Ride # 41: This Is The Moment After Which Comes The Next Moment

Backyard Style
Friday afternoon around 4:45
64 degrees

The return of GREEN. Green came to Lemonstar like Hemingway's description of bankruptcy; gradually, then all at once. We're not quite at the "all at once" stage but we have reached the Point of Inevitability. The maple leaves are coming, they're a wan lime green hint on the branches.

Still experiencing some back/hip discomfort though at diminishing levels of intensity. Wednesday I had a Qi Gong session with Master Yang and I felt great that evening. But yesterday, Thursday, I was in pain again, the back tentative, at the edge of freaking out if I moved the wrong way. Today, Friday, after some stretching, I feel pretty good again.

The logical thing to do is ride. Late afternoon, the clouds have rolled in from the west but the day is still mild, especially in comparison to how chilly it's been lately. I yip around about what to wear and settle on tights, a short sleeve jersey with a long sleeve jersey over that and the high vis windbreaker vest. It proves to be the right combination.

I spin with purpose trying to keep my self in the Moment. The moment is pedaling, is spring afternoon air, is new growth, is the reminder that This Is The Moment After Which Comes The Next Moment. This is the moment where I am who I am, a man on a bicycle in the state of Massachusetts on a Friday afternoon in May. Everything that is yet to come can wait for me to finish being where I am.

In the Green Moment on Lucas Road

Where I am is the Justice Hill Cuttoff climb where I enjoy turning the pedals over with deliberation. I hear birds - a cardinal, crows, a blue jay - but I let their sounds come and go. I try to make myself light on the bike, I imagine I am filled with air, that my skin is the sinewy skein of a jubilant balloon, that I am free to Be and float and go with the whim of chance. Or the whim of two thin wheels and an aluminum frame.

For a while anyway, I win life's gamble.

At Speed 

Ride Summary: 16.33 miles (25 K), 13.7 mph, an hour and twelve minutes. My back and right leg, including the knee and below, didn't feel that great for the first three miles or so, I was concerned but then I seemed to loosen up and I felt better and that feeling persisted through the end of the ride. I'm hopeful, even though this was just 16 miles. With the Niceness.

Road Kill: One garter snake, though the kill might have happened yesterday. It was a big snake, a survivor. Until recently. Going too fast to stop and photograph it. OM AH HUM