Face to Phone

Three-Dimensional Conversation. I'm copyrighting this phrase and defining it as something nearly extinct in our current culture. It revolves around two people talking to each other while in the proximity of one another. Its not the easiest thing to do, which may be why it's become a dieing art-form. It is so much easier to tell people you're mad at them while hiding behind a computer. You never need to see the hurt you inflict or be around for the consequences. On the down side -- the same holds true for the opposite. If you tell someone something nice, you're not there to see them react and bask in your words. Imagine Cyrano be Bergerac having to text message Christian what to tell Roxanne; and poor Christian trying to de-code it, "What the heck does 'I heart u' mean?" I may be old fashion, but I believe that in order to have a conversation, you need to be face-to-face with the person to whom you are speaking. In order to truly communicate, you must see the reaction of your words on another individual, as well as read the un-spoken body language that accompanies what they are saying. I'm no exception to the recent onslaught of new ways we've developed to misunderstand each other. Instant messaging, texting, tweeting (I still haven't figured out what this is, but I hear its all the rage), social networks, blogging, and even the seemingly now arcane e-mail give us infinite ways to talk without speaking. In my house there are almost daily instances where someone is being misunderstood or taken the wrong way or out of context. As it turns out, nuances like sarcasm don't translate well to a text message. My poor daughter and her friends have spent half this summer mad at each other because someone misunderstood something somewhere in the course of someone else's instant messages. I can't even conceive how the typical 14 year-old can keep it all straight. Often I'll see her at the computer at eleven o'clock at night IMing three or four friends simultaneously and grabbing her phone to text a few more. This can go on for hours, and no one is saying a word. The temptation to live like that is strong. Impersonal chatting is simple and uncluttered. How often I grab my phone and text someone only minutes after being with them? It's certainly easier to articulate and craft what you want to say, and write it to someone. Especially for me because I have a knack in conversation to let my mouth outrun my brain. Then what comes out is a garbled mess of unfinished thoughts and incomplete mutterings that end up sounding something like "I'm coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs." Truth be told, talking to one another is a hugely intimate and personal form of interaction. How else could we develop the secret ways we talk to certain people? 'Inside jokes' are those subtleties we reserve for those whom we share something special with. In other words -- those we can really comfortably converse with. In my house the medicine cabinet and the glove box have forever been interchangeable because of a goofy laugh-filled conversation from many years back. My closest friends from high-school knew that when we held up the three fingers on our right hand that it was time to move (bear with this sub-story: Three fingers held up to the left bicep makes the letter 'E'. When a group of us would congregate at a locker and then move down the halls together, we'd resemble a moving blood-clot, or embolism. So the 'E' was to say, "Let's get this clot moving." Admittably, we were an odd bunch.). Those board-members at work that can't even seem to get out of their own way are toast people. Only certain people understand this sub-language by design. These are the people we feel closest to and most comfortable with. Cramming a story, emotion, or news flash into 160 characters on a phone isn't easy or practical. Don't get me wrong, every form of communication has its place. Go ahead and text that you'll be home at quarter after three, but when you need to let someone know how you feel don't try to find a way to fit or abbreviate something like Cyrano's "A kiss, when all is said, what is it? .....A secret that to mouth, not ear, is whispered," into a text message. Talk to them.

