draft of life

Nothing gets published lately, but draft after draft gets written, and abandoned. It could be a pretty good metaphor for parts of my life. And I suppose that is how it should be. We get only one chance, each moment, to live that moment. There are no rewrites, no final drafts, no polished end results. Our first drafts are all we ever have, we can only do our best.

My garden this year has been a wild proliferation of volunteer plants from last year’s garden. I was late in starting my seeds, when it comes to gardening I seem to always be later than recommended. But I always figure that I have nothing to lose by trying. It usually works out okay, in the garden.

At the end of the season last year I was a bit fatigued, perhaps, or struggling with one of the many things I seem to always struggle with, which is neither worth remembering nor writing about. And so the end of season produce produced in my garden was just…left. I didn’t pick it, I didn’t do anything with it. It eventually fell to the ground, the plants eventually froze, along with anything that had been lingering on them. I brought my bike in and out of my condo through that garden every day, and every day I felt guilty for my neglect, knowing that others would have done the end-of-gardening-year tasks.

I finally did those this spring, because I had to pull out the old dead plants in order to plant new.

I planted some corn, going along with my gardening philosophy of “why not, what do I have to lose?”, and some bush beans and some carrots and sunflowers and parsnips and fennel and parsley and chives and epazote and strawberries, most by seed but some by starter plants at the local organic market. I started peppers and cucumbers and tomatoes indoors, from seed. Some has done well, others have done nothing at all.

The corn is already 5 to 6 feet tall. A coworker has wondered that my homeowners association doesn’t have rules against growing crops, and truly if they do I have not bothered to look up and read them.

It wouldn’t surprise me if they did have such bizarre rules, governing what food we can grow, while they baby the expanses of lawns that they value over food. I hate homeowners associations, but this area has insane housing prices. This was the best I could do – a condo with a patio. I’m extremely lucky and grateful for the patio.

Not long after I planted my seeds, I realized one day while I weeded the patio that some of the weeds were not weeds at all. They were tomatoes and cucumbers! Not ones I had planted this year, since those were all inside still, and these were coming up mostly in areas I hadn’t cleared of annoying white rocks and wasn’t planning on planting this year.

Most gardeners will advise you to pull up the volunteers ruthlessly. You don’t know what they are (hybrids, perhaps) and you don’t know if they’ll be good varieties. They might not produce fruit, or not much, or maybe just not good fruit. They’re taking up room.

But I looked at those tender little seedlings, those amazing resilient little seedlings that manifested my neglect and turned it into something beautiful and worthwhile, and I just couldn’t pull them and throw them away. I did take a few of them and gave them to some neighbors and a coworker, but mostly I just let them grow. What could it hurt? What do I have to lose? They weren’t anywhere I was going to plant anyway….

And so I have a wildly vibrant patio this year, with cucumbers and tomatoes growing like weeds. The volunteer tomatoes and cucumbers are producing fruit, while the little seedlings I started from seed, the proper way, are still babies, still trying to settle in and are far from producing flowers let alone fruit.

I’m sure my garden is a metaphor for something in my life.

If so, I’ll choose to think it is a positive joyful metaphor. Things are growing, and I’m enjoying it. If the tomatoes aren’t the best in the world, I can’t work up a care about that. These volunteers are doing their thing, and I’m letting them. That feels good, and that feels right. We try to control so much, and in the end there is very little we have real control over. There’s something immensely satisfying about a wild garden, where the plants themselves have decided where a good place to grow would be.

 

saturday’s adventure, accomplished

It was about 6:15am when I set out. A few minutes later than I’d wanted, as expected, but early enough to practically have the road to myself. And that was perfect for me.

I got a little lost-but-not-really as I rode through Arlington to the Key Bridge into Georgetown. There are quirky angles to some of the streets and funky intersections, and not all of them go through even when they look like they do on a map, so when I drive the mile and a half between that part of Arlington and the part I live in, I only ever go the two routes I know because I find it confusing. I don’t drive much in DC either, for that reason plus the pain-in-the-assness of parking in DC. The Metro is just so much easier. So…it didn’t surprise me to have to make a couple extra zigs and zags from my planned route just to get to the Key Bridge. And once across the Key Bridge, it wasn’t straightforward to get onto the Capital Crescent Trail, despite having looked at maps and read up on it. Also not unexpected. I managed to find it in the end, which is the important part.

