goals

Andy Warhol, Goethe, and Me

“They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”

                                                                                                                                              — Andy Warhol

 

They always say…

Even though we can’t name them by name, can’t even generally define who they are, we all tend to have an amorphous “They” who exert extreme influence over us. They will think I’m stupid. They will judge me. They will be sure to spout all kinds of ridiculous opinions which cause me to question myself.

Don’t even get me started on the “always-es” and the “nevers-es”. They are full of those polarizing words, too.

They don’t know how to stop talking. Never mind how often it is in the voices of real people versus how often it is voices in our heads. They always have something to say to put us in our place.

…time changes things…

Time is such an interesting construct.

If you stand still, it will act like a stream which flows around you, the water moving, things floating past, but you stay in essentially the same place. Other things change, but you do not.

If you think of Time as a stream, and you try to move with the current, you may find you have moved but you are still surrounded by the things that you started with, because they moved with the same current. Nothing is essentially different, except that years have passed.

Time can also be a riptide, pulling you along in whatever direction it is moving. You have to be aware, not panicked – deliberate in your movements – in order to move where you hope to go, rather than where time is taking you. What time changes is mostly external to you. Internal change is like learning to swim out of a riptide.

…you actually have to change them yourself.

This is the daunting truth. The truth that stops us from actually creating change in our lives – we have to do it ourselves. And we know it will take hard work, sacrifice, and a willingness to stay the course when we are mostly used to taking an easier path.

The joy that I’ve discovered, though, is this: the internal voices, the imagined “they”, may clamor loudly at first, belittling your desire to change. But the external voices, the real people around you? They will come forward with a generosity of spirit that takes your breath away. They appear from unexpected quarters to cheer you on, to support your effort, to be part of the positive difference in your life. I know this both from personal experience, and from the many others who have shared with me their own experiences of bringing big change to their lives. They, your giving supporters, may not be the people you anticipated would be there for you. They may, in fact, be people you thought of as incidental to your life. Nonetheless, a new crowd of voices will develop to uplift you and to combat the negative voices you listened to in the past.

The second, almost magical, truth about deep change (especially if you are a late bloomer, like me) is what it does for your concept of time. You begin to learn that time doesn’t have to be a stream or a riptide. It can be a deep pool, in which you float in a relaxed but aware state. There is no past, there is no future, there is this moment. Every moment, as you live it.

If you are wondering whether you can change, whether there is a way to create a life more in line with the one you dream of living, the answer is simply YES. And yes, you actually have to do it yourself. But the first step, the beginning, is the hardest part. And many things will come together to assist you once you set your step to that path in a committed way.

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”
                   — W. H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

Reframing

When my sister and I spoke for the first time about her second breast cancer diagnosis, she told me that considering her husband’s cancer, and  hers, there had been just too many times when they had to put their lives – all their plans – on hold in order to deal with a pressing health issue. She said, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be learning from this, but I clearly haven’t learned it. Whatever it is, I need to get it this time, because I’m tired.” I heard her discouragement, couched though it was in self-deprecating sarcasm. My response to her was, “Perhaps you need to turn that around. Maybe you and Dave have learned to do it with such grace that you are asked to do it again to show others how. Maybe you’re not learning, maybe you’re teaching.”

Why is it so much easier to see different possibilities when we look at the lives, issues, concerns of those we love than it is when we look at our own? Reframing is an awesome tool I first learned while a graduate student, and I’ve used it in my work or when assisting friends and family who find themselves stuck. Often, as in the conversation with my sister, the shift in perspective immediately feels “right” – I know I’ve learned so much from watching her and, more important, others have told me they have too. Learning or teaching: I suspect she is doing both. It’s just that it’s easy to lose sight of the active/positive side of the equation when we’re staring straight into the reactive/negative side.

As you all know, I have been fighting to get my weight under 200 pounds. It is both a goal and a deep desire. But for two months now, I’ve been pushing and pushing and my body has been holding on tightly to each pound. The more tightly I grip my resolve (and track every calorie eaten, every calorie burned, turn down evenings out with friends, refuse a beer with my buddies at karaoke) the more tightly my body holds on to the weight. Today, I woke up after a restless night, thinking “It’s Thursday. God, I hope the scale is kind to me this morning.” It wasn’t until I was finished with the obligatory morning trip to the bathroom that I realized something was bothering me. The rings I wear all the time, and which in recent weeks have floated loosely on my fingers in danger of falling off, were cutting into my flesh. I could pry the one off my left hand, but the ring on my right hand wouldn’t budge. Severely. Bloated.