Stay of Execution

We've all been down this road before: a job that's going to end, an inevitable break-up, a pending move and the teary good-byes that go along with it. My friend Jim named this condition Impending Doom Syndrome back when we were in high school and fretting over tests and swim meets. Two summers ago I impulsively bought a $5,000.00 mountain bike. There's a great story around it, but ultimately I bought a bike that was way beyond me and my skills. This spring I contemplated selling it. It took me until a week ago to work up the nerve to set it up on e-bay. Everyone close to me insisted that I don't let it go, but I was comfortable with my decision. In the description, I told the complete tale of how I came to own and love the bike thinking that the other prospective shoppers out there would appreciate it when they were debating laying out that kind of cash. Naturally, as soon as I hit 'post item' I regretted it.
In every new Gary Fisher bike catalog, Gary himself pens a piece in the opening pages. In the 2006 catalog, he wrote a bit entitled 'Does a Bike Have a Soul?' In it he refers to a bike as a machine intended for use. He says "If I put my soul in Gary Fisher bikes, there wouldn't be room for yours." Gary also talks about if he were to obtain a guitar played by Jimi Hendrix, he wouldn't hang it on a wall, he play it and try to eek out any of the mojo Jimi left in that instrument. This is the part that put me at peace with the decision to sell my Pro-cal that had once been ridden by the very man who penned that article. It's an awesome machine, to be sure. But I wasn't a part of it. I added personal touches like my favorite grips and pedals, but alas, I gave it no part of myself. I only rode it when it was dry so it wouldn't get dirty. I rode a different bike in spring when I wasn't in tip-top shape and much more likely to crash. I literally cared too much for this machine, yet didn't love it enough to treat it the way it deserved to be treated. How's that for ironic?
Yesterday afternoon the auction ended with the bike not selling. In spite of the fact over 240 people checked it out, no one bid on it. Now I'm faced with starting the process over. It took me the week to accept that in a few days time, I'd be mailing this piece of me to Colorado or Vermont or Oregon. Now it sits in my basement unsure of its future and I'm still out riding, living, and sweating on a different bike. Even if I rode more single- track, I don't think my choice of bikes would sway. Unless I sold my 'old faithful', I would still only use the Pro-Cal as my 'special occasion' bike. If I had money maybe I'd collect bikes. It would still go against Gary's philosophy of giving a bit of yourself to these art-like machines, but I could ride them all once in a while just to form a little bond between us.
As I get older I've accepted that I need to let go and lose a bunch of stuff. I've worked hard at letting go of physical as well as psychological baggage that there's no longer room for in my life. The nature course of that down-sizing would tell me that I don't need five bicycles. In the end its not which bike I chose to ride that matters, its that I do ride. Gary says it best, "I don't think bikes are sacred. But I know biking is." As long as I've got a bike to ride, I'm at peace. So... know anyone looking for a bike?

"How Much Do You Think a Tan Weighs?"

Ah, summer! The time of year when we pack away our jeans and sweaters and haul out our shorts, tank tops, and swim wear. The time of year where we shop for all the newest & hottest summer so we can stand in front of the mirror and....complain about how we look. Ah, summer. What is it about bright sun and warm weather that pummels our self-image into submission? In my house we have both side of the spectrum: There's my 14 year-old who put on her size one shorts and obsesses about whether or not she is bigger or smaller than her mom was at her age. And then there's me... I'd shove my 50 pound overweight body into my high-school swim team Speedo and stand in front of the mirror thinking to myself, "You, my friend, are a few sit-ups away from People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive!" To picture me at the beach, imagine a 6'6" cross between a low-land gorilla and a manatee stuffed into a bright pair of board shorts. Yet there I am at the beach almost weekly. The other summer anomaly I don't understand is the inverse law involving confidence level and sheer girth. When I see that Stay-Puffed marshmallow of a human packed into toddler sized clothing with what appears to be 30 pounds of bread dough bursting from every gap in material strutting down the beach like Angelina Jolie on the red carpet, part of me stares in horror and part of me stares in awe. Do they love that look or do they accept that look? And should it really matter to anyone but them? Personally, I blame Disney. The Disney Company trawls out 'perfect' young people that can sing, dance, act, and look perfect in the eye of the camera. That's what our kids have to hold themselves to. Every boy is compared to Zac Efron and every girl to Ashley Tisdale (post nose job, of course). Indigo (my 14 year-old) can move you to tears with her voice, she won the lead in her school's production of 'Annie', is a high honor roll student, and is developing into a beautiful young woman. However, she won't leave the house without doing her hair and has to constantly be monitored so she doesn't wind up Tammy-Fae Bakering herself up to fit in with her other overly made-up freshmen peers. Someone like her has absolutely nothing standing between her and a monster ego and yet... Does this insecurity come from us the parents? Of course it does.... up to a point. We, as caring responsible grown-ups, just find it so much more convenient to place the blame on peers or other outside influences. How much blame, though, comes from the home I really can't say. I mean, my mom's been on a diet since Rock Hudson was straight and smoking cigarettes was considered healthy; and yet neither my brother, sister, or myself are really hung up on our weight. It still really doesn't answer how some people are completely comfortable with who they are, and some aren't. We constantly tell them they should be proud of who they are. But honestly, that like telling someone not to worry. The only time you tell someone not to worry, is when they're already worrying. Ultimately, self-esteem has to come from inside each of us. The number that pops up on the scale is a fact. It doesn't tell us we're fat, skinny, or pretty. It's just a number. What that number tells us shouldn't define who we are, or even what we should wear. What we see when we look in the mirror is a heck of a lot more important then what we see when we step on the scale. Embrace we you are! Put on that bikini or tank top and I'll see you at the beach. I'll be the manatee in the obnoxious board-shorts.

