A Short Jaunt After Work in January

"So I am not a broken heart.  I am not the weight

I lost or the miles I ran and I am not the way I slept on

my doorstep under the bare sky because my apartment

was empty and if I were to be this empty, I wanted something

solid to sleep on. Like concrete.  I am not this year and I 

am not your fault.  I am muscles building cells, a little each 

day, because they broke that day, but bones are stronger once

they heal and I am smiling at the bus driver and replacing my

groceries once a week and I am not sitting for hours in the shower

anymore.  I am the way a life unfolds and blooms and seasons come

and go and I am the way spring always finds a way to turn even

the coldest winter into a field of green and flowers and new life."

Charlotte Eriksson

 

What is it about a sunny winter day kissed by the first hint of warmth that makes me want to jump on a bike and ride and ride.  My butt will ache and my fitness will dissolve, for this is just a teaser of what is to come.  Still, after work I jump on my bike and I ride.  Miles pass, enough to sate me physically in my current state of fitness, but not enough to sate the longing that surges through me, a longing for warmth, for long rides, for easy companions.  Oh, God, I miss Hell Week.  At least in the past on these days that stir the blood and make me long for warmth and hours on the bike I knew I had Hell Week to look forward to and that usually there was at least one day during that week that was warm, a day when the sun soaked into my bones.  Mostly, there was laughter and companionship.  I even miss the impatient but good natured waiting for Dave for each morning.

But today, I cannot regret today.  And I will not waste spending time on things that have passed me by.  I am healing, and I am alive. True, the wind is blowing, slowing my speed to a snail's pace crawl, but the sun is shining and it is almost warm.  And it becomes possible to actually believe, as Ms. Eriksson points out, that spring will eventually find her way to turn things green.  And yes, I am smiling.