a sign of three

sometimes messages come to us in the most delightful ways.

this morning I rode at dawn, and although I am grateful for the summer season which is beginning to surround and absorb us, I also regret the loss of those dense, dark mornings of early spring. it is only the first 10 or 15 minutes now that I need my light, and need is even too strong of a word for the circumstance.

so I climb in the light of a world that is waiting with bated breath for the sun to emerge from behind the eastern peaks, a world that is clearly defined yet less than what it soon will be.

I reached the summit this morning and paused, the sun having just pushed above those eastern peaks and taken one baby step above. the reservoir, dark and glossy, remained hidden in the shade of the surrounding hills.

I turned to go back down, and started my descent in the cool air. the first segment has you facing a curve of hillside, and as you wrap around the bend you are suddenly facing northeast, and you see nothing but a hummocky hill, a smattering of trees, and the arching silhouette of the far edge that seems to meet the sky. no houses are in sight, nothing but the natural world and the road beneath you.

I am alone, alone in this stunning world, I thought to myself.
this is not an unpleasant thought.

but before the thought had finished reverberating in the silence within and without, three majestic deer crossed the road not fifty feet in front of me. as I was moving at somewhere near 25 miles an hour, those 50 feet were reduced to about 15 as I watched the last white tail slip between the shrubs.

the message, of course, is that I'm never truly alone.

thus, neither is any other living, breathing creature, man or beast, fish or fowl, sleeper or cyclist.