The Lost Art of Boredom

Last Wednesday I took a nap. I was home between the lunch and dinner shift and everyone was engaged in something; Kovi was home sick and currently sedated by Disney, Indy was at an after-school meeting, and Lori was happily typing away at the computer. No one needed anything from me. It seemed like a perfect time for a little escape. Fifteen minutes of decompressing, 30 minutes asleep, 15 more minutes of re-booting for the afternoon. It was perfect. At what age did we decide naps were a bad idea? While that may not seem like a big deal to some, it probably seems like an impossibility to others. I'm either lazy or lucky! We hear that old mantra 'stop and smell the roses' all the time. But seriously, do we even know where to find roses to smell? We pack more and more into our days and have completely ruled out time for nothingness. What time we don't allot for working, family, or sleeping, we quickly fill with recreation assuming its going to relax us, but hurrying to get a bike ride in between work and dinner only fills the time, it doesn't necessarily undo the stress of the day. We need to make time to do nothing. Time to be (and appreciate being) bored. I learned this from one of the hardest working people I know: Koval, my seven-year-old son. His typical day begins with a shower at 7:30a.m, school from 8:15 to 3p.m. One-on-one therapy from 3:30 to 6:30p.m, and bed time at 8. That leaves him with 90 minutes of time for himself out of a 24 hour day. So what does he want to do with that time? Nothing! He doesn't want to go to a park, or go hiking, or anything else for that matter. He wants to sit with his superhero books and Pixar DVDs and do nothing. There are a few things that sometimes trump 'nothing'. Kovi will almost always spring off the couch to go swimming. And lately his favorite thing to do is take our bikes to McDonald's under the promise of french fries. But ultimately he chooses to be bored. It's his prerogative and I will respect it. The other day he and I were walking ahead of the girls from the parking lot to the beach and he was already planning where on the beach we were going to sit and rest. I mocked his laziness, but followed him to the rocks to 'rest.' Sitting there we watched the clouds roil over-head and tried to guess where the sun would peek through next. It was here that I began to accept the body's need for boredom. I work in a kitchen, so I stand 8-10 hours a day. Biking and hiking may get my mind to focus on something other then the kitchen, but my legs sure aren't going to think anythings changed. We all need to power-down completely from time to time. Perhaps that's why meditation is becoming so mainstream right now. It's a grown-up version of watching the clouds. We're realizing that its inconceivable to adequately unwind with a week or two of summer vacation after spending the other fifty weeks working ourselves stupid. Now it's time to sub-divide our already scarce free-time. We need to spend time freeing our body (back to hiking & biking), our mind (I just read a great book about growing up in the 50's, and I write this blog), and we can't forget to rest our soul. Can you imagine a simpler time then when you were seven? When we look at kids, we assume they're happily taking their childhood for granted. But perhaps they are not really taking anything for granted. They know that the river they throw rocks in will still be there to throw rocks into even after they grow up; the wind will still blow the clouds across the sky; and we'll always feel better after a nap. It is us, the grown-ups, who take life for granted. Life is what happens while we're busy making other plans. That shouldn't be the case. Don't be envious of the children....be inspired by them.

Dedicated to Jeff & Dana -- New parents to be.

