Where Am I?

This is some art done by my daughter for the show, but it embodies how I feel right about now at the end of 2022.

I am grateful for my life, but it feels so surreal lately. MaYbE you can relate?

TIME: Time goes so freaking quick! I long to be bored and have hours and hours to fill. It seems I am always racing the clock, the sun, the weather, the end of the month. Old people used to tell me that time goes quicker so enjoy it. As a young child I thought okay, I am warned. Got it! But now I feel like those bastards cursed me with some geriatric dark magic. I do have a little hope that maybe meditating may help with this, but right now time feels like a hyperspace sequence.

STUFF: Cleaning up my Mom’s life, has be profound. Realizing whole albums of pictures in a box are of people that no-one knows or wants really hammers home a truth I already knew… that stuff doesn’t matter or make you happy, and that nothing last forever (except maybe cottered cranks). But as you saw in the last posts, there is an ongoing ripple effect purging of MATTER in my life right now. Old bike parts nobody wants… gone! Books I kinda liked… gone! Tools that I might use once a decade… goodbye!

BIKES: Sell, donate, and keep he ones that spark joy! Plan on all of them (tools, parts, bikes) being easy for my family to get rid of after I’m gone (80 years from now). Hold out for that next bike until you see exactly the right color, size, and set up.

(I certainly don’t need any other bikes. I can only imagine a couple options for any bikes I might want anytime soon. Eventually my well loved Aluminum Planet X Uncle John frame will age out and will need a steel replacement (I fantasize about someone of the builders I know taking the Uncle John specs and sloping the top tube down and giving me some 2″ 29’er tire clearance in a nice steel frame, but again $$ don’t grow on trees). For any additional bikes I ever think about is any only one of the following 3… a Salsa Fargo XL (cause it’s just so fun and stable) or maybe a Surly Ghost Grappler with 29 wheels (love the mint color), or a fantasy Tumbleweed Stargazer (just beautiful) if I win the lottery.)

THE PODCAST: I swing wildly here between joy, pride, guilt, and panic. The scene in the series LOST where the guy has been tricked to live in the bunker and has to push a button periodically to keep avoiding doomsday is how it feels at its worst. I put the pressure on myself as the end of the month comes and I have been procrastinating (or doing other stuff). I even feel pressure from recordings that are close to unusable, and I carry some guilt about not having been able to fix them. I imagine the person I’ve interviewed waiting by the computer for their segment to drop, and the only thing keeping it from happening is me getting it done. At its best, I love working on the show. I feel honored to have people willing to talk to me. I feel connected to the world and blessed to be able to put stories out there into the universe. (I think meditating will help with this wild roller coaster of emotional too.)

CYCLING: I love when I get out there. I think I spend more time thinking about getting out there than actually getting out there this year. Numbers shouldn’t matter, but I am down 400 miles from last year, probably all due to all the weekends spent at my Mom’s. My running though (because of the young dog we have) is up to 270 miles for the year. I almost put off RAGBRAI in 2019, but I’m so lucky I did it before 2020. Now I am planning on more rides this Summer. No one knows how many rides they have left, but I want to get out riding new places after playing it safe for a while. Seeing the aging process in others makes me realize it is unfair, impossible to predict, and essentially comes down equally to both luck and effort. Big talks with Liz led to the epiphany I shouldn’t put so much (big rides, small rides, tours) off until I retire.

HOPE: In general I am hopeful, but I am also binge watching old Columbo episodes. I keep hoping to wake up in the morning to a kinder more compassionate world. Cars and bikes getting along. Racers and commuters, elite athletes and cargo bikers, clipped in and flat peddlers, all getting along. Occasionally going online reminds me of people fighting each-other for toilet paper, people obsessed with themselves, folks spending crazy money on over the top luxurious, while others struggle, and politics hitting the fan daily. But I know I can’t fix any of that. All my hope lives in just a bunch of little people spread out all over the world trying to do the right thing everyday. That’s the pinnacle of humanity in 2022.

Ok… well here comes 2023… let’s roll out!