8972

today is a day to gaze upon the world in wonder. to be awed by the incredible beauty, and by the forces of nature which brought that beauty to us.
trees along my path today are bending deeply under the weight of the towering inches of snow their branches support. trees of smaller girth and reach are bent to two-thirds their normal height, while the oldest trees that reach sixty feet skyward have shed branches and limbs onto the lawns of my street. nature has a funny way of breaking what does not bend... *
I knocked snow from my aspen this morning, watching them rise a few feet higher without such great burdens.
ah-ha.
do we, too, rise when we are unburdened? are we, like trees and shrubs and lilies, saved from breaking when we learn to bend?
and why is it so difficult to bend?

my ride last wednesday took my odometer to 8972. I am a measly 28 miles short of the big number. a week ago I thought I could do it before the month ended, and today I am clinging perhaps a little bit desperately to that hope. more snow tomorrow, they predict, and then a dry spell for perhaps a week. saturday's temperature is supposed to reach 40 . . . with only partly cloudy skies . . .
last january I didn't ride outside at all. this january, I have leaped upon almost every opportunity that has presented itself. my 40 degree minimum rule flew out the window when I discovered I needed a ride more than I needed physical comfort.

I'm bending more than I have in the past. pushing myself outside my comfort zone, both literally and figuratively. flowing with what comes my way, free-falling at times. holding on to faith, again, that somehow, someway, it will all begin to make sense.
I am practicing being supple, so that I, like my aspen, can return to my full, imperial height after I release the burdens that come sit upon me for a time.

*lyrics from Innocence maintained, by jewel kilcher