Clearly, I was not going to see a number on the scale that would make me happy.

What am I supposed to learn from this? More to the point, how can I reframe this to see an active/positive side to this frustrating situation? It wasn’t until this morning that I finally understood what my wiser friends have been telling me for weeks – I need to relax. I need to let my body do its thing and stop trying to manhandle it into submission. I need to stop seeing 200 pounds as the fulcrum point – above 200 and I am lacking, failing, still a fat girl; below 200 and I am replete, successful, thin. I need to let it go. (Which, by the way, I need to remember is not the same as letting myself go.)

As I often do in these moments of internal crisis, I looked for comfort from a favorite poet. So, I will end this post by sharing a poem – after nearly 350 posts, I can’t remember if I’ve shared this one before (sorry!). It reminds me that all I really need to do today is…be.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

–Mary Oliver

Living With Abandon…Who? Me?!

“If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?”, she asked, as if that was a question to which I would have a ready answer. I stared at her, speechless. Then, to stall for time, I asked, “One thing?” Luckily, she let me off the hook, allowing me two or three things, if I found it too daunting to name just one.

This snippet was a tiny piece of a wide-ranging conversation between me and my new life coach. We met in a wonderful coffeeshop I had never frequented for our first session last Saturday. It is a little strange for me to say that I have a life coach, for a number of reasons:

1. I have a counseling degree, and have used it in my career – but I have never seen a counselor for my own life issues;

2. within the last year, I’ve toyed with the idea of becoming a certified life coach myself – though I had never actually seen one in action;

3. I have been reluctant most of my life to seek assistance (there’s an entire blog post to be written about why this is the case).

I have been a classic case of “physician heal thyself”. There’s a simple reason we’re not supposed to do that. It doesn’t work.

Which isn’t to say that I have been unable to make changes in my life through my own action and determination. Actual change only takes place because I do the work. I’ve learned this, interestingly, by working with my fitness trainer, the ever-supportive Kylie Helgens. The hard work and sore muscles, the determination to show up at the gym day after day, these all come from me. But Kylie offers the expertise to make the most of what I am putting into it, as well as the challenge and encouragement to keep me coming back. Some days, I am willing to let myself down by not showing up, but I don’t want to let Kylie down. Trusting someone else’s expertise, and allowing them to assist in my development, is a powerful experience – and one I am ready to broaden outside the fitness realm.

Which brings me back to the life coaching session. If I am completely honest, I will admit that it was fun to spend a full hour talking about myself with someone whose purpose in being there was specifically to let me. No glazed eyes, no need to be reciprocal as might occur when meeting a friend for coffee: free reign for my inner narcissist! However, that wasn’t the only reason the session was a positive experience. In answering her curious questions about me and my life choices, we both learned a lot. Doesn’t that sound funny, coming from someone who spends a fair amount of time in self-reflection? Apparently, I know more about what I want for my life than I’ve been admitting to myself.

In the past days, as I’ve let her questions revolve in my mind, the answers I gave have been germinating and proliferating. And the answer to her question about what one thing I would change has been revealing itself to me:

If I could change one thing about my life, I would live with abandon.

Doesn’t sound like a very concrete goal for change. But it feels like a good way to explain what the concrete changes would be about.

If you look up the word abandon, you will find a definition something like “careless disregard for consequences” and synonyms like recklessness, thoughtlessness or (heavens!) licentiousness. I will never be a person whose life is defined by those words, it just isn’t in my make-up. But abandon also means freedom, spontaneity, and uninhibitedness – words I’ve often wished could be associated with me. I can be, I think, someone who has brilliant – or creative or at least good – ideas and acts on them. Abandoning myself to that moment of action, rather than holding back out of fear or self-derision – THAT’S what I’m talking about. A-typical for me, but possible.

One session into my life-coaching experience is early to know what may result. However, I already suspect that seeds have been sown which may yield unexpected fruit. My first homework is an assignment to dream…and I am attempting to dream with abandon, in the hope that I will eventually learn to live that way as well.

