Sustaining

On Saturday, I was less than two miles from home. On my new Genesis bike, my 9 day old baby, heading out for my first ride of any significance, 2 hours slated in my head. I’m later than I wanted, and thus I’ve hit the forecast rain as I set off. Wearing the right gear for these conditions, I feel protected enough, and wish not to get soaking wet until I’m on my way home. Going out wet is tough, coming back wet is tempered by the excitement of coming back.

Approaching the turn for Little Casterton, where I’m planning to turn left, towards Tollbar, planning a ride across the strong and gusty westerly. Planned route is mainly northwards, and return, maybe out and back, albeit I hope not as that always grates a little in my head. Even if it is marginal, an out and back on different roads sits so much better with me.

And, my head is coming up. I’m appreciating the detail in Genesis already. Longer, more space between saddle and bars, comfortable riding position, easy gear change, and feeling the new power which I attribute to my winter training and conditioning.

And, I recall, I compare. Less than two miles from home, and I feel warmed, I feel uplifted, I feel the presence of possibilities, and I feel less daunted by my challenges, whether cycling or living.

I recall, this post and this ride, detail etched in my mind, as I approached the distance which marked my warming up that day. Only two years ago, this was my world, my daily context. Different now, different today.

Yes, everything is possible, and it often takes 10 miles to get here, to the place of possibilities. Regardless of the route I choose on my bike, regardless of what the day in my world is like, regardless of my context. Whether it is time, or distance, or processing stuff – I don’t know the significance of this 10 mile rule of thumb.

Alan (me), Growing Taller, posted March 2021

The 10 mile rule of thumb seemed to apply so often then, as a proxy for how long it took me to get myself motivated and awake and aware of beauty around me. That day, the Growing Taller day, the 10 miles and likely 45 minutes of cycling passed me in a blindness. Awareness, presence, both completely absent until that point.

Similarities are many, between then and now. Still me, still working with my beauty and vulnerability and genius and anxiety. Still making headway, encouraging myself, with many support mechanisms and habits built, enhanced, ongoing.

And. The differences. As I set out on Genesis, central to my riding is an awareness of the awesomeness and fantabulousness of my cycling trip this June. Taking on the legendary Col du Tourmalet amongst other fine Pyreneean ascents, over six days. On my Genesis, my new steed and companion and Knight in Shining Armour. Perhaps this is why my warming up is two miles, rather than the ten of two years ago. Long distance, long travelled, yet fractions of a heartbeat apart.

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Cycling. Running. Walking. On beach, on path, on mountain and water meadow. Sitting, a keyboard explorer, with desire to see more, to do more, yet so often constrained. By myself, by the 10 miles often, now by the 2 miles.

Where do I go for my next iconic birthday, in 2025? Somewhere familiar, somewhere new? Mountain? Lake? View? Place? Familiarity? Challenge? Distance? Closeness? A colleague spoke today of his week fishing in France, with his best friend, catching great fish and surrounded by wildlife, fine wine and cheese. Great for your mental health, he observed, great decompression. As I sat, and listened, one of my voices suggested that “I’d spend too much energy fretting and being anxious about getting there” – a nod to my current inability to settle on a birthday place. Yet, such uncertainty is also liberating, as my choice will be great, well made, considered, and iconic when I get there.

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In the meantime. In my wandering today, around the house, as I dart and duck from task to call to correspondence to inbound to courier to MoT to Milly. As I eat for no specific reason, never really hungry, never really satisfying my unreal hunger.

I feel. Empty, The openness of a wide space. The vastness of an ocean. The call of an empty place. The cry of a silent voice. I feel empty, and with no possible answer to what will fill my empty feeling.

I stop. I pause. I walk on. I sit, I stand, I read, I ignore. I nibble, I snack, I am calculating. And, I still feel the emptiness, tinged with loneliness. Tinged with fears, of past and of future. Prodded by unspoken doubt.

In my deeper safety, in my place of sane voices, there is a murmuring. Suggesting to me, that I put this down, rather than try to satisfy. My emptiness is an empty coffee cup. This is a thing which I can put down, then carry on, or carry back, or sit still. Without holding my emptiness in my hands, in my heart, in my gut.

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Over my hours of afternoon and evening, I am punctuated. By ideas, by positives. By steps, and graduals. I book Yoga, this evening. My first class in ’23. I prod and poke and nudge and turn my emptiness, gently, with a little curiosity, and a little fun. I sense a post, words emerging to describe, to put it down, to remove the empty coffee cup from my hands and from by vision.

Is this sufficient? Does this enable me to deal with my emptiness? It does, today. It does, as I remember two years of progress. And, I realise that I sustain, as I suffer. Two sides of the spectrum, connected, as the Interstellar dust.