It's been over a year since I last posted my thoughts publicly. During that time, several things have happened that should have changed my life. I think they did.
1. Last fall, after going through a couple of weeks of an unrelenting temperature that was not covid, a tumor was discovered on my lung with corresponding swelling in my lymph nodes. Together, my doctor explained, it likely meant I had inoperable cancer. After a biopsy showing it was not, I felt I'd been given a second lease on life.
2. I fully retired on July 23rd of 2020.
3. Dakota...my dog, my best buddy, my faithful hiking partner, succumbed to a tumor in her right front paw. She was fifteen and my house is so empty without her.
4. My daughter Savannah had her first child, a boy she named Forrest.
5. My son Jason had his third child, a boy he named William after his grandfather.
6. I broke off a relationship with a lady I had been seeing for almost five years.
Of course, all of these things have worked to reshape the person I am today - as I write. Together, they have caused me to access what is important in my life. Some things that used to seem to have relevance do not, and other have taken on much greater significance. And it's really the simple things.
I notice more as I take my hikes through the woods. It's hard not to think of Dakota as I go, but I also tend to take more notice of the things along the way. The water smells different; better. The wind seems to make more sound and brush against my cheeks in a more noticeable way. There seems to be more things for me to photograph; more things catch my eye or seem significant enough to capture digitally...and keep.
So anyways, it's time to do something...do more. I'm retired and I need to live like I am. I need to condition myself and take the trips and take on the challenges I've been waiting to take. I need to write; to do more worth writing about. And I need or I should say 'want' to find someone who would like to do things with me, to love me and to be loved by me. That part will be the trickiest because like God tells Bruce in 'Bruce Almighty', he'll have all the power of God but will not be able to make anyone fall in love with him.
This is just to kick-start my quest to do all of the above. I've been riding and hiking, but now it will be with a purpose about which I will try to write in some way that makes it interesting enough for people to read. Here goes...
I went for my third ride on the mountain bike my brother gave to me last week. My ass continues to take a pounding, likely from being in a position that, for the last fifty years of riding, is not one I'm used to. On this bike, I sit upright and place most of the weight of my upper body on my butt...and that's painful after an hour or so. On a road bike, I lean forward on the 'drop' bars and put some portion of the weight of my upper body on my shoulders, arms, hands. But today, after an hour and fifteen minutes of riding, I actually still felt pretty good. And...it's fun!
I rode and thought about the difference in the way I feel about the ride itself. Somehow and in some way, I think it is reminding me of why I got on a bike in the first place and what I liked about that. Of course that first serious bike was a single gear, chain driven start and stop on large, balloon tires. The handlebars were essentially straight across and caused us to ride sitting upright. You could see all around you, and that was the idea...to see where you were going and to look for the next best thing to do. I certainly didn't ride it to get 'a workout', whatever the hell that was. In fact, when I was riding for the first time in the middle sixties, I don't think working out had been invented yet. It certainly hadn't been for kids. We stayed fit, if you'd call it that, by playing hard and doing our chores. That's it...and it worked pretty well.
Anyways, I'm riding the towpath, a hard-crushed path of limestone screenings and other road materials used in these multi-purpose trails. I'm working harder than I ever did on my road bike because I'm trying to maintain a certain speed on a bike that is probably ten pounds heavier than my road bike. And although it is a good workout, that isn't the purpose of the ride. I feel like it's about having fun on a bike for the first time in I can't remember when.
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