A RAGBRAI Story – Part 2

(When we left the story at the end of Part I, the Mustangs were living it up at the beer tent in Homestead, Amanas: sweat-drenched but smiling, and just a little cocky about being “almost done” with the day’s ride)

And so the Mustangs mounted up and began what can arguably be called the most important part of the experience. Tricia and I decided to ride together, and this was the pivotal decision of the day for me. The ride from Homestead to Oxford, a 5.8 mile stretch, was a little hilly, but do-able. Tricia and I commented on the beautiful scenery. It must not have been too difficult a ride if we were still noticing something other than our burning quads and gasping lungs.

As we pulled into Oxford, the party was in full swing. It certainly appeared that many riders were already celebrating the completion of a successful ride. I was flagging, but surrounded by that happy, upbeat atmosphere, I felt reasonably confident I would finish. I not only wanted to finish the 75 miles, I also wanted to be able to say I rode every foot of it. I understood that there is no shame in walking up difficult hills, and that many riders do so. But I wanted to stay on my bike.

Within minutes of leaving Oxford for the last (17.7 mile) leg of the ride, I was questioning my determination. The ride from that point forward was one long, steep hill after another. After another. After another. As we approached the crest of another hill, I could hear the riders in front of me cursing, as they caught sight of yet another hill in front of them. Groaning and cursing. But I also heard a paraplegic rider pedaling with his arms, saying to another cyclist, “We’re gonna do it!”. An older gentleman, passing me by and saying, “That’s it, take your time!”. I heard Tricia, waiting for me at the top of the hill saying, “You’re doing great!”

Hill after bloody hill. I thought I was in hell. A rider passed me, carrying a passenger who was playing the guitar. An ADULT passenger, whose only contribution to the effort was music!  A guy in a cape rode by, as did a bride and groom whose helmets were embellished to look like a top hat and veil. Ok, maybe not hell exactly. More like rural Iowa on an acid trip.

Hill. After. Bloody. Hill. Partners and team members were practically pulling each other up the hills with their words of encouragement. One young girl apologized, “I’m sorry, I have no legs.” But her teammates wouldn’t hear of her stopping, and I saw her three hills later, still riding.  Solo riders were cared for, as well, though. One woman, stopped at the side of the road tinkering with her bike was asked multiple times, “Do you have what you need?”  Strangers looked on us with compassion, including a lovely family with hoses who sat at the crest of a particularly difficult hill. I begged them to spray me with the cool water. At several consecutive driveways, families were shouting, “You’re almost there! Only six miles to go!” I’ll never be able to thank any of them for helping me get through.

Riding up those hills, mostly I was just thinking, “Keep pedaling. Keep pedaling. Keep pedaling.” But it was impossible not to marvel at the people around me who were pushing through. Every shape, size, fitness level. Every age. Bike riding is adaptable to all kinds of ability levels, and people with more to overcome than weight and an inactive past were continuing on. Riders whose whole purpose was other-centered (raising money for HIV-AIDS, for a cure for Diabetes or Breast Cancer) were pushing themselves up and down those hills, too. It reminded me that the zeitgeist of RAGBRAI is part rolling folk festival and part pilgrimage. And in this reminder was the realization that I was participating in the kind of experience that, most of my life, I would only have watched from the sidelines. This wave of committed, possibly crazy, humanity helped to carry me forward when I began thinking I couldn’t keep going.

And then, unbelievably, we crested and in front of us was Melrose Avenue! I couldn’t believe it – Iowa City, about to turn the corner into Coralville, our destination. There was jubilance all around us. Waiting for the State Patrol to give us the right of way, another rider’s radio was blaring Vanilla Ice – and Tricia and I broke into spontaneous dancing astride our bikes. Someone in the crowd yelled, “You go girls!”. The State Patrol officer danced with us.

We turned into a lovely downhill run, the road lined with welcome signs from the colleges and universities with officially registered teams. And then, in the midst of celebration, the final test. One more long-ass hill. I almost cried. Other riders were giving up, dismounting in larger numbers than at any other point on the ride. If Tricia hadn’t been there, I might have been one of them. It took every last reserve to ride that hill. And it was slow going. But Tricia and I rode it together, and when I pulled ahead as we coasted down the other side, I waited for her to catch up. She called, “You don’t have to wait”, but I told her, “The hell I don’t! There’s no way I’m crossing the finish line without you.” How could I, when her encouragement and friendship had just pulled me through the last 17 miles?