Once I got on the CCT, it was like a dream. Quiet and green, following the Potomac river for a ways, it was hard to believe that I wasn’t even a mile out of the city yet. Still in the DC limits. I instantly became a big fan of the CCT, which I’ve always heard raved about by commuters, and now I can understand why. A trail like that is as close to a bike highway as you can get in this area, it lets you cut through a large swath of the city without dealing with stoplights. It is crowded on the weekends (but not as early as I was on it), but that’s to be expected. It is a beautiful place to spend some time.

I would have appreciated some signage beyond the mile-markers.

I knew, from my research, that I wanted to get off the CCT and onto MacArthur Blvd somewhere between mile marker 6.5 and 6.0. On the trail, however, it was completely unclear how to make this happen. After I passed mile marker 6.0, I asked a fellow trail user how to get to MacArthur. Luckily he gave me perfect directions, and that was the very last tricky bit of navigation I had on my route. And luckily it was a quirky intersection (easily recognizable on the way back) where that trail emerged, because there was no signage at the trail entrance, not any more than there had been anywhere on the trail other than the mile markers. That’s something I really don’t get – if you want a trail to be easily usable, making it easy for people to get on and off where they intend to get on and off is pretty important! I guess they assume people already know…

MacArthur is considered a great road to bike on. And now I understand why. There was a gradual incline most of the time on the road, I think, yet I couldn’t even feel it. I was pedaling easily, feeling like I was maintaining a good speed with almost no effort. The first hour went by so quickly that I was actually shocked that an hour had gone by.

My second hour passed with ease as well. In fact, it was so easy that I thought I’d likely be able to ride to the sanctuary most every weekend. Even in my thoughts, I put a condition that – I’d wait until I’d finished my ride home to let myself really think that.

And that’s when the hills began. I’d been expecting them, I have driven them every weekend for years. I knew they’d be hard, and they were. They weren’t actually as physically demanding, individually, as I had thought they would be, but there were just so many of them! I knew that, yet on the bike, it seemed like it was never-ending.

Sometime in the 3rd hour my butt bones and my feet started to hurt. I was no longer comfortable, and I was starting to feel like it was a really stupid idea to ride to the sanctuary! It passed, eventually, and though I was still looking forward to getting off the bike, I re-found my sense of fun with the bike.

Arriving at the sanctuary on the bike, traveling down the gravely dirt road through the peaceful pastures…it was worth it, the worries, the pain, the time, all of it.

I’d borrowed a friend’s old GPS (thanks Rich!) out of curiosity, to see what my moving time was compared to my clock time for my commute. I brought it with me on the trip to and from the sanctuary as well.

why, yes, I do believe the GPS is perfectly accurate!

You can see that my average speed was just over 13mph. This is where I confess to a gripe about recording this kind of information – it makes me feel inadequate! I enjoy the interaction on DailyMile, but I’ll tell you, everyone is much faster than I am. It is hard to put in all day effort, and not have some thoughts in the back of my mind about how these DailyMile “friends” so often average 19+mph, even on these long rides. Not that they’d ever ride a steel bike, let alone a loaded one. I need to get past my frustrations with my not-so-speedy averages. I’ve never been a sprinter, I’m a long-haul kind of girl, and I ride a Long Haul Trucker to prove it! (That really is the model name of my bike!)

Most of the trip home was a bit of a blur. I stopped several times. I did have my camera with me after all, all 20 lbs of it, and without the morning pressure to arrive somewhere “on time”, I gave myself permission to stop for some of those photos.

does anyone need a house that huge?

I knew, when I left the sanctuary, that I’d need to stop more often. Part mental, part physical, partially to make sure I drank and ate more on the way home, and partially to remind myself that there was no need to hurry.

sign advertising indoor cycling on one of the area's most popular outdoor cylcing routes?

I passed by a big sign advertising the area’s Folk Festival next weekend at Glen Echo Park. I might go. I’ll probably fumble getting onto the CCT again, but other than that it is an easy trip there by bike, maybe 12 miles away. A good way to add a few more miles without overdoing it.

