Jun 17, 2022 3 min read

Twice in the past few weeks a friend told me how hearing music from the Eagles band makes him feel young.

The Eagles, of course, are what we listened to in high school and college in the late ’70s and ’80s. Theirs were windows-down-driving-on-the highway songs, and it’s impossible for those of us from that time to hear that music without being tossed back there.

The first of the friends had been to an Eagles concert and said he felt young being there. Maybe that’s because most of the fans were 70-something or more, and by comparison, 62 felt almost adolescent.

Another friend texted that he’d heard the Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeling” on the radio, and that made him feel young. And I knew what he meant.

I have that song on my iPod. Almost every time I’m on a bike ride, it pops up at random from among the 200 tunes stored on there. It’s got a slowish beat, so it’s not a great pacing song for a workout, but it does evoke a time and a place. And yes, it makes me feel young.

That got me thinking about how people our age seem to be chasing that feeling of youth. Of all the stages in my life – early career, newlywed, young motherhood, empty nesting, late career success – 18 and 19 stand out as the most lively, and the most free.

Perhaps some women my age chase the feeling with cosmetic surgery. Others might date younger. Some travel; I’d be all for that because, really, is there anything so free as skipping out of town?

But for now, I think I’m chasing it every time I’m on my bike.

Last week a documentary I produced was screened at a theater in Frostburg, Md. Never one to pass up an opportunity to ride a trail, I put my bike on the car, drove the three hours to Maryland early, parked along the trail and pedaled up to the top of the mountain.

It’s not really much of a climb, just six or so miles of steady work. At the top, you exhale as you look out over a sweeping green view. Like the song says, it’s peaceful.

But man, the ride back down. Maybe you don’t appreciate the climb up there until you turn around and begin to coast.

It’s been said that riding a bike fast is as close as we can come to flying. That day, I flew down that hill, as young as I’ve ever been.

Was 18 the best year of my life? Not even close. All those days I lived between then and now held moments of joy that the most untethered windows-down road trip could never match. Those moments have always danced there in my memory, and they always will.

But geez, that feeling of soaring down the mountain, smashing in the high gears, two braids flying behind me in the wind. Passing the slower riders on the left. Counting the miles as they zipped by, the smell of honeysuckle everywhere.

That – all of it – is what young feels like. It feels like I’m 18 again and flying into the endless blue sky of the future. That is what young feels like at age 63. That’s what I’m chasing.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.