It’s interesting how we always seem to be running in opposite directions, barking out our recent conquests in an effort to catch up. It’s pretty funny. We run into rooms or pass in the office, talking fast about nothing. Is life really moving this fast at the moment? It seems like everyone I know has so much going on. There are people I’m close to for different reasons: through work, music, family, or other random projects. I’m not a fan of compartmentalizing my life, so I’d much rather share everything with everyone, but there’s just not enough time on the clock for that level of communication. Even if we took off a full day to talk, which we would never do, the day would immediately get filled with house or home duties, or the lists of things we haven’t gotten to during the work week. All I’m saying is that everyone seems pretty full at the moment. Could it just be the time of year?
What can I do to step outside of the madness for a minute or 2? I’ve been starting my days with a blank mental and spiritual slate, ready and willing to take on whatever rolls through the door or inbox. It seems to help, because there are at least a million things that happened last week alone, that ordinarily I’d be pumped to share with all of you, but the velocity isn’t slowing for even the slightest glance backward. It’s all now-now-NOW-NOW, and 2 weeks from NOW. I need to remember that it’s these times where I’m actually receiving what I’ve asked for, so it would be pretty stupid of me to go fetal ball and think that I can’t handle it.
When the energy swirls around this quickly, all sorts of neato things happen for the people around me. People are doing new jobs, meeting new people, taking on new things, and maybe trying to ignore the impending Holiday Insanity for the first time.
Last week I was riding my bike back from an 8 mile ride along the Tow Path, feeling all the early morning sun in the Fall foliage, feeling pretty solid all in all. I use this time to figure out what’s coming next, where to direct my energy for the day, and to think about what the hell I’m going to write about here. I’ve been a little out of phase with writing lately, and whenever this happens my damn inner Virgo needs to reevaluate whether I’m actually delivering any value to the readership. It’s a weird cycle I need to break, but anyway… My exact thoughts were something to the effect of: Why should I bother writing if it’s not entertaining and/or inspiring other people? Why would people read my site? Do they think I’m all Pollyanna and I’m oblivious to anything “bad” ever happening? Do people get sick of me talking about things going well? Do I need something bad to happen?
I know, really productive thinking right? These are risky thoughts when you have an insane amount of energy stirred up, because I was thinking this nonsense in the midst of my 10th consecutive magically productive day. Rather than get all my little Keeblers working on something magical for me, I ordered up the following instant manifestation:
By this point, I’m chugging along a pretty nice clip. I was coming up to the only point where a major road crosses the trail, and rather than take the underpass, I decided to save time by crossing the street. There were no cars in either direction.
Crossing at about 10 MPH, I notice some jagoff ran the light a couple blocks west of me, and he was coming up on me fast. Instead of turning parallel to the sidewalk and riding back up to the trail, I thought the safest bet was to hop my front tire up onto the curb and pull up the rear. This is a maneuver that little boys perfect long ago in suburbia. I’ve done this successfully at least 10,000 times.
On this morning, at this moment, in the middle of a now busy street, I hopped my front tire too early. Which meant that it came back down to the street to early, rather than hop up to the curb. This set the stage for the curb to perfectly catch my front tire at about 10-15 MPH, effectively sending my ass over the handlebars with the rest of my bike following. No helmet, no fear, no worries for the little Pollyanna Carter Show. At 34, my body feels lighter, stronger, and more agile than it did when I was 20. I’m actually convinced that I’m younger, that is until I feel my bone and muscle crash to the concrete with a bike landing on top of it. YES! WELL PLAYED SIR!
The great news is, that I was fine. No blood or abrasions. There were some definitely strange aches the next day however. So what’s it all about? Bike Safety? I’d say it was a nice reminder that I’m a more deliberate, powerful creator than I think. 99.9999% of all the running and riding I’ve done has been well-insured by well-being. I won’t let this .000001% keep me down for long, but wow, that was pretty fucking insane.
After bending my handlebars back into position, making crazy eyes at all the cars that had stopped to make sure I didn’t die, I rode up the trail, laughing maniacally. “That was interesting”, I thought.
