Reset

clawing my way out of the abyss

is a bit overly dramatic, and it's not like

the only place to go is up

because truly there are lower places, and

starting from square-one

invokes the award for cliché-usage, but damn-it

yesterday I didn't know what to wear for a 50-degree bicycle ride



-ob criminy, how can I not know?!?

Change of Season

we rode north trying to outrun autumn
with the warm wind behind us
up Wirth Parkway through the slanted September sun
hoping this time southern breezes would follow us
north
through the park
north
past the trails that hold fall mountain biking
and the smell of autumn colors
north
around the hill that's exhilarating on skis
north up Victory Parkway
coasting, spinning, until we reached the memorial
where we rested
and listened to the breeze
to the flags rippling
to the realization that breezes shift
and
we
turned
and started for home


- The Old fall isn't so bad Bag

And a Time....

We've said it over and over this fall:

Man, this is it. What a day!

I've got so much to do, but this is the last nice day of the season.

If we don't ride, we'll miss out on the last one

Gotta get out -- this'll be the last nice day of the year.

Well, the last day has been here and gone several times. It comes. It goes. It comes back again. It leaves. Temps high...low...high, low, highlowhighlowhighlow. Now, it's 45 drizzly degrees and it's mid-December.

Don't get me wrong. I had a wonderful Saturday of mountain biking. I bicycled my Sunday errands I rode to the mall? and it was like really cool?

And after I was finished, I hung everybody back up on their garage hooks, turned the padlock key, headed indoors and commenced to waitin'

waiTING

because I should be seeing white when I look out the window. The routine is that the warm-ups last for a day or two, then we get blasted with low temps and eventually snow. It's SUPPOSED to happen that way. By now, I should be shoveling the stuff out of the driveway at seven in the morning because of the overnight snowfall. I should be wiping the crud off the windshield because of the road slop and spatter. I should be able to ride to the grocery store without need of my headlight because in winter the brightness emanates from the ground.

Because all of that means it's ski season.

I love cycling...love the bike, love the freedom, love the opportunities it offers me. But to everything um, turnturnturn, there is a season turnturnturn.... Spring, summer, fall, and winter. In the first three ya ride. In the last one the bicycle gets a rest and ya ski. It's just what you do. So what's this thing we're in right now? Post-Autumn? Pre-winter? There's not a season called GrayBarrenDrabMiserableRainyExistence yet that's what has arrived.

- TOB yeah, and ho, ho, ho too

6:22 November 26th

Readying for Winter
St. Louis Park
46 degrees
- OB surprisingly OK with not bikin'

The One that Brings Me

The cooler nights, the sun setting earlier in the evening, the dull green on the trees.... I know what’s on its way all too soon: dark mornings, fuzzy tights and the furnace kicking-in. I’m outta sorts with this transition. It's bigger than going back to a new school year. Time moves. The cycle begins again.

The wheel has rolled to the position it was in once before, yet it's not in the same place: it’s moved that much farther along the map, and the scenery is just a bit different, and the road contact has removed one more layer of wear from the tread. Everything looks familiar but nothing is quite the same.

I'm wistful because I have the time to be so. In another few days life will be crazy with kids and teachers and helpme^helpmehelpme and will-I-live-to-see-the-end-of-this-day. I won't have time for WISTFUL.

And then will come the red leaves waiting for snow to fall while hunkered-down until spring before summer sets me free again. And too soon I'll be back in this spot, but in a different place.

The wheel rolls.

Stella is starting to stomp around the garage. She can smell change on the air. Autumn is her favorite season to haul through the woods, and her impatience is setting-in. I get it, but I haven’t hopped onto the saddle just yet.

Betty knows too. She’s ancy when I get home. She knows how to cajole without allowing me to wallow. ComeON. So, you're nostalgic. SO, you're tired. SO it's getting cooler. SO the sun is setting a bit earlier. Time passes nothing stays the same you're getting old and one day you won't be around anymore bla bla bla. Girl, we've got a headlight. Flashers are on. It’s not like you have to DO anything but pedal. Let's go let'sgolet'sgolet'sgo!



....and we can stop by the Dairy Queen....

!

She knows how to get my sorry backside outta the house.

- TOB