3/29/11
Zac Brown's Advice:
"Wishin' I wouldn't get any older
They say that it's gone 'fore you know it now
Quiet your mind
Soak it all in
It's a game you can't win
ENJOY THE RIDE.
I feel the change
Goin' on all around me
It's strange
How I'm taken and guided
Where I end up right I'm needed to be."
Understand. I am sooo ready for this ride to begin. Tonight my age-related peer Kirstie Alley is makin' her moves on Dancing with the Stars, trying to lose another 20 pounds. My mother in law has made yet another resurgence and will survive until we return. David is on the treadmill.
Our bags are packed, the tandem is boxed. We (I) am/are ready to go. And right where we are needed to be. (thanks KR!)
Full Circle, Just Like My Wheel
(from Karen)
One week before takeoff. I realize this winter has been a slow process of returning to basics: reading, writing, a little bit of 'rithmetic, and riding. It's also dawned on me that I am in the "senior" category because I can relate to this take on what was my generation's music: http://dalesdesigns.net/rock-on.htm
After a life that I describe as a scavenger hunt without a list, I find I am taking the best of what I've gained in knowledge, expression, direction (yes, math was involved), and cycling experience.
I started reading before kindergarten. My mother swore no one taught me. My family will tell you no one can reach me when I have my nose in a book, or now, absorbing the glow of a computer screen. Research for this trip is essential and the hours spent reading books and blogs, perusing equipment catalogs, and googling has (I hope) paid off.
This blog is a return to my original day job: writing. I abandoned this career one year into it, entering the better-salary corporate world, followed by a brief swipe in the legal arena. Then office manager/hatchet woman for my husband's dental office, a return to Cincinnati to become the most educated and most senior fitness dilettante on the campus. I'm happiest here, at my keyboard.'
Rithmetic: both my sisters, with CPA and engineer behind their respective names, inherited the math gene. I didn't. I can now calculate mileage, read maps and determine my fate on the road. And without a calculator.
Riding. Anyone who's known me for five minutes will realize my passion for cycling. From the first time David and I trucked a 70-pound Schwinn steel tandem over to High Bridge KY and rode a screaming downhill to the Kentucky River and then had to push the darned thing back up the incline to the present, where I can't tell you where my best jewelery is located (probably around my granddaughter's neck) but I know exactly where my Serotta sits indicates I am one single-minded puppy. It just took me an almost-lifetime to figure this out.
As a writer I cringe at that long-winded sentence in the last paragraph.. It's probably the longest I've ever allowed myself to publish. But it's also the most important. And, if you get it, you get me.
