Non breeders

I occasionally take long weekends away with a gaggle of women. We were in our thirties when we started. Now 40s might be more honest although two have yet to achieve that giddy height. Tongue in cheek we call ourselves the non breeders. We found ourselves having a drift in commonality with our motherly friends. Some who envied us our untied nature and others who couldn't comprehend life without kids and some who wistfully wanted both worlds. Circumstances had led us this way. Two may yet breed. One decided quite definitively it was not for her. Two, perhaps with some sadness have accepted a child free fate. The fourth it's a subject too sore too raw to talk about even ten years on. I fall into the acceptance bracket.

I am in a cottage with three generations of my family. Three siblings over 40. One child. Sadly our genes are not well represented.

They seem good genes. My dad before multiple sclerosis was a county level hockey player. My mother along with her three brothers passed mensa level tests. She was a Rambert school of ballet graduate. We are intellectually and physically blessed.

I look at us as three siblings in our 40s and we may not have bred but we're still kind of good. My sister now a hockey player at masters international level. My brother fighting fit, a focused dad. Me, the disappointment in a sporting sense. Well I don't do so bad.

It feels like a waste of genes though. Funny eh?

Right Round

I discovered something new. Life is all about new discoveries after all.  It’s an extraordinary thing, life, never static, not even when we wish it was.

Trail centre with a motley crew of Talent Team coaches, one of whom is a local to the area. We hit the Clayton Vale trails.  These have been gently developed over some time but had an official that’s it, we’re open kind of an event in May.  Finally a mix of sections through woodlands have been connected up into a cohesive comprehensive trail which you can follow.  There are many loops too, you can repeat and repeat and repeat. 

That was new for me, going back time and again over the same loop.  It was surprising.  First time down tentative involving some short cuts, breaking, even, dare I say it, walking.  By the fifth time fear had departed and the narrow, tight, downhill hairpin was just achieved with ease, and I’d worked out what gear to get into for some of the uphill bits as well as figuring out which bits were short enough to just give it some welly out of saddle.

Surprisingly, too, I enjoyed it.  Enjoyed the process of being a hamster in a wheel, going back time and time again over old ground.  I grew in confidence with every attempt, although hopefully not in cockiness. Having done the ride in cool company I now know I can just get out there after work on my own.  Because I can see the trail start from the window of the office. It’s nothing if not convenient.

It’s also lovely doing a ride with people I’ve never ridden with before.  I’ve known Stuart for a decade, Rik for less time and Monica for a matter of months.  They are coaches, they have a history of competitive participation in cycling, and I have respect and deference to their advanced knowledge, skills and fitness.  But as a person, I still contribute to the group.  I like that I can, having come to a standstill on a very minor bit of up, stand and chat to Rik who has a moment of despair at his lack of fitness and  his Roc d’Azur sign up for October and say it’s fine to be where he is, it’s understandable and now he knows that, he knows the direction to take. It’s OK to have limitations, really it is.

I have worked in this world too long.  Met my ex boss in the corridor and in non arse licking way (that’s really not my style) I note he’s looking trim and tell him so. He’s not feeling it, he feels in a place where he’s been off the bike for a week or so and it’s all gone to pot. I smile and say Ahh, you’re doing that thing where you’ve had one or two bad weeks, bike wise, and suddenly you feel the months of hard work you did before have all been lost.  That thing.  He smiles and agrees, because he’s heard it all before, and normally he’s the one dishing it out. He knows I’m right.

And we're going retro of course with Dead or Alive ...

 

The Light

Today has been brought to you by a kiss from a rose on the gray.

"the light that you shine can be seen" Such a Quaker concept.  I'm feeling quite quakerish today it would seem.  It's funny, decades of living life as member of the Society as Friends and I simultaneously grow away from it as I grow towards it.  Elements even now are being discarded while others are simply a part of who I am.  It's good to know I'm not yet a fully formed Me, even in my 40s. 

I still see a revised version of that of god in everyone.  I see that of good in everyone instead. It's annoying and hard to break, but I cannot, cannot write anyone off.  I can't see anyone as a "waste of time", it still feels to me that all that's needed is to understand someone properly, to keep trying, and an outcome of a simple encounter can be so much more rewarding.  I find people rewarding on the whole.  I cannot give up on folk.  I have gently put to one side associations which I realised are not really friendships, but I know deep down that I'd still be there for the person, and if they knocked on my door tomorrow I would still know how they took their tea / coffee.  And I'd still smile with genuine welcome and pleasure at seeing them.  But I won't make the first move because somehow as things are, that seems to cause damage.

