Overall: 250
Total Time: 2:23:35
Swim 31:12
Bike: 1:07:11
Run: 37:43 Pace: 9:26
http://www.racingunderground.com/msressteamboat05.html
I’m really disappointed in my performance. I guess I’m glad I was actually able to do it after the knee injury. Next year I WILL do better.
To make myself feel better I bought a mountain bike today.
I could give all to Time except - except
What I myself have held. But why declare
The things forbidden that while the Customs slept
I have crossed to Safety with? For I am there
And what I would not part with I have kept
From the opening quote in the book Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
“People say that we’re searching for the meaning of life.
I don’t think that’s it at all.
I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost beings and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive”
I am reading iA Good Place to Livei by a Keene NH writer, Terry Pindell. Itis interesting that I ran across this book in the library today because I was just thinking about place and landscape and where the perfect place is for me as I was hiking in the green space by my house. I really enjoy so many things about Steamboat Springs (climate, landscape, skiing, hiking, friends). All the places Iive lived in the last 5 years: Bethel, Killington, Portsmouth are good places to live too. I enjoyed my time in these places and got to know them very well. But there is something in me that will continue to search for the iperfect placei. A part of this perfect place is a coming together of mountains, water, spirit, enchantment, and friendship. So it was a synchronicity today at the Bud Werner Library when I discovered this book. The first chapter is about Santa Fe, New Mexico; a place Iive never been.
iWe talked about some other places Linda had lived and the type of vision they provoked. She had spend some time in Charlottesville, Virginia
ethe woods there are nice to walk in but you canit see far. Seeing far creates expansiveness- physically, emotionally, and spirituallyOeNew England, of course, has the same problem of trees and not being able to see far as Virginia does but the winter is compensation. Cutting firewood and then burning it in your fireplace while the snow piles up outside changes all of the rules of seeing. You learn to see inward and turn introspective.i”
This is the first time Iive heard someone say something positive about a New England winter. I love New England winters however the 20 below zero I do not like.
Last Wednesday I tweaked something in my knee trail running on Fish Creek. X-Rays show nothing. Rest and Ice.
Now that it is Sunday and I can actually put weight on it. I went on a 1/2 hr easy bike ride, 15 minute hike with the dogs, and 1000 yards in the pool.
The knee feels okay but not great. I can’t imagine running on it in 6 days.
I never saw the morning itil I stayed up all night
I never saw the sunshine itil you turned out the light
I never saw my hometown until I stayed away too long
I never heard the melody, until I needed a song.
I never saw the white line, itil I was leaving you behind
I never knew I needed you itil I was caught up in a bind
I never spoke ii love youi itil I cursed you in vain,
I never felt my heartstrings until I nearly went insane.
I never saw the east coast itil I moved to the west
I never saw the moonlight until it shone off your breast
I never saw your heart itil someone tried to steal,
Tried to steal it away
I never saw your tears until they rolled down your face.
Barefoot in the bed ‘a your truck
On a blanket lookin’ up
Half a moon peekin’ down at us
From underneath the clouds
Teenage kids sneakin’ out again
Heard the thunder rollin’ in
We were fallin’ the moment when
It all came pourin’ down
The Georgia rain
On the Jasper County clay
Couldn’t wash away
What I felt for you that day
Just you and me down an old dirt road
Nothin’ in our way
Except for the Georgia rain
Cotton fields remember when
Flash ‘a lightnin’ drove us in
We were soaked down to the skin
By the time we climbed inside
And I don’t remember what was poundin’ more
Heart in my chest or the hood of that Ford
As the sky fell in, the storm clouds poured
Worlds away outside
Screen door flappin’ in the wind
Same ol’ house I grew up in
Can’t believe I’m back again
After all these years away
You fixed your Daddy’s house up nice
I saw it yesterday when I drove by
Looks like you’ve made youself a real good life
What else can I say
The simplest of bridges, a promise
that you will go forward,
that you can come back.
So you cross over.
It says you can come back.
So you go forward.
But even if you come back
then you must go forward.
I am always either going back
or coming forward. There is always
something I have to carry,
something I leave behind.
I am a figure in a logic problem,
standing on one shore
with the things I cannot leave,
looking across at what I cannot have.
“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.” ~Frederick Buechner
I was thinking of this book after my trip home. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book that may explain why I went home and who I saw while there:
“There may be profound pleasure in longing for the past and in indulging in memories. When the soul stirs in us, we may be pulled to visit an old, familiar neighborhood or friends of another time in life.”
“Apparently there is something in every relationship that is eternal, that goes on forever, that wants to be exempted from the life decisions to cut ties.”
“These relationships are all important to the soul, what ever decisions we may make about them in the world. They shape our lives, not only the story line of our biographies but also the character of our soul.”
“Living soulfully requires that we allow hope, faith, and love to be open-ended; we do not know what to hope for, may not believe in any particular thing, and will love whatever we receive.”
“Fate brings the soulful relationship to existence, then its profound implications unfold, as we watch, enter into it with imagination, and glimpse its unique spirit.”
“The soulful relationship asks to be honored for what it is, not what we wish it could be. It has little to do with our intentions, expectations, and moral requirements.”
Walter Kirn said, “My advice for aspiring writers is go to New York. And if you can’t go to New York, go to the place that represents New York to you, where the standards for writing are high, there are other people who share your dreams, and where you can talk, talk, talk about your interests. Writing books begins in talking about it, like most human projects, and in being close to those who have already done what you propose to do.”
He decided that he had to get away from his family and become a writer. He said, “I would turn into a writer before my mother died and before the children were all put in jailoor became junkies or whores. I had to leave Harlem. I had to leave because I understood very well … that I would never be able to fit in anywhere unless I jumped. I knew I had to jump then.”
So he moved to Greenwich Village. He was a dishwasher. He was a waiter. He had a little bit of success, and used what money he had to buy a ticket to Paris. He arrived with $50 in his pocket, sold his clothes and his typewriter to survive. He was thrown into a French prison. And then a friend set him up in a cottage in the countryside. He started writing in isolation, and he finished his novel in a few months. Go Tell It on the Mountain came out in 1953. It was about a young preacher, based on Baldwin’s stepfather. It was a big success, and it was the beginning of his career.
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