| oregon - perspective |
[Sep. 19th, 2005|10:52 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  pleased | ] |
| [ | music |
| | such great heights - the postal service | ] |
wow. so the oregon trip was huge.
pix up at my smugmug site, and the shues'
and wrt the last post i put up, mom and pop have now seen the nosering
in photos, so i'm not going to be timid about it in the future.
the cascades were humbling. as mountains should be to flatlanders such
as m'self. on the monday morning ride i think i managed to invert
my lungs. the climbs are different out there. they're
constant. for miles you climb. and it's at ~6000', whereas
i'm living at the ~650' mark. so i had that goin for me..
tuesday was grueling. lots of hard climbing. and loose lava
rocks. they were sharp and unstable, and scary to someone from a
more tectonically 'settled' part of town.
so after 2 days of inching up them and bombing down them, i was really
cranked. just totally angry at myself for not being able to climb
better. not owning it, not being able to shimmy right up the
loose lava rock mountains, the likes of which i'd never before
seen. on a specialized fully, unlike the hardtails i'd been
riding. and i was _mad_.
wednesday was a respite. a transfer day, mostly flat, lots of
winding. it made me feel like i kinda knew what i was doing
again. i got some confidence back. and we took the
afternoon off to relax around camp, so we swam, i knitted, it was just
a chill afternoon. oh, with beers at lunch. mmmm..
it wasn't until thursday which was another goodly bunch of climbing, that i really started getting some perspective.
i realized that the michigan racing pool, is really a small pond.
and the people that do so well here are just medium sized fish in the
puddle. we've got some gorgeous trails. but they're kind of
like road riding on the dirt. they're nothing like having crazy
elevation changes, not like riding on mountains. agonizing over
how i've been losing all season isn't really doing me any good.
it's not making me faster. i haven't hardly been having fun in
the races this year because i've been so worked up over how i'm doing
compared to other people.
for years i think i've been trying to gain approval from a faster, more
experienced cyclist. in gaining some of this perspective, i
realized that i don't want to have his sort of life. i don't want
to focus exclusively on biking and neglect my creative side, or my
friends and family. i want to always have room to do what i like,
and not feel bad about not being on the bike, not training hard
enough. now i'm riding for me. i'm riding for my own
improvement. (and i really do want to get faster, and better at
handling, etc, because i love the sport). i'm riding to enjoy my
own self, not show anybody that i can do what they do, to my own
inconvenience.
really, the races are darned fine training rides, and i don't have
anyone to impress (because it would be silly for someone to be
impressed with the biking, when the rest of my life is so much more
interesting). so there's nothing to worry about. i skipped
the first race after i came home because i just didn't think it would
be fun to spend 3 hours riding 30 miles around the rutted out dusty
course on my tinkerbell hardtail (when i'd been riding the bombproof
fully for a week). so i didn't race, but i showed up and cheered
on my friends. it felt good. and i raced this last weekend
at addison oaks. the course is gorgeous, and i just love riding
there. i had one of my best races this season. it was
wonderful.
so now we're on to fall riding. my favorite time of year.
time for the apple cider epics, and the fun back road rides.
seeing my non-racer bike friends. testing out the singlespeed,
riding through downtown detroit at midnight. one of the other
nice things about fall (there are almost too many to
count) is that with the race season ending, i'm really looking forward
to spending some time shooting. maybe even hunting.
what i love about my life is the great mix of things i get involved
with. i need balance, and diversity, new experiences. i
just couldn't be doing everything i wanted to because i was berating
myself all the time, worrying about what other people thought of
me. i like being able to go to the chinese buffet and drink with
my non-riding friends, which i can do because cycling isn't the true
focus of my life, it's just one of the many pleasures.
