I have no idea what happened there. One day I was packing my stuff for The Rally and having a minor anxiety attack and then a lot of things happened really quickly and I just kept packing and unpacking until just now when I was I was sitting down to do the meal plan for the week and thinking “someone should really clean this pit of a house” and I wrote the date at the top and was stunned. September? How is it September? Can anyone tell me what the H E double hockey sticks happened to half of August? I remember dashing from one thing to the next, I remember being happy… and the house is thoroughly trashed with a camp stove in the kitchen, and if I flip through the photos on my phone I think I can piece it all together- but before I tell you anything else, I want to tell you the story of the Rally.

Leading up to the thing I was a ball of anxiety, but I was playing it cool. (Here, if the blog had volume you’d be able to hear my friends and family laughing uproariously at the idea that I’ve ever been able to mask even three seconds of anxiety but it doesn’t so whatever.) Setting aside concerns about a surge or a variant making it hard to hold the event at all, the realities of the Rally taking place during the seventh wave of this thing made everything a little harder. I was anxious about training, anxious about fundraising, and it wasn’t just me. As a group, Team Knit was, as I said last time I posted, undertrained, underprepared, and kinda freaked out. The first Rally back in three years and while we were all looking forward to being together, to seeing people we hadn’t seen in years, to shaking off a little of the inertia that’s been over all of us like a blanket, complexity was everywhere and I know we were all hoping the pandemic would be a little more over before we gave it a go. Our gallop towards a glorious return was more like a limp.

Then, seven weeks before the Rally, Cam got Covid. At first it seemed like it might just interrupt his training (or delay starting it, more like) but Cam’s a strong healthy guy (also vaxxed to the maxx) who rides his bike most days. He could squeak by. I’ll spare you any details of his illness – all you need to know is that he was still feeling horrible at the five week mark, and when it came to riding, he simply could not. Two weeks before the rally a 20 minute bike ride left him flattened and feeling like he might perish entirely. A week before every time he tried the same thing happened and I suppose that’s when we all started wondering if he’d be able to do it at all. If you can’t make it to the corner, can you make it to Montreal? He mentioned switching to crew – and then we talked about not trying anymore. Giving up on training. Almost no training can happen in a week, we hypothesized, but a lot of healing could, if he really leaned into resting. (Like me, resting is not Cameron’s best thing, but he did have viral help.) When the day of the Rally came, he’d get on his bike and… try? Fake it till you make it, we said. Cam rested. We all crossed fingers and toes and knitting needles.

At departure nobody said anything about it. We hugged and were all so glad to see each other and we were so thrilled to be able to see people we hadn’t seen in years, and even though Ken had only been gone a little over a week I was so delighted to see him, and I was proud of Pato for committing to turning up at all. (Pato remains young, and has super limited time off work, he was able to join us for the first day only.) We got on our bikes and rode. It was hot.

No – wait. That’s an understatement. It was unbelievably hot. It was so hot that I ran out of words to describe the heat and resorted to simple swearing. There was a humidex of 42 degrees (that’s 107F for our American friends) and I don’t think I’ve ever come closer to melting. There were moments that I really wasn’t sure any of us would make it – never mind Cam, but every time I looked around – all of Team Knit was still present and accounted for.

We made it into camp- a meadow atop a cliff overlooking the lake, and (after getting cleaned up) we took this picture and suddenly I felt the anxiety begin to wash away. Cam was fine. Well, he was stupid tired but he was there and mostly upright – and I started to think he might make it through the next day, and Pato and Ken were fine and somehow I was fine and for a little while, just a few minutes, it felt like the before times. It felt like the rally.

