by susan | Oct 30, 2019 | Uncategorized
deep, dark morning, while most slumber, is a bewitching time of day up my canyon. deer lower their heads to graze, porcupines waddle along the edge of the road, coyotes trot through sage and grass, crickets sing, songbirds hail one another, owls look down and peruse their kingdoms.
during late spring and early fall the sun gradually lightens the landscape as I ride, and I seek silhouettes and vague forms that delineate as I near. as fall stretches forward and the days shorten, I attune to sound alone, as my vision is limited to the small cone thrown by my front bicycle light.
with any bit of light, I’ve learned to search for owls atop spindly, lifeless trees, and now know which trees are most often inhabited by these predators. at times an owl calls and I am kept, by the dark, from spotting it; instead I experience a spark of joy from the challenge of pinpointing, sightless, its perch. owls are there; they watch me pass.
one early october morning, I crested the summit, and coasted down toward the reservoir. as the road leveled and turned south, I resumed pedaling. well behind me, still at the summit, approaching headlights shot downhill.
a large shadow—dark against dark—appeared far to my left, a strange effect of the headlights, I thought. then the shadow moved closer, again in my peripheral vision, an illusion, perhaps. the shadow was then shockingly close, my nerves tingled, and suddenly an owl swept across me, left to right, its wings and torso millimeters from my head and arms. brown, darker brown, a pattern almost striped, I impossibly felt its feathers against my skin, its body against my own.
gone.
I pedaled.
the truck passed me, its headlights piercing the opacity.
I rode to the reservoir, jubilant, astonished. I turned and began my trek home.
jubilant.
astonished.
by susan | Mar 1, 2018 | Uncategorized
I don’t remember learning to ride a bicycle. Not who taught me, how long I used training wheels, the color of my bike, nor how many times I fell before I caught on. Before my body discovered the sweet balance spot, to use momentum to my benefit, to assess, as I slowed, at which exact moment I should place my foot upon the ground.
I pedaled to and from school, Rexall’s drug store, and friends’ homes in Midland, Michigan, and continued when we moved to South Bend, Indiana, although there I added trips to the zoo and to the swimming pool. At eleven, my family settled in Utah, plunking me in a mountainous community where I continued to ride–and push uphill–my bike.
Then a hiatus: no bicycling in college.
At twenty-five I bought a mountain bike, which I rode scant times over the next fifteen years as I married, raised children, juggled work and home, while again living high on the foothills of Salt Lake City.
After my divorce, I started to again ride a bike. To get exercise. To clear my head. To escape one thing or another. To gain, again, balance.
For the past eleven or so years, I’ve pedaled indoors throughout each winter. The course I take is intended to keep cyclists fit while snow and cold temperatures keep us from riding outdoors. Each year there are a few “tests” given to assess our fitness level. Similar to a time trial, it is a maximum effort sustained for anywhere between fifteen and twenty-five minutes. These are never easy, as we work to balance breath, exertion, and commitment. I struggle, each time, with the part of me that urges me to just stop, chiding me with both the silliness of it all and my right to self-determination. I’ve been doing these for years: I know I am capable. Yet each time I host an internal debate, and sometimes the winner is not my best self.
Yesterday I fought back, and completed the damn thing. I needed that victory, since I had bailed early on the previous three tests. I needed to prove to myself that I could bear it, that my physical body could withstand the mental chatter and prevail. That I could do what I didn’t want to do.
I spent years of my life doing what I didn’t want to do. And of course, like everyone, I continue to frequently do what I don’t want to do. Like recalcitrant children, our hedonistic selves must often be reined in, redirected, buckled to different tasks. The reward? Not great glory, but instead a sense of competence. Not necessarily wealth, but instead, greater self-esteem. Not material prizes, but the spiritual one of depth and capacity.
I am the same human being I was two days ago, and yet I’m not.
by susan | Oct 29, 2017 | Uncategorized
My heart has broken so often it is covered with tape and bits of glue, it’s misshapen, and at times it limps along behind me, barely keeping pace. After a break it never returns to the way it had been; after each fracture the pieces slowly find their way back to each other and then seem to affix in random ways, the result a lumpy thing that experiences life in an unfamiliar way, whose desires are a bit different than before. It feels familiar to me, yet strangely foreign.
I thought, I believed, I dreamed, I desired. I created an expectation—which Buddha knew to be the cause of all suffering—then my fragile heart crashed against a rocky shoreline and shattered.
I suppose the first step toward healing is the awareness that one’s heart has shifted and changed—from this day forward it is on a slightly different path. The break cracks it open: each fissure exposes edges and allows access to its depth, to parts perhaps unknown. Sometimes these newly exposed parts shriek with the pain of light, sometimes they weep at their nakedness.
As my heart lies in disrepair, I feel each separate piece, and I wait for wisdom, I wait for those previously undiscovered fragments to speak.
I ride my bicycle. I inhale autumn’s fragrances—loam, decomposition, burning wood—it is a season of acceptance, of loss, of what was solid becoming ash. A promise of rebirth lies beneath, but my heart cannot feel, cannot yet believe. I catch the wide brown eyes of a doe, slender among denuded oaks, and a minuscule sliver of my heart quivers. I pedal harder, hoping to exhaust the scattered segments into collapsing back together. Instead, the individual pieces burn, my chest alight. I feel small flames throughout.
I take on long-forgotten tasks, I organize, I nest. Again, a flicker of heat, a reconsidering, as I restack favorite books, smooth the duvet, re-stain the parched, neglected, cedar fence.
I reconsider what I want. Yes, at its core, this remains the same. Two pieces come together, edges fusing in a burn that spreads throughout the entirety of my rib cage. Wisdom, strength, space, adventure, endless possibilities. Purple walls in my office, philosophical discussions, canoeing, a hike in the snow, exploration of canyons and gorges, hearts, minds. Labyrinths, enigmas, the enduring question, why. More pieces slip into place, some as before, some in new locations. Heat.
I forgive myself for the tears, the drama, the pity. I tell myself nothing good comes easily. I take a moment to shop online at my favorite outdoor-gear retailer; imagining, but not purchasing. A few more pieces slip into place. I write a short to-do list: Pull old files to shred. Fill a give-away box. Be me.
My heart is not as it was yesterday, yet it glows. It’s calling in those last stragglers. It’s lumpy and misshapen, and it promises to be there for me, as long as I vow to listen, always, and work to give my reassembled, curious, tenacious, intractable heart exactly what it wants.
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