Two weeks...

A short space of time. An eternity. Stillness allows realizations to grow, deepen, enter awareness in a way that takes root and flowers in the season of reflection. My last two adventures took me what felt like pretty far afield, beyond the pavement and the population of humanity that inhabits the valley. In no way do I regret doing them, but as I stared at maps plotting the next adventure a thought slowly dawned: this is going to get hard. How can I best, or at least equal the kind of distance, effort, and enjoyment that I have been getting out of these solitary pursuits? It isn't sustainable. The rest came like a waterfall:

I don't really enjoy riding the bike in and of itself anymore. I value the bicycle as a vehicle which can take me as far as I want to go. That said, it has been sitting against the wall for two weeks without carrying me much further than the grocery store. I've climbed almost 70,000 vertical feet over 1,000 miles of riding so far since February. I haven't quite reached my goal, and I'm exhausted. I'm almost sure I will make it, but I really need to find the drive that I started with... not, of course, the mad obsession that displaced all my reason in May and led to several injuries... but I need to look out at the mountains, up the creeks, down the valleys, and feel that they are beckoning me, inviting me. I haven't felt that at all... for two weeks.

Some of the best rides and the most remarkable time spent outside was with the kids. Now that Julian is getting so big (read: heavy) I really can't haul him up the mountains anymore. I physically just can't do it without getting hurt. We need to find (and are finding) other activities to do with the kids.

Its been an amazing year. We have done so much that the idea of small, casual, familiar events and activities have really lost their appeal to me. That one thing just screams "STOP!" My practice of Buddhism reminds me that this moment is the only place I can ever find happiness. Sometimes it is important to simply be in this moment without planning, without trying to blow it up into something epic.

I went for a barefoot run night before last. Probably a mile and half... or two miles... couldn't say. No GPS. No camera. No headlamp. No iPod. No shirt. No shoes. It was the most enjoyable period of solitary activity in weeks. I enjoyed it more than my trip to the lakes. Simple, short, uninterrupted. And we spent last weekend more or less at the river. Stumbling through the rocks, swimming in the current, laying on the beach, soaking up the dying breath of Summer.

It is naturally quite difficult to maintain a blog about activities like this, that simply don't get planned, documented, photographed, or otherwise measured... and these kinds of activities are becoming more frequent. It's okay. It's a progression. Time will tell if all these electronic gizmos, screens, and wires wind up in a pile in the closet or not... For now, I think I'll plan something epic for later this week and see if it sticks.

Otherwise...

Julian standing knee deep in the Clark Fork as a kayaker lines up for "The Wave."