Mahito Forever

This was a stormy drive back up to Monterey. I took the 1 and listened to Sinatra all the way up. I got to Mahito’s after dark, opened a bottle of wine and hopped in the hot tub. The next morning would become one of my fondest memories. It was a beautiful, cold, clear Monterey day and Mahito wanted to go for a bike ride. He gave me a helmet and one of his leather jackets, so big it enveloped me. It smelled like him too. I was so scared, the first ten minutes or so I was digging my fingernails into his stomach as we rode off campus and down Reservation Road. At the last turn off before the windy bit,he pulled over and asked if I wanted to keep going. I was going to have to lean into the curves a bit more if we did and I was going to have to trust him because he was pretty sure his stomach was bleeding. He bonked my helmet and told me not to worry about it, but we needed to decide what we were going to do. I wanted to keep going. We did, and oh my goodness once I stopped stressing out, I felt so free. We passed a cop and then for the next few miles tapped our helmets to signal other riders who may come up on it too quickly. We stopped at a grocery for lunch and I got a ginger ale. My stomach was just a little upside down. Mahito massaged out my shoulders and laughed at me again for holding on too tightly. And then, we were on our way again. I feel so blessed to have spent an afternoon with Mahito doing what he loved and tonight’s rain just reminded me of it 🙂