I still hold people up to the light.  Or indeed hold them in my thoughts, gently.  If I know a friend is in trouble I put them to the front of my mind, in the stream of things which flow across my conscious I let their problems enter the stream.  Sometimes flashes of inspiration happen and I find something practical I can do, other times it's enough just to remember them, and not treat as a time limited incident something which they are living through.

Plain speech - well, I try.  Sometimes it comes across as brutal sometimes it's just too hard to find the words, sometimes I replace it with silence.  But I try.

Simplicity - I feel I've lost this.  I've lost the back to basics approach. I live surrounded by stuff, lots of it unnecessary, lots of it acquired in the quest for enjoyment.  Not at all the Quaker way.  I do find joy in watching blue tits in the garden, busy raising their young. I do find joy in just sitting in the garden, and in thinning the tiny apples on the tree.  I find joy in simple cooking, basic ingredients, cooked without gadgets above and beyond the cooker and pans, knives, spoons.  But I have a house scattered with bicycle parts, tent accessories, awnings, books, kindle, netbook, phone, charger.  I have a lot of stuff and only minimal inclination to do something about it.

Conscience - my conscience is my guide.  Call it God if you will.  I like to believe I don't do anything to go against my conscience, my morals, my principles. I think that's a route to unhappiness as the decisions taken will jar with you and make you ultimately miserable.  Actions which seemingly head against principles are thoughtfully made, considered, consequences taken into account.  Doubt and questioning is comfortable.  Because principles are personal only I can know what I truly deeply believe and where the boundaries lie, and no, there's no need to write these down in stone either, things change, I change. It's just part of me.

This pretty much sums me up ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/quakerism

Funnily enough, I set out to write about trail centres, repeating sections and riding with fit folk ... but I went where the spirit moved me.

Her laughter

I’ve been too busy to write.  This is, naturally, a good thing.

It’s been a bit of a time of discovery.  I have discovered:

My recovery time from injury is pretty good (this time) and I have come out the other side changed.   I am, as ever, thankful, truly so because although I never take good health for granted, and never take life itself for granted, but a set back serves as a reminder of this.  I always rejoice in good health, but never more than a post illness or injury period when I am truly grateful for the gifts I have been given.  I know this sounds edging dangerously close to religious speak, but I guess although maybe not religious, I do have a spiritual being, and if moved to that feeling of fullness in my chest by life happening, it feels natural to want to express appreciation of that somehow, to someone.  I get round this sometimes by simply turning to the person I’m with in that moment and telling them thank you, thank  you for your part in this wonderful experience of living that I’m feeling right now.

This injury has given me a sense of urgency, a feeling that I’m playing catch up.  I’m chasing something, chasing someone, and I think it’s me.  I’m chasing the person I would have been had I not hurt myself.  I can see her ahead of me on the hills, making a Froome-esque come along movement with her arm, puzzled because I’m falling behind and wondering why I’m not up there with her.  

Riding has become an autotelic activity for me.  I know this sounds a bit like a swallowed dictionary, but for me, this simple concept has somehow distilled it for me.  It’s not about anything else except for riding, and I owe no explanation or ability to put this into words and feelings to anyone, myself included.  

 Oh, and this amuses me ... http://www.urbanrabbits.net/autotelic.html In a way which makes me wince, I guess I identify with it to an extent.  To say that makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable; it feels like I'm bragging or making myself out to be special.  I'm not.

I question my whys too often. Sometimes we just need to be, and to rejoice in the splendour.

And a song from someone who I think is pretty special in a self publicizing kind of a way ...

Live it ...

I'm loving this blog entry Dispossessed poets largely for the line:

"Live your life with such pure ferocity and rollicking panache that people beg you to tell them your secret."

I just love the words, which reflect something of what I aspire to do.  I've always been a bit of a one for a handy mantra.  They inspire and sustain me, but only if they are something genuine to the core of me. It's not about wallpapering, it's about building with bricks, proper solid bricks.

As this one has clear potential to be embraced and embedded into my structure, let's review other past mantras.

One of the earliest I can remember is the "Take no Shit" one.  That's kind of a paraphrase for what it meant to me, but that seems to be the way I operate best.  After all, these are things which speak to me deep down, not something I'm fussed about making sense to the world outside.  This one as I remember was about building my own internal strength, making conscious decisions and carrying them out. It wasn't about treading on other people or shouldering my way through crowds, it was about quietly and internally remembering my direction and remembering that paths should meander in the general way I wanted to go, not be propelled by another force. I was force enough to carry me forward. "Suck it up Princess" kind of fits in with this but that suggests something more along the lines of "Shit Happens".  There are just so many ...

