Yesterday was one of the nicest days you can imagine - comfortable temperatures, reasonable humidity, not too sunny but not too cloudy. I all led to a bike ride that turned into an extended almost a full day on the bike. I don't know that I'll ever do anything quite like it again. And even if I do it's about 60 miles longer than I've ever driven on a bike before.
Back when I first met my ex- I didn't have a car so I'd take my bike from the Syracuse University campus to her house in one of the Syracuse suburbs to see her. It was probably a dozen miles or so, and somehow it felt longer. The first ride of the day yesterday felt like that. I thought of it more than once.
Thanks to my riding partner for making the day such an enjoyable one. It sounds like a lot of work but it was actually fun - well, most of it was. A couple of people didn't share the road well and as they passed they wanted to make sure we knew that they were a$$holes. We weren't fast enough to respond to the first one, but the second one was the target of a return volley of choice words and hand gestures. It's lucky for both of them (and probably for us) that we didn't catch up with them at a traffic light or something....
You'd think that something like that would make me feel old. Instead, it made me feel young...
A couple of things that do make me feel old, tho. One is that I was walking in my flip-flops and my attention was on something else and I mis-stepped on a curb. The end result was effectively cutting of the very tip of my big toe. It hurts. Second is that every couple of years I get it into my head that I can polish my own toes. And every couple of years I re-learn that I can't. I don't know what it is but it's one thing that I can mess up 10 times out of 10. Sigh.
Lastly, I'll end with a few pics I've taken with my phone over the last few days. They provide a good sense of why I find it so pretty here. One of the things that's particularly expressive is the sky. The first is of Shem Creek during my bicycle marathon on Saturday.
The second one is of the view near sundown coming across the Ravenel Bridge back into Charleston yesterday evening:
And the last one is of sunrise this morning, just as the sun poked it's head above the horizon. I'm often out with the dog along the waterfront to see it - it's still as amazing as the first day:
Life is at a pace at the moment when I feel as though I do get to stop and smell the roses...
I heard a fascinating story on NPR a couple of weeks ago about an artificial heart that has no beat (see it here). A heartbeat, or a pulse, is actually one of the things we use to determine life (or not) so having a pump that doesn't beat - that moves the blood without "beating" seems almost not like a heart at all. Anyway - for some reason I found it fascinating....
I'd write more but I'm pooped. It's time for bed. And I'm not going to fight it. :)
2 comments:
Donna Really ? "We weren't fast enough to respond to the first one, but the second one was the target of a return volley of f-words and hand gestures"
when I think of you I don't see you as this type person...Let me leave you with this little tidbit anger begets anger and violence begets violence....Likely wise kindness begets kindness.
Oh I too find the beat less heart fascinating having worked in nursing it's one of the things we use to get a baseline on a patient.
Hey Brandi: I absolutely certainly agree that kindness is always the best first strategy. And I'm glad I'm not the only one fascinated by the heart thing. Thinking about it as a continuous pump rather than a contracting muscle with an inherent beat is a deeper contemplation than you might at first think. :)
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