The next day definitely felt like the rally. It was the longest day of riding and helplessly and as per tradition, I had a bit of a weep at lunch. That day is exhausting. It’s 125km (that’s about 78 miles) and if any part of it is a long, dark, tea-time of the soul for me it is that day. I find Day Two so hard that when I am finished it I feel like the rally is “mostly done” even though there’s four days of hard riding ahead. Through the middle part of the day I’m always suffering enough that it takes some strategies to get through. After a few years of less than joyful Day Two’s – I’ve convinced myself it is a good time to purposefully practice gratitude and reflect on my good luck. (I used to practice foul language and reflect on how much my arse hurts but it’s much better this way.) I think on the privilege of being able to raise money this way, on being lucky enough to have a network of knitters who care to help me change things that need changing and help people who need helping. I take good looks at the people around me and consider how wonderful the world is that there are this many people in it who just want to make things better and are willing to sweat for it. I listen for dings on my phone and think about how much I think you are all spectacular people. I stop at every break. I tell my friends I love them and I think they’re great. I try to tell some strangers too.

For the life of me I don’t know why I’m laughing here, but it’s a better day two picture than me crying in the port-o-let.

It takes the edge off. (Also it was hot that day too.)

The third day I reflected on how I’m pretty sure Brandon and Barrett just like taking this picture so they feel tall.

Yes, I am standing. I look more normal sized in this one. I should stand on more tables.

The fourth day Team Knit proudly wore their Top Fundraiser jerseys and we loved the daylights out of all of you. Evey person who helped us stand there – we don’t feel like we raise money at all, but that we’re just lucky that knitters are such powerhouses. (We also enjoy the look on other riders faces when we tell them that knitting is our secret weapon, and knitters our force.) The astute among you will notice that Cam is still upright and even looks pretty good, Long-ish-Covid be damned.

The fifth day I took almost no pictures, except for this terrible picture of a very happy Cameron.

He is happy because this day, he was first into camp. Every year on day five, Cam goes flat out, a little test of his riding daring-do. I had no idea if he’d manage this year or even try but he did, and was first and was so delighted with himself that it was almost obnoxious. (To protect himself from any feelings anyone might have about this prowess Cam set up everyone’s tent before we got there. The whole team. Sixteen tents. He’s got great instincts.)

Day six – the last day, Day six we rode into Montréal, and I cried.

I cried because I was glad it was over and exhausted. I cried out of relief that I was done, but mostly I cried because the whole time I’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop and it turned out somehow that there wasn’t another shoe at all.

Usually I tell you what theme revealed itself to me during the ride. There always is one. Some years it’s about friendship, or finding strength you didn’t know you had, or learning how to rely on myself a little more, or the satisfaction of accomplishing something so enormous… for the last two years it’s had a lot to do with compromise, of doing the best you can despite things not working out, learning somehow to (somewhat) cheerfully make the most of a crappy situation over and over and over again. This years theme was more subtle, but I’ve found it to be achingly beautiful in the context of what we’ve all been through and I know I talked a lot about Cam, but that’s because he was a metaphor for the whole amazing realization:

Sometimes things work out, and maybe things are getting better.

There is no doubt we’re still in a pandemic, there was evidence of that throughout – people who missed the ride because they didn’t get better and still had long covid, some people caught covid right before and couldn’t come, and there were vulnerable people who couldn’t take the risk of coming at all, and I know that they probably aren’t feeling as reassured as I am that things are getting better. I know that there are still thousands of people dying of covid in the world every day… I know that 400 Americans died today – and yesterday, and every day of the Rally and I am quite sure their families don’t feel my renewed sense of optimism, and I’m so sorry for them. I’m not saying this is over, or that I won’t keep doing my best not to get covid so I can’t give it, but I am saying that for six days we rode our bikes, we funded PWA for another year with our efforts and your amazing donations, and despite its best efforts, covid didn’t stop us.

After two and half years of cancellations and sadness and grief and disappointment and worrying about what might happen to the clients at PWA if we couldn’t find a way through all this… it worked out, and things were better, and that was our amazing theme.

From the bottom of all our hearts, thank you for helping us hold on. Cam would set up your tent if he was there.