mountains vs roads (legs vs wheels)

went for a bike ride on saturday - beautiful but chilly. should've worn the gloves with fingers. I found though, a lovely little path right in town that wandered through brush and trees and by a stream so perfectly.

today i went for a hike. up to the top of the mountain and down again. perhaps 3 miles? I have no idea. A quick jaunt up and back for a nice after-work afternoon. Thank you daylight savings time!

I found myself though, yearning to be one of those bikes I saw drawing itself up the mountain. How funny. How did I forget that I really like biking?

I know. I am not a cold weather biker - yet anyway. And there is no appeal to riding a stationary bike in a gym to stay in shape. So with time the appeal fades, and getting out the bike seems a chore, as it has been sitting unused and gathering dust. How sad.

What is the appeal? Smooth pavement flowing under your tires. The connection you feel to your body and machine as a gear change eases your effort. Wind rushing by your ears. Eye contact with a stranger, no need to talk. Pulling up and pushing down and seeing the world close enough to touch but far enough to keep at the distance you need so momentum continues.

Pushing hard up the hill - lungs hurt, legs pull, almost losing balance but - just making it over that last push. and then the descent - rolling rushing flowing blowing feeling of speed and freedom and ease and earned reward of rest.....that slow lee slows and eventually the pedaling begins again. So nice, so even. Just the right tension as one foot goes forward and the other pulls back. Not too hard and not too soft. Just right.

On the long flat stretches it may just be an impatience thing. How could I possibly walk all that way when it would be so much smoother and faster and slicker on my bike?

There is something though - to the walking. The something is the company. The talk that flows and the thoughts that are shared. These moments. The laughter and the openness. This is where connections are forged and friendships grown. For that, I love the walking. In the woods or on the walkways and streets, conversations over time. That's one thing the bikes don't always allow, at least not on the roads.

As with everything in this world - everything in moderation. The bike some days, walking others. Feed both the monsters. :-)




no editing, no rereading. just posting.

Graveyards for Freedom

My Dad just sent me this story from the Rutherford Institute. The author, John W. Whitehead, describes how we are acclimating to a police state, a 1984-esque lifestyle, without even noticing. This change is palatable because we are "saving the children". And as they grow up, accustomed to a lack of privacy, those invasions of privacy will start to seem less, for lack of another word, invasive to us as a popular culture.

It reminds me of a term I heard recently shifting baselines. As we grow to accept new practices, we forget the old, and then one day the world is unrecognizable and not what we want it to be. Am I a conspiracy theorist?

I worry as I get inured to these concepts that used to enrage me. Am I 'growing up' and realizing I need to pick my battles - you can't win them all and you can wear yourself out trying to fight them. Or am I allowing what was once unacceptable to get away with existing and sometimes even thriving, without a peep out of me. How much of my shifting baseline is acceptable?