Deliberately Riding Dirt

Every year on my birthday, I go out in search for something that is a nice token of a good way to look at the coming year. I try to take some time to take a glance back to the previous year (always wondering where the time went but yet wonder also how I was able to squeeze everything in) and then think about what's coming up.

Eight years ago (on my b-day), I had just gotten my first road bike a few weeks prior and I went on a great group ride where I ended up getting soaked by a surprise storm. I celebrated being out there, feeling alive on the bike; I knew there was no better place to have been that night.

This year I was fortunate to be able to go on a wonderful 70-mile ride with a group of friends and finish the ride having breakfast with my uncle, bro and friend (who was wise to sleep in & show up to breakfast in street clothes). To have the guys in town over the weekend was a treat. The sun shined all day and that was welcome, naturally.

We ended up at Walden Pond later in the day, thus the Thoreau quotes. I relate the time I spend on the bike with the above quote. To me, it's my time away from the static of daily life. Bike time gets me into nature, in touch with friends and it is quality time to be alone, too. It allows me to feel the sensation of living and being deliberate about it.

There has never been a time when I've ridden where, once I was finished, I didn't feel somehow renewed, happier and left with a better perspective.

I've mentioned so many trips and experiences in this blog through time of all of the places I've gone, people I've met and things I've done that would definitely have never have happened if I hadn't had a bike and a reasonable "excuse" to travel to out-of-the-way towns, back roads and even wind through familiar neighborhoods, but at a much slower pace being able to say "hello" to people outside and imbibing the fresh air into my soul.

I keep expecting the amazing times on the bike to end - like there should be a time when, after having ridden the best ride, that all of the others will pale in comparison and then it should be time to switch leisure time activities. But it doesn't happen, I am confident now that it won't. Having the best ride ever doesn't seem to cast a shadow on the ones following it--somehow the memory of it adds to every experience thereafter.

A trip through the Concord museum found me unable to resist purchasing this journal, the b-day gift to myself.

This year this is exactly what I am doing: going confidently in the direction of my dreams and living the life I've imagined. Both. You're likely to think I have been doing this all along. Yes, to an extent that is true, but not entirely. I went to Italy because I knew I needed to--I was living the dream many others have had. It wasn't ever a dream to me to live in Italy, though once I was there, I realized I was living a dream in many senses and I appreciated very, very much that I had the opportunity to be there. So much of that experience has gotten me here to where I am now.

My dreams from long ago have changed only a little as I've grown older, and there are many basic elements that are what they have always been. This year, the path to those dreams has been clearly set before me. It's a dirt road; there are bumps to be navigated over and around...but this is yet another amazing place the bike is taking me with an outstanding group of people. I'm having fun on this ride, pedaling without hesitation knowing I'm headed to where I need to go and am going to get there.

Allez.