the tao of cycling: resettling

Monday, March 9, 2009

resettling

whenever I return from an adventure I have to gradually transition myself back into everyday life.
I had a grand adventure this past weekend, and will write about it soon, but today I am choosing to write about the grand transition back into "normalhood."

normalhood: the activities, behaviors, and attitudes that make up my typical, daily life.

which, today, included:
lots of laundry
feeding children
shuttling children
snacking
feeling some gratitude
answering work phone, cell phone, home phone
making calls on work phone, cell phone, home phone
arriving on time for appointments
shipping orders
snacking
feeling some intensity in my well-used muscles
opening snail mail
checking email, hoping for something fun or profitable
paying bills, completing forms and otherwise creating outgoing mail
loving my kids
taking goods delivered by UPS and business partner and putting them where they belong
putting kid (and my) things where they belong
going to store for milk and veggies

and so on.

what this transition process adds to my normalhood is both tangible (more things to unpack, clean, and put away, a pile-up of mail, email, and phone calls to wade my way through, things like that) and intangible (the mental regrouping).
it's the mental regrouping that I pay more attention to, as it's a fascinating process:
I love to go away, and live an experience that has absolutely nothing to do with normalhood, and a little of that experience always comes home with me, lives with me, and forever tweaks, just a tiny bit, what my normalhood is.

when I was away this past weekend I existed without a single aspect of this everyday life I lead. this, of course, is the draw and pull of vacationing. this daily life of mine ceased to exist for 48 amazing hours.
and although some of life hit me in the face within 2 minutes of pulling in my driveway, I am still carrying some of the joy and energy of my weekend experience, with tempers the severity of the returning-to-normalhood shock.

only 92 percent of me is here.
the rest is still on a ridge in the uintahs, looking out over peaks and valleys, the sky above me deep indigo and speckled with the brightest stars I've ever seen, a glorious creamy moon shining across the hills and sparking snow crystals all around me.

maybe 94 percent of me will be here tomorrow, and I'll gradually work my way up to being fully here. but my cells will hold the experience for me, and there will always be a little bit of that ridge within my skin and in the fabric of my soul.

No comments:

Post a Comment

the Male Ego

The other day I was coming down a canyon in my drop bars (two years ago I would have said, 'what's a drop bar?'), working hard, when I came up on two guys who were also heading downhill but at a more leisurely pace. I passed them, said hello as I did so, and pulled back into the bike lane. a few minutes later they went flying past me, faces looking dead ahead, not a single bit of acknowledgment that I even existed on this planet let alone was involved in and enjoying the same sport they were.
I have to attribute this to the male ego. what else can it be? now I know we all have egos, myself included. and mine even shows its ridiculous little head once in a while, or perhaps more often. but the difference between mine and say, those of certain men on bicycles, is that I KNOW mine exists and I can LAUGH at mine. I know my ego was quite excited to pass those guys, and I could also smile because I knew if the men had really been working like I was, they would have kicked my butt down the hill.
I think I pissed them off.
and I'm sure I will be sharing with you much more of my thoughts about the male ego . . .

a little history

I was married, and I had a mountain bike which I rarely rode. we separated, I moved out, and four months later someone stole my bike. the next spring, 2005, I bought myself a new mountain bike. I rode occasionally, and in april 2006 I rode in my first century, the Cactus Hugger in St. George, Utah. I made it 54 miles on that mountain bike, and it took me about 6 hours. I think that included the rest stops where I prayed that someone would steal my bike again . . .
in june 2006 I started riding my mountain bike five mornings a week, a 45-55 minute loop that was intended to be all about exercise. and what I found was that I loved the quiet, peaceful morning full of bird chatter and barely breaking sunrises. by that fall I was hooked, and began considering the purchase of a road bike. I rode up emigration canyon for the first time that Labor Day of 2006, panting and plowing along on my trusty (heavy) bike, and a month later I was the proud owner of my own road bike: I had become a two-bike girl!
a 17-week-long "power camp" over the winter and a handful of new friends kept bicycling front and center in my life, and when spring of 2007 rolled around I was ready to hit the pavement. I rode my first century the end of april, when I again went to St. George and completed that Cactus Hugger. it took me about 7 hours, but this time I rode the entire 100 miles with about 9300 feet of vertical gain. woo hoo!
I started riding canyons around our area, emigration and millcreek, city creek, big cottonwood, little mountain and big mountain, and once--yes, only once--little cottonwood.
then in september of 2007, I rode from Logan, Utah, to Jackson, Wyoming, in the slightly infamous LOTOJA race. I rode, I did not race. and I completed the thing, crediting my good training buddies, the incredibly perfect weather, my support team, and an amazing convergence of all things positive in the universe.
I put in about 3500 miles last season, and as of today, july 19, 2008, I have about 1700 in, adding to it every day.
I have again signed on to ride the LOTOJA race, and my goal is to have just somewhere near as great a ride as I did last year. oh, and to have someone fun to talk with along the way as I got incredibly bored last year . . . star valley is still a nightmare scene in my biking memories . . .
and here is a picture of the machine that has helped me reclaim my life.