Waiting on the sun

It has been a rocky sort of week, and I have been navigating it with about as much grace as I usually exhibit when riding my bicycle across broken stone beaches (which is to say, I'm lucky I don't have a head wound.) Upheavals at work, downheavals elsewhere. I'd like to believe things will even out soon, but there's really now way of knowing what's around that next band of coastal cliffs. So I do what I always do when I am feeling uneasy - I cling to happy sunshines on the 10-day weather forecast. Right now, there's seven of 'em, starting Thursday afternoon. When Juneau's weather forecast calls for "Sunny with 0 percent chance of precipitation," you can all but take that to the bank — because our default setting is rain/snow and forecasters have no reason to show such certainty unless they're actually certain. Now that I've said it, I've probably doomed myself to seven more days of rain. But I like to choose the path of optimism.

Not that the weather or other aspects of the present have been all that bad this week. Yesterday, Sean and I got out for a relaxing walk on the Dan Moller trail, which I've been running on fairly often recently, trying to build up a little bit of a base should I decide to completely throw caution to the wind and enter February's Little Su 50K on foot (this is unlikely, but who knows — nothing in life is certain.) I expected the trail to be packed by snowmachines and told Sean as much, but they recently closed the gate to motorized traffic and then the trail received a foot or more of unconsolidated snow up high. Not so good for running right now, but a great wallow. Sean is usually a skier, so I think he has just about filled up his annual quota of postholing, hanging out with me. Personally, I like postholing. It's endlessly frustrating and invigorating at the same time. I try to stay out of shallow ski tracks. :-)

Today I did some climbing intervals up the Eaglecrest Road. I've added more high-impact cycling to my rides in case I decide to enter the Susitna 100 with my Pugsley (more likely than running the Little Su 50K, but also up in the air.) To say I lack direction right now would be an accurate statement. It's unsettling, having no real training routine or goals, and that uncertainty stretches into other aspects of my life. I have a home I'm never at, a cat I never see, and three bicycles stored in three different places stretched across 15 miles of town. I'm still drifting. I survived the latest round of layoffs at my place of employment, and I'm not even sure how I feel about that. I mean, I'm happy about it, in general. But when I'm deep into a climbing interval, and my thoughts only register in shrieks and groans, I find myself emerging from the haze with a single question — "What if?"

But the sun will come out tomorrow (or late Thursday, or maybe Friday, or maybe not even until Saturday). Regardless, there will be sun.

Rainforest trail

This is where I go when time closes in,
This place hidden away from the seasons.
Too dark for berries.
Too dense for snow.
This is where I go.

This is where I ride when weather closes in,
And sheets of rain fall from the sky.
Sheltered and narrow,
Sun-deprived.
This is where I ride.

This is where I climb when life opens wide,
With choices strewn about a borderless maze.
Endless loop,
Lost in time.
This is where I climb.

Ride to mile 25

I finally switched out the tires on my mountain bike. This is perhaps the latest I've made the switch to studs since I moved to Alaska. As I pumped the front tire up to 55 psi, the valve started to make that horrible hissing noise that indicates I have only seconds to release pressure before the twisted tube explodes (I pop more tubes this way than I'd care to admit.) I frantically grabbed at the hose and valve but it was too late. The tube exploded out of the tire right in my face, and the blast startled me so much that I jerked my hand away from the valve and punched the hub hard enough to bruise the entire backside of my right hand. My cat cowered against the door, horrified. I thought I had screwed up any opportunity to ride the ice-slicked streets, but then I found another heavily patched 29" tube stuffed in an old Camelbak.

This is my fifth season as a holiday orphan. Every year I tell myself that the expense, work hurdles and hassle of holiday travel isn't worth it, and every year the holidays roll around and I miss my family something fierce. I would even like to go with my sister on her Black Friday shopping frenzy, pushing against the roiling masses of humanity and frantic consumerism just for a glittering piece of something I don't need and never wanted. My own personal Hell would probably look something like Black Friday, but that is how much I miss my sister and the rest of my family.

I think about them when I ride, plying the damp streets and chilled air for comfort amid the homesickness. I think about coconut cream pie and ribbon Jello and table cloths that look like flannel sheets. I think about my Grandma lovingly demanding that all 47 of us recite what we're thankful for and I think about my Grandpa smiling as we chatter on about great friends and that super cool concert we went to the week before. I think about the Cowboys on TV and bowling with my cousins and even scoring more than 100 for the first time in my life. I think about Slurpees at 7-11 and sunlight on brown yards and launching sweet air beneath four tires off the train tracks. I find myself lost in memories when I ride around Thanksgiving, every year.

And I think about ways I can get home for Christmas, but I know it's already too late.