Pretty straightforward title, eh? I'm trying to become more disciplined about writing on a regular basis - but why in a blog? Why not just in a journal or even a word document?
Maybe because it's the compromise between writing as a writer for myself and writing something in the small hope that one day I'll get around to writing something which I can
then submit for publication. I write knowing that it's possible someone else may read these
entries but also possible that no one else will. Which is fine - as long as I write. Something I've supposedly wanted to do for ages. And not just for me - but with the hope of getting published.
But like they say re: winning the lottery - "you've got to be in it to win it". In order to be published - one has to write - or there will definitely be NO POSSIBILITY of being published. Ok - my credo is somewhere on the shelves of NBTS - I think - but it's not quite what I had in mind. And why is it that some writers can sit and write as if their life depended on it - and others struggle with the chasm between desire intent and intent and follow through.
It's kind of similar to what I experienced while riding on the C2C tour. Many of the riders could get up each morning, eat breakfast and hop on their bikes and just go. And it was never (according to them) something that they struggled with. Riding was just so much fun, so inspiring, so whatever that apparently they didn't ever wake up cringing at the thought of hoping on and going. But for me & I think at least a few others - there were mornings when the thought of getting up and pedaling for the next 5-8 hours was overwhelming. Sometimes tear producing. It's not that I ever stopped liking biking in and of itself. But even though I did manage to get up every morning at least by 6, a miracle, and wanted to fully participate in this thing I committed to doing, I had days when I just didn't know how it would happen. One morning, in the town of Dinosaur, I woke up, after a night of sleep and no particular agenda other than getting to point B from point A that day but found I could not get going. I DID NOT WANT TO GET OUT OF MY TENT. I did not want to get up, get dressed or ride. Now, did I somehow change in the middle of the night to a creature whose heart changed, whose mind changed about this tour and the purpose of the ride? No, I don't believe so. I just was going through a moment in life in which my heart, my mind, my body decided we'd had enough. It was more than I could bear - the thought of riding 1 mile never mind whatever we had to ride that day. But as my friend says in her song - "there is more than what was going on in that moment". I perhaps could not fathom what exactly it was I was feeling in that moment -
but I had to fix my eyes "not on what is seen by what is unseen". If I let myself sucumb to the moment of distress, I would not have moved - the feeling was almost enough to paralyze me - not as I have experienced in say, a PANIC ATTACK - because I wasn't panicky. I was just TIRED, I think. So, in order to get going, I promised myself I would only make myself ride a mile. At least. I'd even aim for 3 miles but after that I wasn't going to make myself go any further. And I had to allow myself that leeway or else I would not have left the haven of the tent. And so I got up, got dressed, had breakfast, got my gear put together to go on the truck and I swung my leg over the saddle and started peddling. And in interesting thing happened. After 3 miles, I thought I might make it another 2 or 3 at least. At that point another rider, Ad, rode up beside me. It's funny because on this particular day, Ad decided that he wasn't in any particular hurry and asked if he could join me. I responded the way I always did - that he was more than welcome to ride alongside but he was welcome to go on at any point if he decided that he wanted to speed it up. Speed became somewhat of an issue during the tour and it could be a struggle trying to keep up with others - even when they offered to slow down. For the most part - it would work for a while but then the bikers with more stamina, energy, whatever would find that the slow pace just didn't work for them. I personally didn't have too much of a problem with that but it did get discouraging now and then or more to see people passing, passing, passing on their way to the next stopover. Now, it's easy to say that comparing ourselves with others isn't necessary or helpful or even what God wants us to do. Which is true. If God called "Me", to ride, God called me as I am, not as I should or even would like to be. God called me and uses me with all that I am and all that I have to offer in service. But, I would like to be more physically fit and always have wanted to be. I've worked out, I've gone to gyms, I've exercised on and off my whole life and no matter what - I don't improve after a certain point. So, while I didn't have to keep up with others - I would have liked to so that I could take my time later in the day to keep up with blogging, or to go to a local store, hang-out whatever and just be part of the larger group. Or even a smaller one. So, sometimes, on rare occasions it happened but for the most part, I would, with the support of one or two or maybe 3 others who weren't in a hurry that day, get to our overnight site more towared the end of the day - rather than earlier.