I also passed by some landmarks that I recognized from the photography class I took last year. I had no idea I’d pass by them!

fletcher's boathouse

All in all, it took me closer to 4 hours to get home, though my actual moving time, as recorded by the GPS, was only about 20 minutes longer than the ride there.

key bridge, looking towards rosslyn

As I rode back through Arlington, it was with a great feeling of having proved something to myself, of having done something I’d wanted to do practically since I first started bike commuting. It was also with great relief to get off the bike. At the time, I wondered if I’d ever want to get on a bike again. My quads felt bruised that night. I thought I might have actually bruised my legs, having my loaded bike leaning against me at various times. I was asleep by 8:30pm.

When I woke up, there were no leg bruises, and the muscles themselves were only somewhat tired. One day of rest, and I feel as good as new. (We’ll see if I still feel that way after riding to work tomorrow!)

I’ll do that ride again. I’ve proven to myself that it can be done. I’ll even look forward to it…someday it might not even be as full-body exhausting as it was this weekend!

 

saturday’s adventure, approaching

I’ve been researching my route for my Saturday adventure. It has been in my mind for a long time that I want to ride the 35 miles to the sanctuary, and I think I’m finally ready. Sorrow’s encouragement / excitement happened to be just what I needed to push me over the edge from dreaming to planning. Ready or not, I’m doing it this Saturday. I’ll have an extra day to recover thanks to the long weekend, and a shorter week following to bike to and from work. Even if I’m wiped out from the adventure, I should be able to get through the following week’s commuting.

I found enough routes on sites like Bikely that I’m now comfortable with how I’ll get there.

Here’s the map of my planned route:

map to sanctuary

And here’s why it is only after 10 months of biking 120 hilly miles/week that I think I might be ready:

elevation graph for trip to the sanctuary

By the time I get home, I’ll have climbed 4600 ft (and thankfully descended 4600 ft as well), in addition to my normal Saturday workout of hauling buckets of water and poop!

Still contemplating how I will bring my camera (the big one, not the p&s) and whether I’ll need muck boots. Whether I should bring a full change of clothes, and how much food. A lot of food, I’m thinking.

35 hilly miles. I’m budgeting 3 hours, thanks to the hills! And that’s just one way…

The neat aspect about planning this trip, and looking at it on a map, I really get a feeling of going somewhere on the bike. Utility cycling is what appeals to me, is what gets me excited. It is wonderful to feel fit, to know that my body can power me just about anywhere I want to go, but what trips my heart in excitement is having transported myself from place A to place B on my bike. Even now, after these 10 months of bike commuting, I feel a little ping of excitement every time I arrive at work or at home from my commute. “I did that!” a little part of me sings.

 

surly love

A few months ago my eye was drawn to a Surly traveling down the road as I headed home from work. I could see the rust, which seemed a shame. I speculated as to which year that particular bike had been built; it was a color I don’t remember seeing on a Surly before. It could be a custom paint job, or it could be a few years older than most of the Surlys I see. Which, granted, isn’t many.

Last week, on the same road, I saw the Surly again. Traffic was moving quickly, so I had just a glimpse, but I think it was the same bike, and presumably the same person. How many green Surlys are there going up and down Beulah, after all?

Today as I coasted up to a red light, I saw the Surly again! “I like your Surly!” I called. “I like yours too!” he responded.

It made me smile, that Surly connection, our mutual love.

Maybe the next time I see that Surly, it will be on the road instead of on the back of his car.

 

clif note

For me, European bike trips have never been about riding from Point A to Point B. My buddies and I far prefer the explorative method of riding. Rather than being blown off the bigger “red roads” by the noise and dust of passing semis, we seek out the serenity and quiet of remote alpine valleys on the smaller “white roads” – views of massive rock faces and glaciers at every turn. We’ve carried road bikes on our shoulders over high mountain passes, slid down vast glaciers along side our bicycles, and stumbled upon more quaint villages than I can count.

-Gary, founder and owner of clif bar & company

For me, I haven’t gone on a bike trip yet. Every Saturday when I drive to the Sanctuary, I think and dream about riding there. 35-40 miles each way. About twice what I do on a workday for my bike commutes. Worries about my fitness and about getting lost are what stop me, the kind of worries that will seem absurd once I get on my bike and do it.

There’s something about the bike. It is therapy, it is fun. It is transportation, it is independence. It feels good.

