Ten Weeks Later, I Was Back on the Bike

It's been about ten weeks since my surgery, which apparently was enough time for me to start bugging Jay about taking me on a motorbike ride again.

My doctor never actually told me I couldn't ride. The restrictions I remember were mostly about lifting heavy things and doing core exercises, but considering I'd just had major abdominal surgery, hopping back onto a motorbike didn't seem like something I needed to rush. So, naturally, I Googled it.

My Googling kept turning up the usual six-to-eight-week territory, and since I'd already gone beyond that, I figured I had behaved long enough. I felt fine, I was moving around normally again, and most importantly, I had reached the point where I was getting bored of being careful.

Poor Jay eventually gave in.

Yesterday, we went on a breakfast ride to Indang, with Tree Top Cafe as our destination. And just to make something very clear: when I say ride, I don't mean I was operating the motorbike. I was the back ride. My responsibilities consisted mostly of sitting there, enjoying the scenery, and holding on to my husband as though letting go would result in my immediate departure from the motorcycle.

I'm not exactly a fearless back rider. I see people sitting behind motorcycles casually taking videos, checking their phones, and doing whatever else people apparently do when they aren't concerned about falling off a moving vehicle. I can't relate. Most of the time, at least one of my hands needs to be attached to Jay for my own peace of mind.

So when we missed a turn and ended up taking a slightly longer route, we passed a few batis in Indang. Did I take a picture? Of course not.

Taking a picture would require removing a hand from my husband, and apparently preserving photographic memories is less important to me than preserving my life.

The accidental detour was worth it anyway, even with the heat. We're supposed to be getting closer to amihan season, but the sun apparently had other plans. It was unforgiving, and there is something particularly offensive about being blasted by hot air while riding a motorbike. You expect the moving air to help. Instead, congratulations, you're in a convection oven.

Eventually, we made it to Tree Top Cafe.

From the outside, it wasn't anything grand. At first glance, it looked a little like someone's home that eventually decided it might as well become a café. But there were these tall, sturdy trees surrounding the place, and they'd built a dining area higher up among them. Hence, Tree Top. Simple enough.

Their menu, however, apparently refused to choose a nationality. There was biryani, shawarma, silog meals, nachos, quesadillas, cheesecake, and of course, coffee. It's the kind of menu where you can arrive with several people craving completely different things and probably find something for everybody.

We had coffee because obviously. I ordered salted caramel, which was okay, although there was a certain coffee taste I was looking for that I didn't quite get. We also ordered overloaded nachos, and overloaded was apparently not being used for marketing purposes only.

I was already getting full from the appetizer. Which was unfortunate because we'd also ordered biryani.

Chicken for me, beef for Jay, and the serving that arrived in front of me looked capable of feeding approximately three of me. This may partly be because I don't eat that much in one sitting, but between the nachos and the biryani, breakfast had escalated quickly.

We also had cheesecake, which arrived a little too early and had softened by the time we were actually ready to eat it. Still cheesecake, though. We weren't going to waste it over a minor structural problem.

And somewhere between all that food, we took the obligatory photo proving that yes, I had finally managed to leave the house on a motorbike again.

I think that's really what made the morning special for me. Not because it was some huge post-surgery milestone or because we'd gone somewhere particularly far or fancy. It was just one of those ordinary things I hadn't done since before July 18.

Ten weeks ago, getting out of bed required planning. Sneezing terrified me. Laughing hurt. For weeks, progress meant being able to move a little more normally than I did the week before.

Then suddenly, I was sitting behind my husband on a motorbike again, complaining about the heat, getting lost, eating too much, and seeing places I was apparently too scared to photograph. Normal.

It's funny how quickly we stop appreciating normal until something temporarily takes it away. Before surgery, a breakfast ride with Jay was just something we did from time to time. After surgery, apparently I had to annoy him into taking me again because I missed it.

Maybe that's one of the little things recovery has given me: a renewed appreciation for the ordinary things I didn't realize I'd miss.

Nothing profound happened that morning. We rode. We got a little lost. We ate far too much for breakfast. We had coffee. We went home.

And I got to hold on to my husband a little tighter than usual. For safety reasons, obviously. Or maybe it was a little romantic, too.