Sometimes on hard pushes I'm finally able to dissociate from the world and focus. Whether triggered by a happy moment or a long silence, a smooth road or beautiful vista, these moments are what I live for. Today, on a 12 mile lunch hour circuit I've really enjoyed the past two times I've done it, I relaxed and entered "the mood."
I wouldn't call it a zone because it wasn't perfect and I knew that, I had other thoughts bouncing around the sides, but it was as close to the zone as I've been in a long long time and traveling through "the mood" lifted me higher and higher. Perhaps its simply the endorphins picking their way through my central nervous system, activating long-lost cousins of good feelings and enjoyment...
It happened as I swung past my second cemetery of the ride, the smaller one on the nicer street, just a little past the town line for Brookline. Enormous antiquated houses overshadowed the little road, pushing against the constraints of the concrete as if trying to swallow the link between modern society and their storied pasts. Fortunately for me, while their efforts may not have been entirely in vain, the laws of gravity and characteristics of dead wood kept me from their vengeful clasps. Following this narrow road I entered "the mood" and began speculating on the true role of cemeteries. My thoughts followed the contour of the land, rising and falling with the elevation gained and lost by my madly pedaling feet, but as with my physical being, they too pushed forward, driven by their own mad motors and levers of abstraction and creativity. What is a cemetary? A resting place? For those who no longer need to rest? A internment for those who lack the ability to put forth effort and therefore do not require the recovery of the weary? As I rode, my mind flew farther and farther from these first vagaries and drew closer to another definition, perhaps the cemetery is a symbol, one which we use to counterpose life against, for who does not think of their own lives as they visit those monuments to passage?
Then I forced myself to concentrate. The road was getting a little hairy with enormous potholes providing a vangaurd for the street canyons and sand traps on the outsides of most corners. Luckily I flew through this area far too fast to do anything but smile grimly in retrospect at the various amounts of danger one can ignore while strenuously exercising on two square inches of rubber moving at 28mph.
My thoughts moved, as they usually do while riding, to issues of national importance; are my feet "scraping the bottom" of the rotation? How long can I hold this pace? What's that sharp pain? Who's looking at me? Drop the butt? Oh the burn...
82 days
I wouldn't call it a zone because it wasn't perfect and I knew that, I had other thoughts bouncing around the sides, but it was as close to the zone as I've been in a long long time and traveling through "the mood" lifted me higher and higher. Perhaps its simply the endorphins picking their way through my central nervous system, activating long-lost cousins of good feelings and enjoyment...
It happened as I swung past my second cemetery of the ride, the smaller one on the nicer street, just a little past the town line for Brookline. Enormous antiquated houses overshadowed the little road, pushing against the constraints of the concrete as if trying to swallow the link between modern society and their storied pasts. Fortunately for me, while their efforts may not have been entirely in vain, the laws of gravity and characteristics of dead wood kept me from their vengeful clasps. Following this narrow road I entered "the mood" and began speculating on the true role of cemeteries. My thoughts followed the contour of the land, rising and falling with the elevation gained and lost by my madly pedaling feet, but as with my physical being, they too pushed forward, driven by their own mad motors and levers of abstraction and creativity. What is a cemetary? A resting place? For those who no longer need to rest? A internment for those who lack the ability to put forth effort and therefore do not require the recovery of the weary? As I rode, my mind flew farther and farther from these first vagaries and drew closer to another definition, perhaps the cemetery is a symbol, one which we use to counterpose life against, for who does not think of their own lives as they visit those monuments to passage?
Then I forced myself to concentrate. The road was getting a little hairy with enormous potholes providing a vangaurd for the street canyons and sand traps on the outsides of most corners. Luckily I flew through this area far too fast to do anything but smile grimly in retrospect at the various amounts of danger one can ignore while strenuously exercising on two square inches of rubber moving at 28mph.
My thoughts moved, as they usually do while riding, to issues of national importance; are my feet "scraping the bottom" of the rotation? How long can I hold this pace? What's that sharp pain? Who's looking at me? Drop the butt? Oh the burn...
82 days
Powered by ScribeFire.
No comments:
Post a Comment