Hiatus Ends

In November, my thoughts turn to Bruegel. The countryside holds no more secrets, no more foliage'd wonder behind thicket and hedgerow. Shadow and dusk have claimed the exuberance of spring and summer and have left in their wake the skeletal truth of where we roam. This is our landscape without clothes. This is our dun and copper blush, our russet brush and old yellow smear, our 14th century landscape.

Return of the Herd, 1565

I haven't been riding. Three weeks at least have gone by since last I saddled up, and that was a less than inspired 15 mile ride on a Saturday twenty days ago. Other, stronger life forces have taken precedent. Turmoil. Personal upheaval. The possibility of exile, the possibility of abandoning everything and setting off to unknown destinations, the possibility of No Return. The possibility of Greenland, of retreating above the Arctic Circle, of going away to hasten my own expiration.

These considerations were earth-shifting, the tectonic plates beneath my certain future all of a sudden proving to be dangerously susceptible to fracture, to geologic foment. Despair at first, then the rodent instinct to survive. Ultimately, the wretched mountain scaled, harmony restored, I am still here, still anchoring operations of Chez Shad in the heart of Woo City. I'm not going anywhere.

Except for a ride.

As I did today. 27 miles under bright sunny skies. A crisp day, the day after Thanksgiving, the roads quiet, through Woo City neighborhoods to Kelley Sq and the launch point for the Badger Extension, the ride I learned from riding with Bernard Hinault last October. Allez.

Since I've been on a riding hiatus, my resting heart rate has risen from 44 to 51. In just three weeks. At the same time, instead of gaining any weight, I have lost it. Riding at 148 lbs more or less these days. That's peak season weight, not November. Perhaps it's muscle loss and existential disappearing. It's hard to say.

What's not hard to say is that today I feel alive, I feel stout and staunch and, though increasingly diminutive, I feel, standing in my black Timberland boots, solid. I feel secure in my flesh and my spirit.