sunshine on my shoulder

thought chain early this morning, while descending from the little mountain summit and pondering what I might write about here today:

• I'm heading into the first big turn coming down emigration, thinking that I have some friends who are quite cautious while descending, and some who descend with wild abandon, and some who fall into the between-land, descending with controlled, fluid speed.
• next thought is about my shoulder, and how I want it to be all better and it's just not. things are progressing, healing, improving, but it is not all better.
  
• then I'm thinking about the sun, which has barely crested the far hills in the east and is now dotting the lush, green, idyllic hills of pinecrest, far in front of me.
• before I know it, sunshine on my shoulder has cobbled itself together in my brain, and I'm singing along with john denver.
• which pulls me almost full circle, as this is a man who died taking the risk of flying his airplane, doing something he loved. perhaps he flew not with wild abandon, but with the understanding that risk surrounds much that involves love.
  

this is all pre-coffee, you understand.
and it all took place within a span of, oh, say thirty seconds.

thus it seems to me that today's message from the universe to susan must be about being willing to risk something you love to experience something you love. even the simple love of a beautiful, blooming flower involves the inherent (and seemingly inevitable) risk that you will lose that flower at the end of its life. it is always a risk to commit your love to something.
earlier this week one of my bad ass teammates was in a biking accident and is now in the hospital with a head injury. she's moved from ICU to a regular room, and all I really know is that she has a long recovery in front of her.
then again, another biking buddy has just undergone surgery to remove some abdominal tumors, and she has a reasonably long recovery in front of her.
certainly, one can be seriously injured while riding a bike.
but one can contract cancer, or ALS, or MS, or Alzheimer's, or any number of other traumatic and devastating illnesses, while sitting on a couch.

I'm not an adrenaline junkie, but I do feel a thrill when swooping down a hill in the cool air on a smooth road after I've just worked hard to climb to the top of that hill. (I am a bit more observant of what's on the road in front of me, now, and a bit more hesitant to trust anything but pavement under my wheel.) I certainly don't want my riding career or my life to end with a disastrous crash, but if I had never begun due to that fear, I would have missed uncountable hours of pure, gratifying, exultant, stunning pleasure.

therefore, I'll return to what I believe the world's message to me was this morning:
risk surrounds that which involves love.
and yet.