red light, green light

this morning I was continuing to work on being where I was instead of wishing I were somewhere else.
where I was, was 23rd east heading south toward holladay. where I was (just for a teeny moment) wishing to be was home and swinging my leg off the bike.
yep, another one of those exciting, stimulating, fantastic recovery rides.

as I stated above, I was working on being where I was, and just pulling myself back into the present, when life shoved one of those teaching moments in my face.
it began when I looked forward, and saw a stoplight a couple blocks away.

(a big part of why I love riding canyons is that there are no stoplights. and very few stop signs. none of that stop and go and stop again frustration of riding around in the city.
on recovery ride days I have to steel myself for the experience of having my speed and flow determined by those sometimes amazingly slow-to-change stoplights that are laying down the law for nonexistent cars.)

back to my learning-moment.
I looked up, saw the stoplight shining red two blocks away, and immediately started scheming about my strategy. should I throw a little speed on and possibly catch the green, or would I miss an entire rotation of green-yellow-red by slowing a bit and waiting it out?
this is when the teacher shouted at me:
you are not in charge!
and more importantly, you can't know when that light is going to turn what color!
you have to wait until you get there!

ah. you have to wait until you get there.

that means when I'm on 23rd east and 42nd south, I need to be on 23rd east and 42nd south.
when I reach 23rd and 45th, then I can be at 23rd and 45th.

I got my little overeager, outsmart-the-world hand slapped, and I sank immediately back into the very present moment.

just last night, lying in bed, I was trying to plan the upcoming weekend. well, I could ride here or ride there or do this or do that, and how will it all coordinate and where will I be . . .
this morning, 2 emails provided information that completely adjusted my weekend, and all of last night's musing and plannings were for naught.

someday, I will learn this lesson, won't I?

for today, I am feeling pretty good about my stoplight lesson. I held an internal smile for the rest of my ride, and I gave up (okay, except for one more time) trying to outsmart the traffic lights. I worked on waiting until I was there before I put myself there.
because as much as we'd like to, we are just not able to control and manipulate the universe which surrounds us.
sometimes we just have to surrender to what is.
and be exactly where we are.