Third Place

Remember being a kid? Spending from dawn to dusk on those long summer days exploring the neighborhood. When you learned how to ride a bike that neighborhood doubled in size and so did your exploring options: the railroad trestle, the stepping stones in the woods, the corner store with the best selection of candy to blow your allowance on. These were our first escapes. Our first 'third places.' In the 'special feature' section of the film You've Got Mail, director/ producer Nora Ephron credits the success of places like Starbucks to our inner need for a place that's not our home or work. A third place where we feel comfortable and safe. When I heard that hypothesis, it seemed so obvious that I wondered what took coffee shops so long to arrive in our culture? From the moment we developed a sense of wonder and curiosity, we developed a yearning to find a third place. Not home or school or work or even our best friend's house. As we discover ourselves, our needs change; and our third place grows with us. From a back-yard fort to the corner cafe, our third place defines us -- as we define our third place. How we spend our leisure time also plays a role in our choices. I bike. While this may not seem like a tangible place to find comfort, I chose to ride the same routes because I find comfort in those familiar places. Whether I ride around town early Sunday mornings or head out of town to ride the trails of the Kettle Moraine Forest, I find solace in knowing where I'm headed and where the route or trail will take me. I find the same kind of peace (although without the satisfaction of physical exertion) spending an hour in a coffee house just re-setting my groove. To me, an hour nursing an iced mocha can be the spiritual equivalent of spending a morning in church. I feel better, I focus easier, I work more efficiently, and I can be more patient. That may be the reason that when I head out for a mountain bike ride I quip, "Daddy's riding for a mocha," as I leave the house. It's the best of both worlds. I can't pin-point where my third place is, because I suppose it really depends on the mood I'm in. As I stated earlier; our third place grows with us. Even if its on a daily basis. In this day-and-age our free time is limited. Thankfully our third places are not. Be it in a bustling coffee house down-town or stretched out in an open kayak in the middle of a calm lake, peace can be anywhere you find it. One thing I have learned is that in order for a third place to actually be a place in which we can feel comfortable and safe, it cannot be a place to use as an escape. A true third place isn't a hiding place, it's a discovery place. So in order to be able to really find peace in a place, the first place we need to be able to find peace and feel comfortable is within our own skin. After all, if you're not comfortable there, the only thing you'll be able to find at Starbucks is coffee.

Soundtrack

In the fall of 1982 I was a freshman in high school and had just joined the swim team. It was my first time in organized sports since my stint with rec. department basketball in 6th grade. Personal electronics in the early eighties were huge and cumbersome, but the idea of portable music easily outweighed the inconvenience. As I stood outside the bus waiting to head to some other pool in our conference, the seniors swaggered aboard carrying a boom-box roughly the size of a chest freezer. Once we were on the road, the entire team couldn't help but to listen to whatever the seniors were listening to. On that trip, I heard David Bowie's Changes for the first time. Our lives are filled with such moments. Events big and small are brought to vivid memory because of a song. These songs are our lives' soundtracks. I can recall sitting around the high school lunch table with my closest friends listing off the songs that would be on our soundtracks, and why. It wasn't until recently that I actually decided to finally sit down at the computer and attempt to plot them out. Thankfully personal electronics have become sleeker and more efficient. Back in the day, I would have been reduced to 20-22 songs on a TDK-SA90 (the preferred blank cassette of my friends and I). Thanks to iTunes, I now have infinite possibilities.
The greatest thing about our soundtrack is that it is really the exact opposite of our bucket-list. We may sit at work dreaming of the tropical vacation we'll probably never take, when suddenly a song comes on the radio that reminds us of something great that we've already done: a road trip with friends, a stellar show, a family vacation. A simple song makes us realize that our life has already been pretty cool. When compiling my soundtrack, I didn't stick to any one theme. Meaning I included songs that inspire me today as well as songs that take me back to specific moments in time. It's this freedom to express creativity that makes the process unique and freeing. My friend Jim saw U2 in Hamburg Germany when he was part of an exchange program. U2 on his soundtrack is going to have a whole different significance then any U2 song on my playlist. But that doesn't make it more or less important to us. After all, no one's soundtrack is better than anyone ese's. That is the best part: Yours is the best soundtrack out there! As is mine. It doesn't matter if you heard Bowie in Europe, on a school bus, or in that hilarious episode of Flight of the Conchords, it's your music, your memories, and your life.
The songs that made my soundtrack are all over the map. The earliest music-related memory I have comes from my car-pool experience going to and from pre-school. Only one of the moms ever played the radio. And it was during these trips to and from St. Luke's pre-school that I came to love Johnny Nash's I Can See Clearly Now and The Who's I can See For Miles. I often wonder if there some deeper meaning that I can recall two songs about vision from a time in my life when my eyes were being opened to the larger world that is formal education. Along with those songs representing my earliest music related memory are ELO's Don't Bring Me Down, (representing my first rock album purchase); Journey's Stone In Love (first 'real' kiss); Gin Blossoms' Allison Road (song that was playing when I crossed the border into Oregon for the first time); The Police's Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic-Live (represents spending my best friend's birthday with Sting, Andy, and Stewart); and Shinedown's Breaking Inside (my recent reinventing of myself). There are also a smattering of 80's one hit wonders that remind me of summers at the beach, Marillion tunes that just inspire me, and a great representation of concerts I've been to. One thing I've noticed in creating this masterpiece, is that there are very few songs about work or responsibilities or pain. Every song, even if it represents a bitter-sweet love long gone, rekindles a smile. All music is good music when it takes you somewhere that makes you happy. Now it's time for you to sit at your computer with your iTunes, dig your albums out of the basement, rummage through that box of cassettes you can't bring yourself to get rid of, and put your soundtrack together. I know you'll be pleased with the end result. First concert? First kiss? Backpacking through Europe? Moving into your first dorm room? A song from a mixed tape she gave you (or you gave her)? A song you and your best friend always sang? What will be on your soundtrack? It is your life -- Play it loud!

