From uncle to nephew,
teacher to student, coach to player, friend to friend…
“It’s not how many times
you mess up, it’s how many times you look up, get up, learn and move forward
that count and make you who you are.”
I am extremely happy and
extremely exhausted almost each and every time that I go for a real ride. This
is part of what I deeply enjoy about riding my bike. Mountains, seeing new
views, rocks and foliage, gritting it out, sunshine, sweat, and worship, all
sound echoes of what it is to truly live. The thirst one feels and quenches
with coconut water or an ice-cold squirt from your water bottle remind you of
the water of life.
But you also have moments
of extreme frustration, wanting to give up, getting dirty, sweat making your
hands slip from the handle bars (should buy gloves haha), lacking technique,
bug smacking you in the eye and temporarily blinding you, and legs aching,
challenging you to continue.
So what I like in the
combination of moments is finding lessons to be learned and moments to be
grateful for.
Lessons of the week—Asking
for help, enjoying “family,” doing hard things and not giving up when you’re
not the best, going without brakes and without breaks, and life is messy.
So, we took a new
route (we, meaning my co-worker, Henry
and his friend, Louis, whose daughter is probably mortified that he rides bike
with a teacher from school haha) up into the mountains behind Santa Ana. I am
an addict of novelty and difficulty, so I was definitely up for it.
[However, I was overly
tired from lack of sleep and other factors, which I felt from the get-go, and
new things/new routes are always a little difficult to navigate, based on the
fact that you don’t know how long each hill, the next turn, the terrain, the
whole thing is going to last—when to exert, when to hold back, when to rest,
etc. This applies to life on the whole, as well.]
I enjoyed realizing that I
can climb the steeps and it is rewarding. The part that got me followed one
such incline where we entered the forest and it became real mountain biking,
the trail following the path that the water had taken down the mountain the day
prior.
I am not a biker. I like to
ride my bike. I have no technique for such things and very little patience for
things I can’t figure out right away/haven’t been taught. I tried different
things and put forth a lot of effort, but I can’t say that I really found the
right gear or even made it very far at a go before slipping in the mud and
losing traction, back wheel hitting a rock and throwing me off-course, or front
wheel heading straight into the crevice/depression that the water had dug out
in the middle of the path, and getting whacked by the plants obscuring the way.
I had to stop to breathe
and collect myself before emerging to an overlook and explaining to my
companions that I had been SO FRUSTRATED! They thought this was kind of
comical, motioning me to come, take a picture with the view behind. Then, they
reminded me that they, and pretty much everyone else who’s come that way, has
fallen many a time and that you have to exert more effort just when you think
you’re going to fall. You might even need it to be in a higher gear—harder—than
seems logical in order to really get traction. Well, I have a fairly large
frame (bike and body), but can’t say I’ve been hitting the gym hard, so I’m
just not strong enough/have no idea what I’m doing. So I didn’t suddenly master it—quite the
contrary, but it was a profound lesson to consider and be reminded of for life
right now and always.
For example:
You will fall. You will do
things you are not good at. You do not need to cry about it. You need to learn
and practice. You need to not give up. You will get past it. You will slip up.
You will find people to encourage you. There are people who can help you. There
are parts you have to go it alone. When the going gets tough, the tough get
going. You are not invincible; neither are you weak.
So get going!
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