the orange vw pop-up van

I spent my early formative years in michigan and indiana, and my best friend in fifth grade was a girl names emily johnstone who lived a few blocks away from me in south bend, indiana.
she had two beautiful older sisters, some pet mice, and was going to be a veterinarian when she grew up. we would hang out as her mom watched jeopardy in the other room, sipping seven-up with a little grape koolaid mix stirred into it. we would create skits set to songs we'd play on the record player, most of them 45's we'd bought at ben franklin where you could buy everything from embroidery floss to greeting cards to penny candy to dishes.
the most memorable 45 to which we set a skit was Winchester Cathedral, and as I "google" this today I see that this song won the 1966 Grammy Award for 'Best Contemporary Rock & Roll Recording' . . . of course it was a good six years later I was lip-syncing into a hairbrush during our little performance.
you may wonder where in the world I'm headed, but just stick with me because I'm getting there.
emily johnstone is connected strongly to two things (and less strongly to hundreds of others) in my memory: Winchester Cathedral, and a pop-up volkswagen van.
her parents had a volkswagen van with a pop-up roof when we were great friends, and I spent more than a few nights sleeping in that van, up in the popped-up top where a bed lay, as the van sat in the johnstone's driveway. this was so cool; we were in heaven.
vw pop-up vans make me smile.

so yesterday morning as I was heading up emigration in the crisp and light-filled early hours, I rounded the big U turn away from the road to pinecrest, and glanced down the canyon to see what had been behind me for the past 35 minutes.
the sky was a pale morning blue, and the full moon hung heavy in the western sky, white-yellow and fat and happy. above and below it were thin strips of clouds, reaching south to north, and they were tinted pale lavender by the sunrise across the sky. my heart swelled and I thanked God I was out and about at that very moment.
I continued up, my smile hovering still, and approached the first little pullout where cars occasionally park. as I rounded the bend and the pullout came into sight, I saw that someone had parked there. not just anyone, but the owner of an orange, volkswagen, pop-up top van from a decade long past.
the top was popped, and as I quietly rode by I could see a body sleeping therein, and my grin grew so wide I almost hurt.

I was blessed with a happy childhood. we were fortunate, having always whatever it was we needed. not whatever we wanted, but those things that were necessary, along with splurges and surprises every so often. we were healthy, we did not struggle with great issues and challenges.
and so this pop-top van brought me nothing but happy, simple thoughts of a time in my life that everything was just fine.
emily, I hope you're riding a bike out there somewhere.
and mr. owner of the orange pop-top van, I wish you well, wherever your travels may take you.

deuxième anniversaire heureux

I just this moment realized that I neglected to acknowledge my blogging anniversary, in fact, I let it slip right past me without noticing. this is not like me!
yes, I passed the two-year mark this week and this is cause for some reflection.
I began this project on July 19, 2008, having been struck by some kind of mental lightning bolt that told me it was the thing to do.
I love to write, I believe I am meant to write, and yet two years ago I felt I wasn't fulfilling my destiny in that arena. I had committed hundreds of thousands of words to paper over the years, yet I still had work to do, obviously, to make writing a more significant part of my life.
so I combined two things I love, and created this forum where I could share my thoughts about, regarding, and inspired by my cycling.
it has been a beautiful thing.

• it has forced me to write on a regular basis, and we know the only way we truly get better at something is to do it often.
• it has encouraged me to expand my vocabulary and experiment with different ways to express my thoughts and feelings.
• it has allowed me to be vulnerable yet remain safely behind cyber walls (except for with those of you I have to see on a regular basis.)
• it has held me accountable, guided my thoughts, and given me a forum for sharing thoughts about those things that are so very important to me.
• and most interestingly, it has connected me with a project that offers me an opportunity to write my little heart out and get paid to do so. more about this at some point, but not yet.
• it helps me to remember a beautiful soul who left this earth almost two years ago, the woman who inspired this creation, liz valentiner johnson.
  

so, a belated happy anniversary to me.
may we all be beginning a year full of dedication to and time spent with those activities we love.
in the spirit of the now-concluded tour de france, année heureuse à vous.

