Non breeders

I occasionally take long weekends away with a gaggle of women. We were in our thirties when we started. Now 40s might be more honest although two have yet to achieve that giddy height. Tongue in cheek we call ourselves the non breeders. We found ourselves having a drift in commonality with our motherly friends. Some who envied us our untied nature and others who couldn't comprehend life without kids and some who wistfully wanted both worlds. Circumstances had led us this way. Two may yet breed. One decided quite definitively it was not for her. Two, perhaps with some sadness have accepted a child free fate. The fourth it's a subject too sore too raw to talk about even ten years on. I fall into the acceptance bracket.

I am in a cottage with three generations of my family. Three siblings over 40. One child. Sadly our genes are not well represented.

They seem good genes. My dad before multiple sclerosis was a county level hockey player. My mother along with her three brothers passed mensa level tests. She was a Rambert school of ballet graduate. We are intellectually and physically blessed.

I look at us as three siblings in our 40s and we may not have bred but we're still kind of good. My sister now a hockey player at masters international level. My brother fighting fit, a focused dad. Me, the disappointment in a sporting sense. Well I don't do so bad.

It feels like a waste of genes though. Funny eh?

Right Round

I discovered something new. Life is all about new discoveries after all.  It’s an extraordinary thing, life, never static, not even when we wish it was.

Trail centre with a motley crew of Talent Team coaches, one of whom is a local to the area. We hit the Clayton Vale trails.  These have been gently developed over some time but had an official that’s it, we’re open kind of an event in May.  Finally a mix of sections through woodlands have been connected up into a cohesive comprehensive trail which you can follow.  There are many loops too, you can repeat and repeat and repeat. 

That was new for me, going back time and again over the same loop.  It was surprising.  First time down tentative involving some short cuts, breaking, even, dare I say it, walking.  By the fifth time fear had departed and the narrow, tight, downhill hairpin was just achieved with ease, and I’d worked out what gear to get into for some of the uphill bits as well as figuring out which bits were short enough to just give it some welly out of saddle.

Surprisingly, too, I enjoyed it.  Enjoyed the process of being a hamster in a wheel, going back time and time again over old ground.  I grew in confidence with every attempt, although hopefully not in cockiness. Having done the ride in cool company I now know I can just get out there after work on my own.  Because I can see the trail start from the window of the office. It’s nothing if not convenient.

It’s also lovely doing a ride with people I’ve never ridden with before.  I’ve known Stuart for a decade, Rik for less time and Monica for a matter of months.  They are coaches, they have a history of competitive participation in cycling, and I have respect and deference to their advanced knowledge, skills and fitness.  But as a person, I still contribute to the group.  I like that I can, having come to a standstill on a very minor bit of up, stand and chat to Rik who has a moment of despair at his lack of fitness and  his Roc d’Azur sign up for October and say it’s fine to be where he is, it’s understandable and now he knows that, he knows the direction to take. It’s OK to have limitations, really it is.

I have worked in this world too long.  Met my ex boss in the corridor and in non arse licking way (that’s really not my style) I note he’s looking trim and tell him so. He’s not feeling it, he feels in a place where he’s been off the bike for a week or so and it’s all gone to pot. I smile and say Ahh, you’re doing that thing where you’ve had one or two bad weeks, bike wise, and suddenly you feel the months of hard work you did before have all been lost.  That thing.  He smiles and agrees, because he’s heard it all before, and normally he’s the one dishing it out. He knows I’m right.

And we're going retro of course with Dead or Alive ...

 

The Light

Today has been brought to you by a kiss from a rose on the gray.

"the light that you shine can be seen" Such a Quaker concept.  I'm feeling quite quakerish today it would seem.  It's funny, decades of living life as member of the Society as Friends and I simultaneously grow away from it as I grow towards it.  Elements even now are being discarded while others are simply a part of who I am.  It's good to know I'm not yet a fully formed Me, even in my 40s. 

