third gear to head home, and made it a good way up the hill before switching to second. And then- I kept going! Up the hill! Around the bend! I switched to first. I was exhausted, but no way was I going to stop now, when I could see the stoplight! Going much, much slower than an elderly walker, I kept pedaling. And then! Centre Street! I’d made it! To the top of the hill! I got off my bike, panting. I waited for confetti cannons, applause, cars exuberantly honking. The SUVs drove by, oblivious.

Wednesday I was still tired and made it up only the first hill. Thursday I stayed home, exhausted. Friday I made bicycle deliveries of cookies and discovered new hills to walk up slowly.

But yesterday I set back out to the woods. I was determined, having conquered Cabot, that someday I would conquer the Park St hill, the only one left. At the bottom, I passed my student Tess and her mom, and had enough energy to smile and shout hello (but not to wave.) 3rd gear. I got slower. 2nd gear- past the driveway! First gear. Slower, slower, so slow turtles vaulted by in energetic glory, until- yes! The top! I’d biked to the top! I tumbled off my bike to my feet.

And then- applause!! Had I finally hallucinated my fan club?! I looked back- there was Tess and her mom, having watched the painfully slow music teacher pedal so excruciatingly up the hill, and they were clapping!

It seems almost anticlimactic to tell you I made it up the Cabot Hill again on the way home. I had done it! Forget the Triple crown! I had made it up all three mountains! SUCK IT, LANCE ARMSTRONG!

Today, needless to say, I can barely move. I might try to bike to the park (4 blocks) to sit and read. No hills.

But still. I did it. I’m like that tailor in the fairy tale. I need a belt. “Three in one blow!”

So if this is an Aesop’s fable, what is the moral? “If you move to the mountains, you better learn to ride them.”

Even if to everyone else, they’re just hills. Very, very small hills.