The finish line was designed to look like the arched entrances to Kinnick Stadium, home of the Iowa Hawkeyes, with the road painted like a football field. Layne and Kristen, the most awesome and patient road crew ever, were waiting and watching. When they caught sight of us, they jumped up and yelled and cheered, Layne filming us coming in.

I’d like to say that I was overcome with joy, but the truth is, I was exhausted, overwhelmed, dehydrated, hungry and I hadn’t peed in nine hours. I was incapable of joy in that moment. We stopped, and waited for Layne to join us with directions for where we were meeting up with the team. When she arrived, she pointed up the hill in front of us and said, “Go up there to the second stop sign and turn right.” I looked in that direction, and to my shame, burst into tears of frustration. I said, “I cannot ride up another f-ing hill. In fact, I can’t get back on my bike.” Layne hugged me and said, “Its ok. We’ll walk together, and I’ll push your bike.”

I owe a debt of gratitude to a huge community who made my RAGBRAI experience a day I will never forget: The people of Iowa who opened their homes, hometowns, and hearts to the massive river of riders. The cyclists, themselves, who were compassionate comrades on the quest to achieve personal goals. My fellow Mustang riders (especially my girls: Sarah, Colette, Wendy, and Tricia) without whom I would surely have failed – whose love and support held me up throughout the long day. Layne (and her parents for the loan of their truck) and Kristen, the road crew who loved us enough to spend a day waiting, cheering, manoevering through traffic and congestion. They didn’t have the payoff of endorphin highs or self-congratulations at the end – just thankless jobs and a long, sweaty day. The Lange Family, who hosted a reception/party for all the Mustang riders in Coralville, welcoming stinky sweaty strangers into their lovely home.

Each person in a long list vital to the success of the whole. Vital to my success.

The community story is not a story I was expecting, because until I was there, it wouldn’t have seemed possible. There is a lot of hype and mythology surrounding RAGBRAI. Turns out, a lot of it is true. But the magic of it, in my opinion, comes down to love.

I know, some of you just groaned, reading that! Here she goes again, you’re thinking, reading too much into every little experience. I’ll accept that criticism. But I will also say that I am no Pollyanna – ask Tricia, who saw me at my absolute snarliest at the end, after successfully completing the day. Ask Layne, who saw me tensely coiled at 5:20 a.m. when I was worried about the derailers on our bikes being  smashed as we loaded the truck. No Pollyanna visible in those moments, I assure you.

However, throughout the ride, there were moments when I was able to be outside my own fear and self-doubt enough to really see the events and people around me. Those moments were emotional – and more true than the fears. At one point in the day, a rider towing a boom box passed Tricia and I, blasting Martina McBride’s “Love’s The Only House”, one of my all-time favorites. That day, I swear, love was a big enough house to shelter all 10,000 bicyclists.

…Changing the Dream (part 2 of 2)

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

–MLK Jr.

 

When I was in graduate school, we used a visualization activity called “The Perfect Future Day Fantasy”, in which we were to imagine ourselves waking up on a “perfect” weekday 10 years into our future. I specifically remember processing this activity with a group of fellow students, when one friend said that, in his perfect day, he was presiding over negotiations to reunify Germany. We all laughed at him, saying “As if…that will never happen.” That was 1987. By the end of 1990, German reunification was a reality.

In the “Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream” symposium, the module which discusses “What is possible for the future”, asks us to shift our perspective from what is probable to what is possible. We live in a cynical world (did I really just quote Jerry McGuire?!). A world in which many of us look at the enormous issues confronting us and decide they are so over-arching, so all-encompassing, that we can do nothing…and we therefore continue in our comfortable dream world.

And yet. Apartheid ended. Change is sweeping through the Middle East. Millions of people the world over are participating in organizations and movements to make justice, sustainability, spiritual fulfillment real in the world in new and creative ways. Just a few who have inspired me: Emmanuel Jal, Curt Ellis and Food Corps, Annie Leonard, and so many others. Each of these individuals has taken their unique talents and skills and employed them in service to justice and creating a different dream for the world. And I am heartened to know there are millions of others, whose names and faces I may never know, but whose voices are represented by an activist in the symposium video module who says, “We didn’t believe we could change anything, but we did it anyway.”