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 10th, 2005|10:32 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  thirsty | ] |
http://www.nataliedee.com/dairyland/030226_29.html
is it terribly nerdy to reference someone else's blog in your blog?
so i've been thinking about getting tattoos. or at least _a_ tattoo.
but a funny thing happened to me on the way over to mom's house today. i was leaving nick and marts' place, and nick asked, "are you going to wear your nose ring over to the rents place?" me: "ummm.... no. i don't think so" (because i had told them about the time i went up north, and dad came out in the driveway to help me bring stuff in, and i had my nosering in, and he said something like, "i thought you got that thing taken out when you got divorced, so noone could lead you around again" and i was like, "d'oh!! do you think i should take it out before mom sees?" and he says, "she's going to make fun of you more than i am.") so marts told me about how nervous she was (at age 30) when she went to her mom's house, showing off her dual eyebrow pierces for the first time. funny how cavalier we are most of the time, how liberated and free. until it comes to telling our moms what we're up to...
so, today i didn't wear the nosering over to the rents place. and i don't have tattoos yet, but i'm thinking about them, and how do you tell your parents about that kind of stuff?
sometimes it's hard to have an honest conversation with m&p. i guess i feel like sometimes i'm putting something together, and want to bounce it off of mom, and she's like, "thanks for stopping by, see you later. take care!" and then i don't say it, because our interview is over.
so, i want to tell the rents about my nosering, because my mojo just seems to go better when i have it in. and i want to talk about tattoos, which they don't have and would discourage (like the nosering). but also i want to ask them about them smoking pot. something i hear they did a lot of. and i want to tell them about my experiences. but i just can't seem to slide that in. i don't think i can do it without being confrontational, and i like having them around, i'd hate to have it all be as fucked up as it was before. *shrug* |
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| joy or happy abandon |
[Jul. 6th, 2005|11:37 pm] |
i so often forget that i need to live my life with joy and happy abandon. and when i've forgotten for a while and then remember, that's the best. it's a new revelation. it's beautiful.
i yoga'd after work tonight. i almost skipped it. but i got there in time, so there i was. we did handstands. it was my first time. the world is completely different when it's upside down.
and the instructor said, this is a most auspicious evening! and whenever anyone uses the word auspicious, i'm hooked. i know i'm in the right place.
so it was good. and the park afterwards was perfect. it's like camping, except you don't have to stay the whole weekend. you can just go in the evening and see people walking their kids and dogs, and greet the white pines and the mallard ducks, and the flowing stream, and then move along.
i watched the cottonwood seeds float in the long gold rays of lazy sunlight. it was gorgeous. i was glad to be there. i want to go camping now. and i want to get my helix pierced. and tattoos. i want to workon my tattoo art. because nothing really matters. not my job, not my car, not my title. but it's the stuff outside that's important. the feeling alive. the going to rock concerts and getting tattoos and camping. this is real life.
i love real life. i just don't always remember to live it. |
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| here i am. |
[Nov. 28th, 2004|06:59 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | sad confused and contemplative | ] |
| [ | music |
| | secret machines - nowhere again | ] |
or at least i'll try to be.
i guess i'm always taking in and learning and thinking and judging and planning. and i don't spend much time being. presently.
a lot of the time i think i'd be better off lobotomized. at least then i'd think less. and really, it's the crap in my head that gets me down. not hardly what anyone else says or does. just my preconceptions and interpretations them.
anyway, today's toughest sentence: you deserve to be happy, just like everybody else.
i'll give you that i deserve to be happy. but what is happy? this is something i've been struggling with. because i'm a mad rockin chick, but i think i'm going to want a house with a porch and some babies some day. in fact, i'm pretty sure of it. and these are not things a mad rockin chick wants. except i do. and i'm not always good at holding 2 mutually exclusive viewpoints. at least, it takes a lot of energy, and i get tired.
the house doesn't necessarily require a partner, but i don't want the kinder if i can't share them with someone. and finding that someone is a huge ordeal. because there are so many someones out there, and i haven't found one i want to keep forever. (on a side note: this is also why i have no tattoos).
see, i guess the problem is that i want these things, but i also don't want them. because they mean a permanence. a lessening of flexibility. it's tying yourself to people and the land. can you have these things and still be free?
i guess when it comes down to it, i'm terrified. and all the thinking and planning and judging is so i don't make a mis-step that will land me in another trap.
i just don't know. |
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