There have been a myriad others.  I  have a mug (gift from a friend) which advises me to "Live Life with Fire and Passion".  The picture on it is me rock climbing, and the words came from my heart.  An existence of drifting doesn't work for me. Well, actually, it does, but it has to be bloody interesting drifting.

I like "in a hundred years we'll all be dead", and "what would a grown up do in this situation?".  The second one is kind of telling, mostly because I suspect that it's the way a fair few adults operate.  I like it because it re-focuses me, makes me think, but I know I can still operate in a childish playful fashion if that's what I choose.

I remember a phase of changing thinking towards a "because he lived not because he died" attitude which gave me a subtle change in approach.  The difference between running away from something and running towards something.  Or indeed "Chasing the Happy Cheese" instead of avoiding the cat.  When I remember, I try to chase the happy cheese, to look towards things rather than spend hideous squishing of head in a vice time figuring out how to get away from uncomfortable things.  Chasing the happy cheese gives you permission to run, to leap, to pirouette in search of the pac man style cartoonesque smiling yellow leerdamer.  Running away is a far more stumbling blind, frantic kind of a thing with dementor style things with wings always lurking.

And there should be background music to these musings.  There's not.

Good Feeling

The sounds of summer are here!

No really, summer is on its way and I've such a good feeling.  This week I've been back on my bike and I've managed to do enough rock climbing that my arms, my back, my hips and interesting my abdominals are all zinging with muscle stiffness and aching.  It's such a good feeling.

And now, this delicious long weekend I have such lovely plans.  Tomorrow I ride one of my favourite trails with a friend who I haven't caught up with in ages.  Then there's a meeting up with a woman I haven't seen for years and years.  Then on Sunday there's a ride over Ruthin with me, just me, time on my side and the glory of the bicycle.  Fab.

Work is going tremendously well.  It's really interesting, being treated as some kind of harddrive.  We're basically extracting information from my head, and at the same time I'm reorganising folders on the PC and it's all logical and sensible.  Flatteringly, my opinions are being asked and I'm being asked to be thoughful, analytical and give on the spot conclusions which I hadn't even thought about. It's odd because I'm not just feeling valued for the past, but I'm realising that it's recognised that I have a brain.  I've been asked to use it.  That's properly fascinating.

And hey, I'm chosing happiness.  Nothing can stop me ...

Distant Thunder

I went out to eat with friends this week, a 41^st birthday celebration out in the Peak District.  I was about to refer to them as old friends because that’s how they feel, established.  In reality though I realise none of them were in my life while I was married.

On a tangent here, when did I get unmarried?  It certainly wasn’t something which ended on 15^th November 2005 somehow, more a gradual process.

Anyway, established friends.  One of them was with his wife, who I have met before, but oddly not with him, I met her while I was giving a lift to his son.  It’s a funny time of life (tangent again ...) when you find you can have separate friendships with father and son.  I’m no longer quite sure who I met first.  So I’ve met Mrs J once before, and she seems really nice.  But Mr J started a conversation about what I was up to, and odd words came up to describe me.  He referred to me as free spirit and hippy.  I was perplexed.

I have odd standards against which I measure various things in life.  I measure cycling passions against the standards of training and preparation of Olympians.  I measure transient lifestyles against equally high and extreme standards.

My formative years saw me being brought up in the Quaker religion.  My mum was an Aldermaston Marcher in the 1950s, my dad successfully negotiated his National Service to work instead with the Friends Ambulance  Service.  They stood by their beliefs.  As I grew older in the Quaker religion, I mixed constantly with people who believed in living witness, those who lived in sustainable communities, those who lived in treehouses and squats and all kinds of things to protest against and to hinder efforts of road builders.  People who believed strongly in standing up for what they felt was right.  Hell, my friends had dreadlocks, piercings, tie dyed clothing, and indeed memorably one of them had changed his name by deed poll to Tree. No firstname, no surname, just Tree.  Some earned their livings busking, doing fire eating acts, playing the fiddle, some lived in ancient home converted wagon style vans.  Others fostered for a living.   And it was always obvious to me who were the hanger oners with the “in crowd”.  Those who had pretensions and became weekend hippies with their DMs and tassle fringed skirts.  But for me, acceptance didn’t need me to dress up in any affected manner, and it was fine that I was the square one because like them, I believed in being true to me and not painting a picture of something I wasn’t.  

I knew then and I know now I am not a free spirit, and I am not a hippy.  I have my feet too firmly on the ground, and I have direction too, not an ephemeral blow with the wind drifting.  These are not labels I aspire to.

And we have a finishing word from the Levellers ...