Inspiration is important. It needs to translate into action in order for me to be part of co-creating a new dream for our world (a universal Perfect Future Day Fantasy!). But what can I do? I’ve thought about this long and hard in the week since attending the symposium. First, I can talk – that’s something I’m good at! – and write about what is in my heart. Second, I can start with the environments I am already a part of. For example, on Thursday, the symposium attendees from my university met for lunch to discuss an action plan to bring the symposium, and active outgrowths from it, to our campus community. I can evaluate the corporations with which I do business, and make a conscious effort to support those who use a “triple bottom line – people, planet, profit”. Because food and hunger are issues which are already important to me, I can recommit myself to work on these with my time, talents, and treasure.

It would be overwhelming if we looked at all that needs to be done and thought that we, personally, needed to do it all. Heck, even thinking that we need to do something big, make one grand gesture, is an overwhelming idea. What I am discovering, though, is that each of us has within us the ability to make a difference. If we stop thinking it needs to be a difference that the whole world will see and recognize, and instead think of it as a difference that changes our hearts and touches at least one other, it becomes much less daunting. Do I really think that will change where the earth is headed? You bet I do. And I am far from alone in that:

“It is a moral universe despite all appearances to the contrary.”

–Desmond Tutu

“Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit.”

–Wilma Rudolph



…make hot chocolate

Browsing through a book called, Lean Forward Into Your Life by Mary Anne Radmacher, I came across a story she tells of a minister who was giving a children’s sermon. The minister used the line, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” However, one little boy who didn’t care for lemonade insisted, during the sermon, that the line be changed to “When life hands you lemons, make hot chocolate.”

Radmacher follows the story with this:

“So from the most difficult of circumstances, we can build something of our own choice. Just because a thing is handed to me does not mean it must be grasped by my hand.“

This, friends, is a revelation. And it bears thinking about as we run through our overwhelming lives at breakneck speed. We don’t have to accept everything that comes our way, just because it came. And if we do grasp ahold, we still get to shape our response or what we choose to do with it.

Which brings me to my friend, Layne, who has yet another take on the ‘when life hands you lemons’ line. She gave a presentation at a national conference this fall entitled, “When Life Hands You Lemons: Make Souffles, Tarts, and Meringues”. Another great concept: we are allowed to use our creativity. Just because the old saw says to make lemonade doesn’t mean we are required to make only lemonade. Habit, custom, group think be damned!

Choice and creativity. So often I forget that these are in my tool kit when something onerous, unwanted, seemingly unavoidable comes my way in life. I didn’t make a New Year’s Resolution this year. I think I may have just found one! (After all, who says you can only make one in January?!)

Comparative Obsession

For many years, I pretty much refused to step on a scale.  What did I weigh at my heaviest?  Who knows?  The highest number I ever saw register on a scale was 352 pounds.  Over the past few years, I’ve thought a lot about my weight.  Sometimes, I have been accused (or pointed the finger at myself) of being obsessed with the scale, my weight, or some other aspect of weight loss. Of allowing my mood to be dictated by my progress or lack of progress. Of always talking about my “weight loss journey”.

Last night, I started thinking about this.  And a thought came into my head that feels right and true – and not only because it lets me off the hook (though that’s a nice side benefit!).

Every day, every minute, of my 352 pound life I was obsessed with my weight.

The thoughts that consumed me were all about this one factor of my life – what I could do/could not do/was too embarrassed to do; what I would eat/would not eat/would never let someone see me eat; what people thought about me/didn’t think about me…there’s an endless list of weight-related items, and I haven’t even gotten to the self-loathing thoughts, the cruel comments of others, the invisibility I had in public as the “elephant” in the room and how those things impacted my obsessive thinking.

Today, I thought about my weight at the following times:  when I got up and stepped on the scale; when I went to the gym and worked with my trainer; at each meal; when I declined the offer of dinner out at a Mexican restaurant because I can’t control myself around the free chips baskets.  And now, as I sit writing the post I will publish on my blog in the morning.

What was happening in between those moments of focus on my weight?  I walked to work just as the sun broke through clouds and I rejoiced to feel light and warmth on my face.  I laughed. I interacted with friends and colleagues. I took the stairs without thinking about it because that’s what I do now: I take the stairs!  In other words, I went happily about my day.

