the virtues of early mornings

So, I did it.

I pulled myself out of my malaise and treated myself to the most luscious Sunday I have enjoyed, well, since my move.

I loaded my bike onto my car and drove 25 minutes to Pinnacle Mountain. My expectations following my excursions in Allsopp, the urban park downtown, were minimal: while you can't be ungrateful for any trail-enriched green space in a city, I just hadn't been inspired by the offerings. Allsopp is a cobweb of criss-crossing, spindly trail that darts off into abrupt thickets and overgrowth, littered with broken beer bottles and the detritus of low-grade teenage hooliganism. The Allsopp system rides like the manic dream of an ADHD addled doodler, with the aforementioned incomplete offshoots and no comprehensible sense of order. I am a spoiled Pisgahn citizen, who has grown fetishistically attached to maps, multi-hour excursions, route planning. Allsopp is nice. It's convenient; an easy roll down the street. But it doesn't satisfy my need to open up, to invest completely and totally in a moment- in my breath, my cadence-- in blowing the shit out of my legs, my lungs, and coming back exhausted, sweaty, and floating.

When I arrived at Pinnacle, it was a mob scene of families with alarming quantities of toddlers, walking sticks, and knee-high white socks. I unloaded the bike, changed clothes, and eyed the paved path emblazoned "Mountain Bike Trail" with an arrogant chuckle. However, within ten feet, the path gave way to the glorious assemblage of natural materials that most brings joy to my heart: rocks, roots, and mud, all in twisty double- and singletrack. I rode for 7.5 wonderful, fast miles.

My thoughts quelled. The black torrents of irrationality gave way to being. I was not in my head or pacing, miles removed from both my body, the moment. I breathed deeply, heavily; I pulled myself up and over rocks, kept my balance in muddy slicks, and felt the sun on my skin. 

That's what I love. I love the quiet and calm I am when I ride. It's not even a feeling-- which implies an interpretation, a dissociation from the directness. It is literally what I am. I am such an assemblage of adjectives and states as to be almost embarrassingly hyperbolic to put out there. 

And, if I am frank with myself, that's where much of the negativity and fear I related in my last entry rooted from. This is an exciting transition. I am so happy, but it has come at the cost of an environment and activity that was my connection to something so much greater than exercise or riding bikes. The bike is just the medium. But what I get and access from it is something that is, honestly, sacred.

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This morning, I pulled myself out of bed at 6.

I put the bike on the car, myself in the front seat, and drove to the park.

It was still grey. I ducked and dove, sprinted. Remembered the fast sections, the climbs. Delighted in the soaring of my heart, the meditation of moderating my breath. I came up around a corner, crested a modest hill, where the sun rose in a brash pink burst and a family of deer, startled, sprang towards dawn's stippling. These ecstatic silhouettes merged into the brightening horizon, and I kept pedaling.