Saturday Night Shower (Touchstone part 2)

After re-reading my Words of a Feather blog, I found I was still disappointed at where it landed (or rather, failed to land). I was trying to make a point referring to personal peacefulness and what I use, and cling to in some cases, to center myself. While I was in the shower last week contemplating why I hadn't written in so long and what I might write about next, it all kind of came together. Why not write about my shower? Well, oddly enough, it goes deeper then that.
A number of years ago, I was a salesman. I was often gone 12-14 hours a day, and twice a week I stayed in a tiny hotel room. It was a very hard time for me and my family. While selling may have taxed my body and my time, it didn't tax my mind the way cooking does. At the end of my week I could come home and not think about sales again until Monday morning. Fridays would inevitably be a late night. Sometimes 10 or 11:00pm. But when I got home I could shed the weeks' uniform and hit that shower... Oh, that shower! I could wash the week off me it fifteen minutes of soap and hot water! I came to live for that shower. At rough patches in the week, I focused on how good that shower was going to feel. That may have been my first 'touchstone'. After that shower I could be husband or dad or friend or son without any distraction.
Last week was a good week. Things at home were on an even keel (and for this family, who always seems to have a dozen or more balls in the air, that's really something), work is picking up for the summer, which challenges me a little more, and on Thursday there was a food show and a bike show on the same day! That Thursday was special. It was a day of me getting to be me. Talking the trade with vendors and salespeople in the morning and cruising the bike show in the afternoon. To add some proverbial whipped cream to the already ice-cream sundae of a day; I had the best hour long Mexican Spice Latte ever! Good times plus good company makes for a great day. Even the ride to and from Milwaukee was nice. Great tunes always makes for a relaxing drive. The week just kept chugging along with two beach-worthy days at Fischer Creek park combing the sand for beach glass, chasing Koval through the waves and baking in the afternoon sun. As the sun set on my week and lunches were being made for Monday morning, I began to feel that familiar yearning. After all the dinners served at work, after the bikes were awed, after the good-byes, after the lattes, after shaking the sand from my shoes, after the kids are asleep, after the last episode of House M.D. is watched; that shower is calling me. Beckoning to wash me clean and get me ready for whatever comes next. Another week -- another lather, rinse, and ready to repeat.