There are whole chunks of time in which I am busy thinking about something other than what I weigh and the complicated mental and emotional underpinnings of being fat and ashamed.  Where I am now, even with the continued focus on losing weight (and the frustration I’m feeling about this last stubborn 60 pounds), is pretty good – and by comparison to my old life, not obsessive at all!

That said, I’m not where I want to be yet.  To get there will require focus and determined effort.  There will be times when it seems, both to myself and to others, that there is only one thing in my life that I care about.  Friends may tire of listening to me talk about it, I may tire of listening to myself talk about it. But this obsession leads to a healthier, happier life, full of opportunities and promise. Seems like a comparatively small price to pay.

Colette and Jen’s Excellent Adventure

(Note: This entry was written last week, but I posted the resilience piece instead. To clarify, the adventure took place Labor Day Weekend)

Throughout the summer, my friend Sarah Botkin and I have been riding our bikes together, with the goal of riding from Dubuque to Dyersville on the Heritage Trail sometime this fall.  Since that trip will be approximately 52 miles, we have gradually added mileage as the summer has progressed.  Unfortunately, August and the start of the academic year derailed us a bit, and we missed three key weeks of riding.  Back on the trail, as I wrote in last week’s entry, we recommitted ourselves to getting ready for the longer day trip.  As part of that plan, we decided to use the Sunday of Labor Day weekend to ride to Center Point and back.  We invited our intrepid friend (and new bike owner) Colette to join us.

And then the mishaps began.  The biggest and most serious was that a member of Sarah’s family experienced a medical emergency that took her out-of-state for the long weekend.  At first, I didn’t feel right about taking the ride without Sarah, though in the email she sent notifying us of her changed plans, Sarah strongly encouraged us to go anyway.  After much thought and discussion, Colette and I decided to continue with the plan.

Sunday morning dawned a little cloudy, which I know because I went to bed so early Saturday night, I couldn’t sleep past 5:30 a.m.  Eventually, I rolled out of bed (around 7:30 — amazing how long I could lay there anticipating the day while not sleeping!) and dressed.  I hopped in my car and, after a pit stop at the Boyson Road Starbuck’s, headed north on I-380 toward the sleeping town of Center Point.  I was on a reconnaissance mission, since we planned to eat lunch in Center Point before heading back to Cedar Rapids.  I wanted to see where the trail access was in relation to the eateries in town.  While driving, the clouds disappeared, and a truly beautiful day commenced.  I was excited to begin!

Once home, I gathered the items I would need:  in my sport bag I placed cash, an ID, my sunscreen lip-balm, and a short-sleeved shirt (the morning was cool enough for long sleeves, but with the sun shining I expected it to warm up); a bottle of water; my tennis shoes with the bright orange accents were lined up on the kitchen floor next to my bike helmet.

I have a bike rack that hooks onto the trunk of my car and which makes me incredibly nervous…perhaps as a result of the accident I had last summer when my bike fell off the rack as I exited the interstate.  But that’s another story!  Colette and I were scheduled to meet at 10:00 at the Hiawatha trail access parking lot.  At 8:50, I took the bike rack from the trunk of my car and began hooking it up.  My bike was in place, rack and cycle as secure as possible with three additional bungee cords preventing slippage, at 9:58.  Suddenly, my leisurely morning had turned frantic.  As I backed slowly out of my driveway, I called Colette to warn her I would be late.  I drove a full five miles under the speed limit, constantly checking my rearview to ascertain that the contraption and cargo remained secure.

Colette was running behind as well, due to a dead battery on her van.  We met up, only 15 minutes behind schedule.  And that is when I realized that I had brought my bag, but not my helmet.  Colette, veteran of a nasty spill last year (on bicycle safety day at her kids’ school, no less!) insisted on a return to my house for the helmet — and truth be told, I wouldn’t ride without one.  It was a much faster trip back home to retrieve my helmet because I left the bicycle with Colette.  When I returned to Hiawatha, put on my helmet and prepared to mount my bike, I realized that my tennis shoes were at home, and on my feet were a pair of Adidas slides.  Good friend that she is, Colette offered to wait while I made yet another trip back to the house.  However, after a quick ride around the parking lot, I was convinced that I would be fine nearly barefoot.

