The Unexpected: It Happens

 "Life is all about the unexpected."

Vernon Davis

 

 There are those days when, no matter how you fight it, your plans aren't going to come to fruition.  Today was one of those days.  In the early morning, when light hit, I took off on the Lynsky toward Bethlehem for the festival there.  Last year I rode with the Madison Club, but this year it was a sponsor ride and since I have not  yet officially joined that club, it did not seem right to attend as if I was.  Besides that, I want no demands on my pace today.   I am looking forward to taking my time and enjoying the beauty of this fall, for it has been, thus far, a particularly charming fall this year, with fine if rather chilly temperatures and spectacular colors.  

I turn around about three fourths of a mile in deciding I need an additional layer to be comfortable, grab my jacket and head back out.  About a half a mile down the road I shift.  Nothing happens.  Well, something happens.  My shifter freezes in the shift position, something I have never had happen to me or witnessed happening to anyone else. 

So, instead of heading to Bethlehem, I am off to Clarksville Schwinn hoping that Bob will be able to fix my bike.  He shakes his head and says not today, so I sadly leave it there heading home.  

I decide that I have other bikes and while it is too late to ride to Bethlehem without pushing my pace or running out of daylight, I take the Surly and head out to find some gravel.  Eden Road is alive with color and at the split off of Wascum, I take the lane that never appears to be a road but is.  It is a bit rougher than the other gravel, but the road itself is worth it. 

I am just thinking that I will make a day of it and ride further than intended when I get a text from the man working on my house that I need to come back.  So I turn around, sad but happy I at least got a few miles in and didn't waste an entire fall day.  As I head in, I realize my legs are more tired than I thought so perhaps it is not a bad thing.  

 

One of the hardest things I have found about exercising and aging is trying to tell the difference between necessary rest and being lazy.   And I decide that with riding a century on Saturday and century on Tuesday and fifty three miles on Thursday, I am probably really tired and need rest in a way I did not when I was younger.  

 

 

This leads to thoughts of aging and how it bothers us so much in this country to be old, as if it is a fault instead of a blessing that has been bestowed upon us.  I briefly wonder if it is that way everywhere. I can't say I like all the changes that age brings, but it is what happens unless you die and not a shameful thing but a natural thing.  To be ashamed of age is the same as being ashamed of  your eye color or your height,  utterly ridiculous. I can't say I glory in.  I rue my waning strength, the changes in my body, my lagging memory and thought processes, the wrinkles that surprise me in the mirror, the gradual graying of my hair.  But I try not to be ashamed and to remember that age is a blessing denied to some and to accept the changes that time has wrought.  I'm not always successful, but I try.

 

In the end, it has been a good day.  There is sunshine, and trees that shimmer with color as they dance their final dance with this years clothing before saying farewell.  Life is, overall, good, and I am thankful even if days don't always work as I planned.  Mr. Davis is, indeed, right.  Life certainly is about the unexpected.