Do I feel less of a person? Does God or anyone else love me less? No!! I'm not less than anyone else although I might want to be better at the fitness thing. Certainly God would not love me less - or more - than any other rider. And in fact - it was quite a reminder that God uses us in our weakness moreso than using our strengths to work in us. We are so caught up in our culture to worship strength!!! Physical, emotional, spiritual - that we forget that God's work is with the weak, the poor, the marginalized. Our strengths very often can get in the way of God's purpose - we sucumb to an "oh, look what I did kind of thinking and forget to say look how God uses me. Certainly it's not a sin to recognize our strengths and capabilities and use them - but we can't eliminate or ignore the way God uses the weaknesses of our lives, our personalities to show us how great God is - and what can be accomplished when we remember that it IS ALL ABOUT GOD!!
Anyway - for the bikers who didn't want to ride everyday, all the way - but did, with or without support - amen. I commend you and I appreciate that you probably have an idea of what it was like that one morning when I couldn't do the whole day's ride. I did end up riding 18 miles - to the first SAG stop of the day - COREY - YAYY COREY. I had a snack and then got in his van and fell asleep for like 3 hours. Then we rode on and at some point I did get out and finish the ride for that day on my bike. As the tour progressed, there were a lot of days such as that one. I'd start out on the bike, ride for a while, then get a ride in a SAG and then finish the day off on my bike. It was the style - the pattern - the recipe that worked for me. Toward the end of the ride - I had more days when I could ride the whole day - every mile - even if it took longer than most. Right now I'm riding almost every day of the week - but not more than 20 miles in one day. And it's getting harder, not easier to keep it up. Why? I want to stay in shape - the physical part of it should be showing improvement but I don't seem to be. It's weird.
I really did learn that I had to and continue to have to trust that inner voice - that inner knowing that when I make a choice, a decision to do or not something, it is because I am allowing God to lead me. To the outside world, it may not make sense, but I know that I know what I know and I have to trust that. I don't do this in a vacuum as I am in conversation with Dave and others about other possibilities but I trust that my relationship with the Divine is ongoing and real so that I can trust that today's choices are part of an overall plan for my life and my life in the context of the greater world around me. I know that when I took days off during the ride and when I took the 2 weeks off to come home they were so the right choices - for me. I wasn't quitting as someone asked me one day. I wasn't giving up. I was pacing myself for the long run - the run that continues after the bike tour. If I had really pushed myself - I might have collapsed - physically or emotionally and who knows what that would have meant. Of course there seems to still be an awareness and acceptance of physical needs moreso than mental/emotional. We applaud people for getting physically injured but we dismiss those whose wounds we can't (or won't) see. We decide that if "I can do thus and such", then so should someone else be able to. Our ability & willingness to judge what others do - or what we think they should do is so arrogant. Hey, I'm guilty of it myself. I know how hard it is to overcome childhood wounds - and the control we can feel throughout the years but I will say things like, "it's time for so and so to take responsibility for his/her life." Yes, it may be true - but not everything is revealed to each of us in the same way. How on earth can I say that "he should just move on (this isn't in relation to the loss of a loved on) when I still am working on issues which hang me up. Now, it's interesting that I don't say that about people who are in grief about the loss of a loved one - but grief generated by other kinds of loss they should be able to move past. I guess it's watching how others allow the wounds of the past to continue to control them so that they don't get to grow and move forward using their full potential for life. They are in their weakness - which God can use - but I guess the question is - do they let God do that for/with them?
Anyway - I think the next entry should be some pictures. I have to put together a CD with highlights from the trip as I will be doing some presentations in the next couple of weeks about it - and it'd be nice to have pictures to show. A power point presentation is what I'm going to try working on. No, I'm going to work on it - hopefully it will come together.
One more note - the wooly bears are out all over the place. I have seen plenty while riding around and the other day saw an all black one. It was beautiful. Fall is truly here and it's a great season.
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