That feeling lasted until I saw the snake, at approximately mile 9 on the trail.  I caught sight of it on the path with barely enough time to miss its tail by a quarter-inch.  The snake saw me coming, though, and had reared back and struck just as I swerved to avoid it.  Luckily, it missed — and I don’t believe it was a poisonous variety, though I truthfully didn’t stop to take a closer look. (Colette did, and claims it was a corn snake.  It was certainly colorful enough to be one).  Note to self: never be on the trail without appropriate footwear!

The ride was easily the most beautiful of the summer.  The weather was perfect, the trail sun-dappled but cool.  Colette and I rode apace of each other and talked most of the thirteen miles out to Center Point.  When we arrived in town, we discovered that small towns in Iowa maintain an old tradition: restaurants are closed on Sundays.  This was particularly problematic for me, as it turned out that in addition to forgetting to bring important items, in my obsession over the bike rack, I had also forgotten to eat breakfast.  At 11:58 a.m. Colette and I walked into the only place we found open — the “One of a Grind” coffee shop, which closes at noon on Sundays.

Fortunately, the folks at “One of a Grind” are a really great, friendly family who agreed to let us eat and chatted with us on our break.  If you are ever in Center Point, please give this place a try — the food is delicious (I didn’t actually try the coffee, but the iced tea was perfect).

Back on our bikes, both now sporting short sleeves, Colette and I made good time with less chatter.  That is, until we really started getting slugged by the wind.  The final 3 or 4 miles were difficult — I felt like a salmon swimming upstream, though nothing as grand as spawning was at the end of the road for us.  Mostly sore butts and windburn.  And a sense of accomplishment.  We labored, and it was good.

Falling

On Friday, I was finally able to get back on my bike, after the hectic opening of the school year.  In the three weeks (to the day) since I had been on the trail, the first intimations of autumn had appeared.  Fall has always been my favorite season, by a long shot.  This is due, in part, to the cool, crisp air. The true-blue skies and bright colors of the leaves on trees covering the rolling hills of northeastern Iowa.  But it is also partly a result of, since kindergarten, living within the cycle of the academic year.  Autumn, in education, equals a fresh start. A new year in which to learn and accomplish new and exciting things.

There has been what feels like a paradigm shift in my life this year.  I find that, while I am ready to welcome fall, I am also mourning the passing of summer — which has for a number of years been my least favorite season.  What is going on here?  I think I’m falling in love with all four seasons.

The only part of winter I used to like was the part leading up to and encompassing Christmas.  January 2 through the end of the season (March or May, depending on the year), I would have gladly lived without.  Like generations of children, I too, was horrified by C.S. Lewis’ description of Narnia as a country in which it was always winter, but never Christmas.  As I thought about my newly mixed feelings about fall, I realized that this internal shift began as far back as last winter, when  I discovered that I enjoyed shoveling snow, being outdoors in cold weather and exerting myself.  I remember appreciating the clarity of thought I could achieve on a clear and icy night under the velvet sky and shimmering stars.

The first warm days of spring found me basking in the sunshine.  Finding excuses to take my work outside, to linger at the outdoor tables at the coffee shop.  I remember trekking through mud at Squaw Creek park, uncaring about the mess as long as I could breathe deeply and smell the earth.

Then summer 2010.  “The best summer of my adult life”, I surprised myself by saying when faculty and students returned to campus in August.  Everyone asked why.  The reasons were numerous, when I stopped to think it through.  First, after losing weight and exercising regularly, my body is able to handle variations in temperature.  I sweat now, which is a surprisingly positive change.  Riding my bike with friends, working in my yard, laying in the sun in a bathing suit…lovely activities I rediscovered this year.  Produce fresh from the farm every Thursday. Family and friends to share the long days and short nights.

Back to last Friday’s bike ride, and incipient autumn.  As I rode, the sun warm on my back and arms, leaves crackling under the tires, I had occasional glimpses of ripening cornfields rolling off to the horizon.  And that’s when I made a vow to end my mourning for summer — even for the best summer ever.  I will celebrate the season that I am part of right now and live as fully in it as possible.  And, as it draws to a close, instead of sadness at what is passing, I will anticipate what is to come…anyone up for snow shoeing this year?!