 

undecided

I’ve neglected this blog, and I’m not sure whether to keep neglecting it. I started it as a different kind of outlet than I had already created. I’ve met some nice online friends through it, and I still keep up with the blogs via blog reader.

I suppose I have decreased my need for an outlet. Partially because I have these other micro-places I record things in. Dailymile, where I record my (you might guess) daily miles on the bike. Momentile, where I post a daily photo, and which I enjoy because there is no chance for comments, mine or others. Lacking in context, it somehow frees me to take some crazy pictures, unworried as to whether anyone will “get” them. And when I take the uncrazy pictures, I also feel freed from expectations. I’m neither a photographer who takes only crazy pictures nor a photographer who doesn’t take crazy pictures. I’m simply exploring, and in a place with no context I feel freer to do so. And to stalk others who are participating in the life mosaic that is Momentile.

So I have these other outlets. I’m not sure whether to continue blogging here. I won’t take this blog down. What I’ve written and what others have written in response are enough for me to let continue. I know it has always disappointed me when others have shut down their blogs as well as stopped writing. I do like to be able to go back and read archives. Stop writing if you must, I’ve always felt, but please let me read the archived words!

It isn’t about me, though, and I do respect the need others feel to shut down their blogs when they are no longer putting their time into it.

I have continued to bike to and from work 4 times a week. I love it. My coworkers continue to be surprised when I ride in the rain, and express astonishment when I ride in the “cold” 55 degree mornings. Mornings which have me wearing a long sleeve t-shirt and short-fingered gloves. Cold? How quickly they forget.

I have worn through my first pair of brake pads, and met a fellow steel-lover when I took it to get new pads. He looked at my bike, caked in road grime that I’m too lazy and not well enough equipped to clean completely, and said “nice bike.” It could be said that he ogled my bike. I glanced at the sparkling bikes surrounding me, looking like dirt would not dare mar their shiny perfection, and gave an embarrassed chuckle. “It’s a bit dirty.”

A few weeks ago I was at a stoplight, almost home, when another rider pulled up next to me. Unusual, but as he’d been chasing me up the giant hill near home, I knew he was there before he rolled up. “Miserable weather,” he commented. I glanced at the sky, at the drizzling world around me, and didn’t have anything to say.

I was on my bike, it seemed good to me.

 

monday’s commute

my street, early monday morning

my tire track, a third of the way there

my snow bike

It took me 2.5 hrs, but I made it. I had a great time. I have been exhausted all week, probably because of the extra effort that ride took. Not just the increased rolling resistance, but the constant adjustments of balance, it all took a lot out of me. I’ve been eating like crazy all week to try to catch up.

 

letting go

Letting go is something I struggle with. I stew, I fret, I mull, I often describe it as “my mind spins.” I can’t seem to easily let go of things. The biking is a huge help. It is like a cleansing. It is like getting filled up with fun and smiles, pushing the other stuff out of the way.

Tonight at yoga, the teacher presented a definition of “letting go” as our yin thought for the night.

“Letting go is fearing less and loving more.”

I like it. There is a lot of room for reflection in there.

 

readjusting my view

It is hard to explain why I have such a good time on my rides to and from work. I think back on them, and I smile. I apparently forget most of the annoyances and challenges immediately after. My enjoyment is so great that I’m often baffled by comments people make.

Recently I saw the office manager and she asked how it was going, exclaimed over the fact that I rode that day. It was really cold, she told me, and I chuckled vaguely, not sure what she was talking about. Was it cold that day? I didn’t remember anything extreme on the way in. (I think it had been in the high 20’s, which is not the lowest temp I’ve ridden in, not by far.) She mentioned standing at the pump while putting gas in her car. And I think I’d find that bone-chillingly cold as well. But on the bike? On the bike it is different.

No one believes me. Except other cyclists. Or so I imagine, I guess.

When I was at the sound wall this afternoon, taking my normal water-gulp break, two people came around the corner. It was Friendly Commuter and his sometimes riding partner, who I had seen before but hadn’t met. We chatted for a few minutes. It was fun, I enjoyed the chance to make the connection.