Like vs Love

I remember my mother saying, "I may not always like you, but I'll always love you," a lot during my weird teenage years. I'm sure every ones either felt it or said it in some way, shape, or form throughout the years. I'll go further and bet that every ones been on both the receiving and giving end of that particular emotion. Having said that, I'd like to go on record as saying, 'I'd rather be liked than loved.' I listen to my wife tell everybody that she loves them; whether it's her own mother or someone on facebook that she hasn't seen in ten years. Now I hear her daughter tell everyone she knows, 'I love you.' And why not? In this day and age it's become impolite not to love. Love that new car? Love one another? Love thy neighbor? I don't even know my neighbor! In a love/hate black and white world, 'like' has become the grey area. No one would say, "hey, you're alright. I like you." When they can exclaim, "I Love you, man!" I'm done with that. I'm done loving an ice-cold Coke after a hot summer day at the beach. I'm through loving that perfume my wife wears on our days off together. Don't get me wrong, I love the neck it's on and everything that goes with it. Just not the perfume. I like the perfume. I love the neck. Taking this philosophy to the next step is where it becomes harder to swallow. I would compare likability to friendship. I was taught: Like your friends. Love your family. So I use my best friend as a unit of measure. How much do I like _____ in relation to Jeff? If there's no comparison, I must not like ____.
The reason for my new curiosity into liking something or someone stems from two unique observations. The first happened last weekend during 'family game night.' I realized that both my wife and myself were being very guarded in what we said, or even how much fun we had as so not to offend each other. Yet little animosity still ended up seeping into the game. Casual friends wouldn't let something like that happen, yet it can happen to a husband and wife. Are we no longer friends? If not, does that mean we don't like each other? We say 'I love you" all the time, but I never remember hearing 'I really like you.' Is that just me being corny? I mean really, who says 'I like you?' maybe that is the problem -- Maybe we don't bother liking before we love. Perhaps it's a foregone assumption that 'liking' falls under the 'love' umbrella. This theory is the second anomaly I am referring to: the complete loss of the word like. People in popular culture love it or hate it, because liking or disliking would take time and effort to get to know and understand something or someone. Time that no one seems to have any more. Are we so afraid of learning that we need to make instantaneous decisions about everything? Do we assume taking our time is synonymous with dawdling or being indecisive? Perhaps I'm at this point because I am guilty of this rushing. I was afraid of what I might learn so I skipped right past like and on to love, because if two people love each other, that's all they'll need to live happily ever after. I guess that may be true, so long as they don't plan on spending any time together. Which, of course, is preposterous if you really expect 'happily ever after' (and I do). So it's time to put forth the effort to like not something but everything. Like pizza, Saturday night showers, the sun on your face. And especially put forth extra effort to like your wife and kids and mom, because they already know you love them. On the other side of this particular coin: be likable. Don't settle for being loved, that's the easy part. Be nice, say 'please' and 'thank-you,' and listen. People love you for who you are. People like you for what you do. Doing is always harder than being. My only hope now, is that when my wife reads this, she doesn't hate it.

