This feels familiar.  I’m in a new place, eager to describe my travels.  But my body has something else to say.

I woke up feeling constipated, so typical for me after a train or plane.  No big deal.  I took my Restoralax and opened the door to a new city.

Google Maps told me about a cool breakfast place and I followed my screen along ordinary streets complete with ordinary people.  There is something sweet and real about the plain.  I walked slowly.

My destination appeared:

Café Bauer in Oberhausen centrum.  I went inside to the warm.  The server had a big smile and a bit of English.  I had no German.  I pointed to something on the menu and he smiled again.

Turns out that my choice was a small banquet – meats, cheeses, fruit, croissant, baguette, jam …  I dug in, washing things down with a cappuccino.

And then, after the meal …

Oww!  Pain down below struck with a vengeance.  I headed to the bathroom but couldn’t poop.

Out the door to the street and a frantic pumping of the legs back to the Airbnb.  The pain demanded release.

I opened the apartment building door and climbed the stairs.  The day before the host had told me that I needed to turn the key to my unit twice to the left to get access.  In the moment, I forgot.  I did it once.

And there I stood, with the door open two inches and the key stuck in the lock.  I could see the bathroom door inside.

I yelled “Peter!” and he came running from the next apartment.

Two results were produced.

***

Exhausted, I lay down on the bed.  I moaned.  My eyes were closing in the midday hour.

I needed a consolation.  I fumbled with my phone until I found a podcast from the Rouleur magazine.  The writers are usually brilliant, capturing the soul of cycling.  Through the bleariness, I heard two men talking about the union of art and the bicycle.  Their words caressed my troubled mind.  Sleep came and went and came again.  Hours passed.

Eventually I went out into the world again … saw this and that, did this and that.

But the call of my bed brought me home once more