But I had a weird moment in the conversation. She said something about how she hadn’t ridden yesterday, and when Friendly mentioned that I’d ridden, she was surprised. She asked me, or exclaimed, or something, and I was (probably visibly) confused. “Was there something different about yesterday?” I asked them. It was, I was reminded, colder and pretty windy.

Oh. Yeah, I guess it was. But it didn’t seem that bad to me. Which is what I said to them, and looked to Friendly for confirmation – he rode yesterday too!

I had the feeling that my reaction was confirming something to them both. And that surprised me. I’m not sure what it was confirming, but I am pretty sure this is why Friendly told me I “inspire” him, and why that baffled me. I don’t see myself as being “tough as nails”, as Friendly insists.

And I don’t – what I do, the riding, it doesn’t feel extreme to me. Sure it is cold outside, but I am not personally cold while riding. (I’m sweating on my rides, and I need to stop overdressing, to be honest.) And the wind, well, it is extra resistance and it does bug me sometimes, but it doesn’t stop the ride from being fun.

Today when I tried to get Friendly to agree with me that it hadn’t been that bad yesterday, and instead got the feeling that I was amusing them both, I insisted that I had ridden in worse. Which is true, I have. And didn’t actually find it to be that bad, other than the extra tiredness at the end of the ride.

“You’re just addicted,” Friendly said with a smile, I think trying it out. It was something I’d said to him before…in response to the “tough as nails” comment.

I’m not tough as nails, I’m not a trooper…I’m just a girl addicted to the bike. I can’t explain it any better than that. I can’t explain why I didn’t realize I was different either. I was naive, but I can honestly say I assumed that everyone loved their rides as much as I do!

Maybe it is just perspective. I read the blogs of a couple true cold weather cyclists, one of whom is about to start riding a 350 mile race in the dead of Alaska. The other “merely” commutes through the winter in Anchorage. Plus goes mountain (snow/ice) biking for fun on the weekends.

I didn’t think NoVa even qualified as having a winter, in comparison!

 

accidentally inspiring

My departure times in the mornings have been slipping, slowly. I’m now leaving an hour later than I used to. In some ways this is nice – there is more traffic, but there are also more bike commuters and more light. With the later start times, I’ve been seeing one commuter regularly, morning and afternoon, which was a happy thing for me. Happy because he always had a smile, and a hello, and there is something happy about being able to look forward to that.

I mostly would see him in the neighborhood that I think of as The Between. Between the bike lanes and busy-ness on one side, and no bike lanes on smaller roads and The Big Hill on the other. The Between is my favorite part of the ride, and so of course it is also the shortest. Quiet and pleasant, I often see people out walking, working in their yards, chatting to neighbors. I know the trash pickup schedule, and I know which dogs wig out every time they see me, and I sometimes see kids riding their bikes or skateboards to school. It is not exactly the half-way point, but close enough, and on my way home I stop at the sound wall, and I take a second. I drink water (because I’m not coordinated enough to drink and ride), and sometimes check my phone for new tweets. Sometimes I even send a tweet myself.

Having a happy greeter in this short section makes me not want to change my schedule, in case I miss him.

I had never talked to him, though, he was just the Man in Blue, the Friendly Commuter.

This morning I did leave home earlier, I wanted to have time to get home for my Thursday night yoga class. It is a yin class, and I find I need Yin to uncrimp and restretch after a week of biking. So I knew that I might not see my Friendly Commuter, or I might see him across several lanes of traffic if I saw him outside the boundaries of The Between, making a greeting a thought instead of a reality.

As it happened, I saw him just before I hit the far side of The Between. He turned into The Between as I was approaching the exit. He pulled over to my side of the road, so I stopped when I got to him.

And about fell over at his first words, which were “you inspire me!” I am pretty sure I have only ever inspired someone by accident, but there you go. I had my first laugh of the morning.

We exchanged names and general route information. We talked about our love of the biking. He mentioned his schedule change, which will mean I won’t see him in the mornings for a while, but maybe in the afternoons. He’d stopped me, specifically so he could mention his schedule change, in fact. While that might seem weird that he’d do that, given we didn’t know each other’s names, and had never before had a conversation, it made perfect sense to me. I’d have wondered, and worried, if he’d suddenly disappeared.

And it turns out I had a name-for-when-you-don’t-know-someone’s-name too. I was the Mystery Commuter to him!