An unfinished tale in the time between dark and light.
| Hello my biking friends I know, it’s been too long since we all gathered and shared ride smiles. I miss you! It’s JAN 13, 2021 and I’m back with an unfinished story about not riding or writing. It’s my birthday! PSA: That also means Annual Birthday Sale is rolling through the shop. So drop in and grab some bike love while it lasts. Each week a new department will be featured. So don’t bonk the ride. It’s short and limited quantity of ride stoke is up for grabs. *Sale Ends Jan 31st, 2021 ‘I wake early in the moonshine setting brightly, silently; gone in a yawn and a stretch. I thought I imagined it. So bright, so humongous, so close. A gift to stash away and remind me never to take such things for granted.’ That seems like a good thought to begin with. So here we are. With a story that has yet to be finished. At a time when words are either incendiary or begin to lose meaning all together, I keep finding myself at a loss for them, for the right ones to share. My family and friends, reading this, will be like “NOT! Ever! You? Never short on words, opinions and comical accounts of your misadventures.” There would probably be some digs tossed in about my height, lack there of, and graceful self on two feet. Yes, me, speechless, writer’s block, verbal atrophy call it what ever. Either way, for the longest time nothing seemed to seep out of my finger tips on to the keys. Not even into my journals. And there are many, many journals in my repertoire stuffed with my life from age 5. I do love to write, with a good pencil with a flicked off or tapped to a nub eraser to trace the journey is so rewarding. And writing spaces of any medium are acceptable. Napkins, coasters, backs of envelopes, my jeans, flyers, blank walls, my wrist, whatever is in reach before it drifts off into the void. It was all just so quiet and yet deafening at the same time. I couldn’t find my balance. I must have made a peculiar eccentric figure sitting on that sun warmed rock in the snow, notebook in one hand, pencil striking imaginary notes in the air, searching through the cacophony of chaos that had become the lack of communication between experiences, heart, head, hand. An impermanence. A time when creativity hurt. I knew all I had to do was put it down, one in a row after one in a row, until it found its way into sentence form. I am multilingual, so this was frustrating in several languages. Throw in the aphasia that often proceeds brain injuries (loss of ability to process or express speech) and I tell you, I had thoughts of living in an **almost silent monastery, of course with allowances for verbal exclamations when absolutely uncontainable. I even wrote out “BLOCK” with some of its meanings. You know, to release it into the ethers. Block: to impede, render unsuitable for transfer of signal, hinder, prevent progress. A quantity of related things dealt with as a unit. Aha! That last one, fits so well into all of the above terrain. It was right there. Staring right at me, at us, at the world, slipping away so quickly even though we appeared to have slowed down on so many levels. 2020. Yep, busted! The thief of so many souls, the giver of broken hearts, divisiveness, separation and isolation. Shuttered businesses and wildfires that will go down in history books. 2020. Disguised at times, bestowing amazing shows of strength, love, innovation and perseverance. And here I was beginning to believe it was the continuous streaming of the “real” nature channel outside my remote studio that was keeping me off centered. Stuck in the Neverland; the opposite of outside deprivation. I have been on outdoor overload of the senses on and off since March 2020. Something I have a lot of practice with as a brain injury symptom. The overwhelming of senses that is. Seriously, somedays I just sit and stare or walk aimlessly on this ancient landscape surrounded by rocky mountain ranges, shaped into high desert valleys created by tectonic plate shifts millions of years ago. At times when the snow has melted, I ride laps to expel all the contained energy. But never seem to get out and pedal the miles that disperse all that hangs over. Often you can find me, like the deer and chipmunks do, just standing here, like a voyeur in the shadow of the piñon tree watching the world spin. Putting down the occasional fragmented thought, beginning social media posts, newsletters and blogs that never materialize. You noticed eh? Point of fact; I began this blog post in Oct. then again in Dec. It went something like this: As I sit here in the time between dark and light, before the morning bird sings and the traffic begins to whine just loud enough to be a distant call to the road on the fringes of the wind, I write a note to myself in the dirt with my toe. It reads: DMOWYL♡& Ride! It seems so simple no? Do More Of What You Love and Ride. As I said, this is an unfinished tale. So I leave you with that last thought. Also to believe in heroes cuz when the imaginings of who you are and the beautiful dreams that dance in your soul finally meet you will become your own. See you soon with the next bit. Until then, Pedal On. 💖 ~ S Hippie Chick Cycling Cowgirl ** Almost Silent Monastery – A Girl Called Bicycle |