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.

waiting for wisdom

there are times when I know exactly what I want to do, and I plan it and then do it.
say, a bike ride up a particular canyon, or with a certain group of people.

other times I'm not sure, and I either A, end up not doing it because it never tipped the scale into "oh yes, I want to", or B, I experience a sudden spike in energy that gets me moving into doing whatever it might be.
this latter situation could happen on a day that could be a day off or could be a recovery ride day. I might get up early, sit and sip some coffee thinking how great it is to sit and sip coffee, thinking there's no way I'm going to go ride, and then within 15 minutes I decide a recovery ride would feel great and off I go.

and then there are those decisions about What To Do that are so big that I am immobilized.
I am currently embroiled in one of those. it involves making a decision between two events that are occurring on the same day in different states next month. the only way I can do both is through the cloning process, which to my understanding has not yet been perfected for humans.
there are pros and cons to doing each, and I do believe I would find great pleasure in doing either. if I choose the activity here in utah I'm more likely to be able to keep to my rigid training schedule, but if I choose the out-of-state activity I'm more likely to have a bit of a break (which They say is good for one).

I've known about this dilemma for weeks now, and I am giving myself until the end of this month to come to a decision. I know I won't be able to sit down with paper and pencil to hash it out, so I am waiting for the universe to float some wisdom down on me.
yep, I really am.
I am waiting for something, I don't know what, to help me with this decision. maybe it will be some kind of Sign, maybe it will just be a deepening feeling about which I'd rather do. maybe it will come in the form of words from a friend, perhaps I'll receive a written message or a lightening bolt of clarity.
I don't know.
I'm just sitting with it, waiting until it all becomes more clear and the decision feels right.
it's a luxury to be in a position where I have the time and patience to wait for the decision. I've given it up to the universe, as sometimes it's just best to do. as much as this decision affects me and my life, I feel like it's not completely up to me; input from outside of me is every bit as important as that from within.

I know which way I'm leaning, but it's not the most logical way to lean, and this is probably why I need universal support. if I lean so far that I fall into that choice, I will disappoint people, and I don't enjoy that piece of it.

so here I sit, waiting for wisdom.
which is sure to come, sooner or later, and is most likely to come as an epiphany as I'm sitting on my bike saddle, somewhere, after I've depleted all excess oxygen and my brain is a tabula rasa.
I'll be sure to let you know.

reconciling oneself

I fear my thoughts are leading me to become a broken record, one which is stuck on the refrain,
why am I doing this?

it happened to me yesterday when I was climbing the final mile to the top of big mountain.

and then a few more times over the next several hours before I was finally descending that same climb, heading toward home.

[let me give you a bit of history regarding big mountain, because I didn't realize this until just last month, and it's possible you don't know this. (it's also possible that you do, especially if you were a better Utah History or Geography student than I.)

background: I thought that little mountain and big mountain were just names us cyclists used to describe where we rode. how egocentric can I be? and where the heck did I go to school?

truth: pioneers 160 years ago called these places little mountain and big mountain. (I have been trying to research who gave them their names and when, and cannot find those answers. if you know, please let me know!)]

back to me: I cannot always reconcile myself with myself.

I love to be clean, to wear nice clothes, and to look, if not my best, at least good. I love comfortable temperatures, say sixty-five to about seventy-nine degrees. I love to curl up on my couch and read, and I love being productive whether it be working, writing, cleaning, or just in keeping on top of everyday life.

so why in God's name do I spend hours and hours each week sweating, straining, forcing my muscles and lungs to work lightyears beyond their comfort zones, getting dirty and looking like crap and hurting, hurting, aching, unable to talk because I can barely breathe? why do I do this?
rewards, yes, there are rewards. but honestly, truthfully, I'm not quite sure why I press so hard.
the answer doesn't take long to come to me:
yes I know why I do. it's because I can.
see, I've learned that I can do these things, and if I can, well then, why not?

(see reasons listed above, which I know you already know, because you're probably not as scary crazy as me.)

