Monday, May 20, 2013

Defining a Word

Some words appear in my mind, burrow down, and tease me to seek out their reality.

This morning I read an article about Annie Londonderry. In the late 1890s, she set out to bicycle around the world. While she didn't quite succeed, she did don pantaloons, pedal her bike thousands of miles, ride trains, avail herself of boat rides, and accomplish a daunting journey-- albeit slightly different then first envisioned.

The word that came to mind --audacious. Her trip -- an audacious journey at a time when most women didn't set out on such risky ventures.

Audacious—the dictionary definition doesn't do it justice. I envision someone standing on a precipice, balancing on her toes, arms straight out as if she's ready to fly or swimming through a city street length underwater cave without any breathing apparatus as definitions for audacious—or trekking through Death Valley or the Gobi Dessert in sandals or chewing on risks as if they were gum drops.

This past December Juliana Buhring became the first woman to cycle round the world. She covered 18,000 miles in 152 days on her solo road trip. That's a journey worthy of being dubbed an audacious feat.

The U.K. Telegram notes that according to the Guinness Book of world records:

"The rules say that a rider must travel the same distance as the circumference of the Earth – 24,900 miles – in one direction, starting and finishing in the same place. Travel by sea and air is allowed, but at least 18,000 miles of the route must be cycled."

Before they release their stamp of an authentic global circumference they will, with due diligence, verify those cycled miles.

My audacious pursuits are less fraught with perils.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home