I still see a revised version of that of god in everyone.  I see that of good in everyone instead. It's annoying and hard to break, but I cannot, cannot write anyone off.  I can't see anyone as a "waste of time", it still feels to me that all that's needed is to understand someone properly, to keep trying, and an outcome of a simple encounter can be so much more rewarding.  I find people rewarding on the whole.  I cannot give up on folk.  I have gently put to one side associations which I realised are not really friendships, but I know deep down that I'd still be there for the person, and if they knocked on my door tomorrow I would still know how they took their tea / coffee.  And I'd still smile with genuine welcome and pleasure at seeing them.  But I won't make the first move because somehow as things are, that seems to cause damage.

I still hold people up to the light.  Or indeed hold them in my thoughts, gently.  If I know a friend is in trouble I put them to the front of my mind, in the stream of things which flow across my conscious I let their problems enter the stream.  Sometimes flashes of inspiration happen and I find something practical I can do, other times it's enough just to remember them, and not treat as a time limited incident something which they are living through.

Plain speech - well, I try.  Sometimes it comes across as brutal sometimes it's just too hard to find the words, sometimes I replace it with silence.  But I try.

Simplicity - I feel I've lost this.  I've lost the back to basics approach. I live surrounded by stuff, lots of it unnecessary, lots of it acquired in the quest for enjoyment.  Not at all the Quaker way.  I do find joy in watching blue tits in the garden, busy raising their young. I do find joy in just sitting in the garden, and in thinning the tiny apples on the tree.  I find joy in simple cooking, basic ingredients, cooked without gadgets above and beyond the cooker and pans, knives, spoons.  But I have a house scattered with bicycle parts, tent accessories, awnings, books, kindle, netbook, phone, charger.  I have a lot of stuff and only minimal inclination to do something about it.

Conscience - my conscience is my guide.  Call it God if you will.  I like to believe I don't do anything to go against my conscience, my morals, my principles. I think that's a route to unhappiness as the decisions taken will jar with you and make you ultimately miserable.  Actions which seemingly head against principles are thoughtfully made, considered, consequences taken into account.  Doubt and questioning is comfortable.  Because principles are personal only I can know what I truly deeply believe and where the boundaries lie, and no, there's no need to write these down in stone either, things change, I change. It's just part of me.

This pretty much sums me up ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/quakerism

Funnily enough, I set out to write about trail centres, repeating sections and riding with fit folk ... but I went where the spirit moved me.

Her laughter

I’ve been too busy to write.  This is, naturally, a good thing.

It’s been a bit of a time of discovery.  I have discovered:

My recovery time from injury is pretty good (this time) and I have come out the other side changed.   I am, as ever, thankful, truly so because although I never take good health for granted, and never take life itself for granted, but a set back serves as a reminder of this.  I always rejoice in good health, but never more than a post illness or injury period when I am truly grateful for the gifts I have been given.  I know this sounds edging dangerously close to religious speak, but I guess although maybe not religious, I do have a spiritual being, and if moved to that feeling of fullness in my chest by life happening, it feels natural to want to express appreciation of that somehow, to someone.  I get round this sometimes by simply turning to the person I’m with in that moment and telling them thank you, thank  you for your part in this wonderful experience of living that I’m feeling right now.

This injury has given me a sense of urgency, a feeling that I’m playing catch up.  I’m chasing something, chasing someone, and I think it’s me.  I’m chasing the person I would have been had I not hurt myself.  I can see her ahead of me on the hills, making a Froome-esque come along movement with her arm, puzzled because I’m falling behind and wondering why I’m not up there with her.  

Riding has become an autotelic activity for me.  I know this sounds a bit like a swallowed dictionary, but for me, this simple concept has somehow distilled it for me.  It’s not about anything else except for riding, and I owe no explanation or ability to put this into words and feelings to anyone, myself included.  

 Oh, and this amuses me ... http://www.urbanrabbits.net/autotelic.html In a way which makes me wince, I guess I identify with it to an extent.  To say that makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable; it feels like I'm bragging or making myself out to be special.  I'm not.

I question my whys too often. Sometimes we just need to be, and to rejoice in the splendour.

And a song from someone who I think is pretty special in a self publicizing kind of a way ...