Words of a Feather

I hadn't heard the words soul-mate, touchstone, or unconditional love until I was well into adulthood, and yet now they weave in and out of my daily life. The first time I heard someone use the term soul mate it was on a winter day in Oregon. The restaurant was slow and most of the staff were sitting on the floor of the dining room talking and drinking coffee. A waitress had just broken up with her boyfriend after months of her friends telling her that she was too good for him. He had moved back to Utah and found someone else. He wrote a letter back to his ex telling her all about how this new person filled him up. He even referred to her as his soul mate. The girl sitting across from me was shattered. They had been together for years, and he had never thought of her as his soul mate. I was in no place to judge. I had just married my college girlfriend for the sole reason of not wanting to move cross-country alone. So I sat and listened and thought. Throughout the next decade I learned that a soul mate is the one person whom not only fills your heart, but also connects with your soul. Some people find theirs. Some don't. Some find their mate, but never get the chance to be together. To some people it's a mere Hallmark sentiment. To others, it's as personal as a religion. I met mine in 1989, but didn't realize it until ten years later. I consider myself lucky.
In the wake of connecting with my soul mate, I learned the term unconditional love. Now this one gets tricky. It's got to be the most complicated emotion in the love spectrum. The easiest example is the bond between parent and child. That love is unconditional. But can anyone out there honestly say that their relationship with their parents was never messed up? Unconditional certainly doesn't mean pain-free or uncomplicated. Since adding these words to my vocabulary, my life has become exponentially richer, but it has also become more complicated and chaotic. The line from the James song rings true: "If I hadn't seen such riches, I could live with being poor." Does this imply that a more complicated life is a richer life? In recent years I've been struggling with down-sizing so I can enjoy life more by removing the clutter. Granted there's a vast difference between emotional and physical clutter, but both need to be dealt with before they weigh us down. Having said this, I introduce two other word that have become prevalent in my recent vocabulary: Touchstone and Zenning. Zenning I pretty much made up by using a noun as a verb. It refers to relaxing, meditation, or soul-searching in any form. After a bike ride, I like to take a bit of time at the trail head and just relax and detach for a little bit before facing the day ahead. Between a hectic lunch and dinner shift at the club I sometimes sit by the river and read to collect myself before returning to the chaos of my day. Any time I take for myself and use it to organize my thoughts in such a way that I leave the moment more calm and peaceful that I started out is Zenning. Summer allows many more opportunities (if you noticed, I mostly Zen outdoors) to steal time for myself. I also find it much easier to detach when surrounded by nature.

In conjunction with Zenning, is touchstone. Which is what I use as a focal point for my Zenning. This can take almost any shape. It has been everything from a specific person to a rock(see photo of my son holding some of my favorite touchstones), for me. I guess it all depends on what it is I need during that specific time. Over the past year, my life has changed. Things I thought should be easy became more difficult. Things that were once difficult became simple. Relationships of all sorts are complex and ever-evolving entities. How we evolve within them reflects not only on how we feel about these relationships, but also how we ourselves evolve and learn. Whether it's my bike teaching me about my own limitations or my son teaching me about patience or my wife teaching me about unconditional love; they are each lessons to be learned. Unless I take something away from these lessons, I am only adding to the stuff that I have to carry around. Only by learning, growing, and evolving, can I get rid of emotions and notions that weigh me down and revise my beliefs. Beliefs are like T-shirts (stay with me here): sometimes we out-grow them -- they just don't fit any more and need to be replaced. Every relationship we have has the ability to teach us about ourselves. If we don't learn --we don't grow.

Indian Summer of the Mind

Riding on Sunday, November 8th I surpassed my totals from the entire month of October in both miles and number of rides. It's true that the weather was warmer and less squishy in these first weeks of November, but some of it has been mind-over-matter. I realized that given the gear I own, if it's not pouring. pitch black, or ice covered, I can ride. I probably don't want to ride in a plethora of other conditions (or combinations of conditions), but that doesn't mean I can't ride. I have accepted that I have to dress a little warmer, give myself a little more time, and be more alert to my surroundings seeing that I almost got hit twice this week...at the same intersection! Apparently motorists stop being aware of cyclists some time after Labor Day? I must have missed that memo.
This whole 'change of perspective' has been an all-around healthy thing for me. The word 'can't' is a pretty strong and absolute word. I'm trying to be more aware of my use of it. Am I using it appropriately or am I using it as an excuse for 'won't' or 'don't want to'? Realistically, I can always ride. Ride before work. Ride to work. Ride on break. Ride on my days off. Ride in the rain -- it just makes the post-ride shower all the better. It's not just riding: I can clean, rake the yard, return e-mail, and just be a better and more patient person. All I need to do is stop thinking 'can't'. This past weekend, after knocking off three rides in three days, I raked the yard I'd been putting off for weeks, gave the basement a comprehensive once-over before the winter, and finally got my bikes cleaned up and put inside for the season. All except for one, that is. The one I will keep riding unless it's too dark, icy or otherwise too just unsafe to get out there. Is it really that I can't do things or is it that I'm too damned lazy to try? Ultimately, we can't do very few thing if we really set our minds to it. I just can't lose these last ten pounds.