I keep doing this to myself.
in the past two and a half weeks since I've returned to riding post crash/surgical recovery, I have climbed the following hills and canyons:
american fork, mt. timpanogos side and from sundance up on the other side
little cottonwood, all the way to albion basin campground
big cottonwood
millcreek
emigration, both sides
big mountain, both sides
morgan to east canyon dam
mountain dell to little dell
lamb's canyon
suncrest, both sides

in other words, just about everywhere along the wasatch front except city creek. (I'd better get there this week, hadn't I?)

now most of this has been in an effort to confirm for myself that I'm okay. that the nasty spill didn't hurt my strength or spirit. that I will not be defeated.
and the other piece of it is the big lotoja hanging out there: gotta keep moving forward, and forward draws me ever closer to the reason I train so hard all summer.

maybe next year I won't commit to lotoja.
maybe then I could ride less intensely, with less push.
maybe then I could stop asking myself why do I do this?

and then again, perhaps I will always be me: a woman who can't always reconcile herself with herself.

am I there yet?

sometimes the urge to be there is stronger than the desire to actually get there.
I'm going to type that again, just to confirm and assure you I didn't make a mistake:
sometimes the urge to be there is stronger than the desire to actually get there.
and sometimes the desire to get there outweighs the other, and you keep on pedaling until you actually do get there.

this morning bill and I rode up little cottonwood. here's the thing about riding up little cottonwood: for some reason the first snowbird entry is often the stopping point for people riding up this canyon. no matter that the canyon continues on for two more miles, climbing up and up. the only reason I can dream up for this is that a couple of the cycling races I'm familiar with (snowbird hill climb, last year's 1000 warriors) end at that (or the second) snowbird entry.
the other possible reason for the premature stopping point, espoused by my biking buddy bob, is essentially that enough is enough.
but when one bikes up big cottonwood canyon one doesn't stop at solitude; one continues on to the bitter end, to brighton.
why does one stop at snowbird and not at alta?

bob's answer is excellent, but his advice was unheeded by us today. our bikes wavered not at the first snowbird entry, though our backs were aching and my ribs asked me, pleaded with me, really, to please just stop going uphill.
but I was feeling chipper enough to climb those last two miles, or so I thought until I kept on climbing those last two miles. what kept me going was the knowledge that the alta parking lot would soon be within sight, and I would soon be done. then I'd be able to pause, to breathe, to stretch my back, and to turn around and have a delightfully fast and easy downhill before my ride back across town and, possibly, a mid-afternoon nap.

I had obviously forgotten with whom I was riding.
because while my bike decided to stop there at the far end of the alta parking lot, bill's seemed to want to keep going. and what happens at the far end of the alta parking lot is that a packed dirt road takes off up the hillside, twisting and turning and reaching ever upward until three miles later one reaches the albion basin campground, with it's own little torturously ascending loop of campsites.
(by the way, here's an english lesson: tortuous indicates winding, crooked, full of twists and turns, while torturous means painful, characterized by suffering. I purposefully chose torturous to describe the tortuous loop we rode.)

yep, we visited, sat for a spell at, and refilled water bottles at the albion basin campground this morning.
which is a most beautiful place, a stunning place, truly, with meadows of wildflowers and a sweeping vista of majestically sharp-edged peaks, some still gripping tightly the remains of the winter's white coating.
we were not alone, but I didn't see any other skinny-tired people around, perhaps because most all of them choose to remain on pavement.
think paris-roubaix on an upward (then downward) slant.

the lesson of the day for me was simply this: for as many times on the way up the canyon I wished to be done climbing, my desire to eventually reach the top outweighed my desire to simply be there, and thus my pedals continued turning around and around, and around, and around.

motivation: mia

I seem to have lost my motivation.
oh where, oh where could it be?
I tried to find it this morning in my favorite little canyon, and I only found a wee bit of it. say, ten percent. the rest is desperately missing, and I would dearly love to rediscover it.

a physician friend told me that it takes twice as long to regain fitness as it does to lose it: so my two-week bout of sloth and laziness has caused me to need four weeks of rebuilding. if this is true, I have another two weeks before I should be back to where I was a month ago, by which time it will have been six weeks. got it?
sigh.
what this means, I suppose, is that I need to be patient. oh, that word. what this means is that I cannot yet expect to be where I was, or to feel normal, or to be making decisions from a place of complete health and wellness.
can you tell I'm trying to tell myself that it's okay that my motivation is out there somewhere beyond my grasp?
it's okay to still feel less-than, it's okay to be unexcited about strenuous rides, it's okay to want to baby my shoulder a bit, it's okay to be tired.
it's okay to wish I hadn't committed to lotoja.
it's okay to think I canyonot.

it is all okay, and it is all temporary. this is just a phase, one that could probably have been predicted. I will move through it, and move on to some other phase where hopefully my motivation has already escaped to, where it's waiting for me, taking a breather of its own, perhaps even a little nap.