Day 1 – 30.5 miles from Tallahassee to KOA campground off I-10

Back on the road and it feels good. We got a late start this morning from Tallahassee but I’m glad we did it. That meant we got to go to a really good coffee shop and then I went out to a bike shop on the north side of Tallahassee and had Randy fix my brakes. He took an hour on them, so that’s a sign I really needed that work. I have learned that unlike with traditional bike brakes, one does not adjust the cable to adjust the brakes. Instead one only uses the in an out lever for the pad itself. Lesson learned.

There is something about transporting yourself on a bike, carrying all that you need to sleep and eat and take care of your daily needs, that is very grounding and calm ( except of course when you’re hot and tired ). It is also gratifying to pick up from where I left off five years ago on my bike tour-leader experience from hell that ended abruptly in Tallahassee.

I am back stronger from that experience, knowing that I would not be in the life I am in right now if that had not happened — serving as county commissioner and living in my perfect little house in Green Acres. Instead, I might have continued to lead bike tours for well-enough off, primarily white and retired and from the northeast and the west coast – and I would have wondered if being in a service job like that was really what I needed to be doing with the rest of my life.

The first day of a tour is what give you gives you confidence that you can do the rest. Riding a fully packed touring bike is very different from riding my road bike or my fancy E bike. It’s an impressive endeavor. This bike, my salsa, is made of steel, strong enough to carry panniers in the front and the back in which I pack all my belongings and needs for the week. The back right pannier holds my tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad etc., everything I need for shelter and sleeping. The back left pannier holds my clothes — cycling shorts and tops, my bathing suit, one or two pairs of shorts and tops for me to wear after the ride. In the front panniers, I carry my cooking gear and food and tools and office equipment, meaning electronic chargers and a mini iPad. Together with the bike itself and 3 full water bottles, that adds up to about 90 pounds. That seems like a lot of weight, but once you get the bike moving, it rolls pretty easily and it’s a very solid ride.

We followed a multi-use trail to the eastern side of Tallahassee, and got the opportunity to see a lot of public parks and waterways and even a bike pedestrian bridge over a major thoroughfare. Then for a good long while we rode along the Old St. Augustine rd under a scenic tree canopy announced on signs along the route — protected from the warming sun in idyllic cycling conditions. The road, now bypassed by most motorists In preference for I-10, shows it history; the road has worn down over years resulting in high banks on either side.

The tree canopy only lasted so long and then we were out in the sun. With such a late start, almost noon, the temperatures were now in the eighties and the stores in the neglected small towns we cycled through were all closed so we found a Spanish moss draped oak (?) to sit under for lunch and then a church water faucet for filling up our water bottles.

Around 4:30, we rolled into our campground, an old KAO mostly filled with RVs. Even though it was 2015 and 2017 when I did my cross country bike trips, the muscle memory needed for setting up camp took over and before I knew it, I could soak in the pool, take my shower, eat some instant rice mix with added chicken from a one-serving packet and finish my day tucked into my tent and writing this blog. There are frogs chirping around me and other night sounds one would expect when camping but dominating all this is the roar of vehicles on I-10, which I’m hoping will lull me into an easy sleep tonight.

Lessons for future:

1. keep the first day short like we did today — just 31 miles. That gives you time to get the kinks out of your set up.

2. Consider getting another point-n-shoot canon for photo taking and get one of those phone holder.

3. Also get the smallest face-cloth size magic-material towel.

5 years later – Finishing the Southern Tier

Easy 273 mile day but that’s because I drove those miles in a car.

Still it felt Like it was full of adventures. I’m traveling on the adventure with my friend Bob, the most easy going guy in the world. Im not sure how I met Bob but we’ve known each other for years through shared bike rides and my friend Maggie too. Bob is my equivalent of the my first friendships with the boys on my block on Silver Lake Place. — my brother Charlie, jimmy kelly and jimmy Dunne, Chrissy Englart, and Kevin and Greg Connelly and Tommy Malecki. It was street full of boys and me, and we played kick ball and hide and seek and went ice skating on Lofts lake.

Back to Bob, he is one of the just two people in my bike world in Athens who also has done bike touring, and it’s Bob who I turned to for advice when I did my 2015 cross country bike ride after retiring. So, it’s appropriate that it’s Bob who is joining me as I finish my second bike ride across the country, Across the southern tier from San Diego to St. Augustine that ended abruptly (long story) in Tallahassee five years ago.

We are staying tonight at the Bike House In Tallahassee, equivalent to Bike Athens in that their main focus is to rehab bikes to get them to people in need. Here, though, they have space for bike travelers too. We had reached out to them about a month ago after I saw their name listed in the adventure cycling southern tier maps and they said they’d have space for us. Today,

Though, as we called to check in, we never got a response and when we arrived the place was locked up. For awhile we contemplated which patch of grass

we could set our tents up on but were wary of the local police or local homeless population giving us trouble. Bob reached out to another bike shop with hopes he could make a connection to the guy who runs this place, while I checked out the local Motel 6. Fortunately, Bob lucked out and before we knew it Cassie showed up and opened the place up for us. A bike wonderland in side with the best vegan restaurant and music venue right next door. Cassie may come stay in Athens with me on her own bike tour to a July family reunion near Augusta.

And so the world goes —- new friends and adventures await. 🚴🏼‍♀️💗🚴🏼‍♀️💗🚴🏼‍♀️🌸

Crazy truck called a Gladiator

With two motorcycles on it.

Blooming aloe

The Bike House

Cassie arrived to let us in

Bike wonderland

Mural

Vegan restaurant and music venue The Bark

Writing Again in Covid-19 Times

I miss writing. I’ve been “selling” myself as a political candidate lately but it’s not the same.

I just wrote a thoughtful blog post to return with but when I went to post it, I got an error message and “poof” it was gone, so here I go again. I will write something less thoughtful right, so I can follow through on my desire to start writing and posting again.

All other news has disappeared, and we are in Covid-19 times. I have it easy, more or less, but it still has thrown me off kilter. We are all in emergency mode and in limbo – a gigantic pause. For those of us not on the front lines – neither working in hospitals nor fighting the virus ourselves or with a loved one nor losing income from disappeared jobs – we battle with ourselves and our minds. We move back and forth between finding new routines and being productive and feeling the fatigue of not knowing how long this will go on for and dips into self-pity. Lives have been interrupted. Graduations canceled. Trips to visit grandchildren uncertain. Careers on “slow time”. Classroom rituals moved online.

I have it good. A beautiful place to live and work in with the North Oconee in my backyard and spring unfolding out my windows. I can choose between my neighborhood streets to walk on, filled more than ever with neighbors happy to exchange COVID small talk, or the “secret” trails along the river. I live alone but have my sister to “shelter in place” with for regular dinners together and enough friends and family to check in with that I can feel guilty for not keeping up with everyone. And I have my campaign for county commissioner to keep working on – a focus for each day.

Still there is the uncertainty about how long this will go on for, the feeling of being in limbo, the general anxiety from daily COVID updates. The COVID19 blues and self-pity still emerge despite how much you know you are in a lucky position compared to so many, many others. My advice to self and others – be generous and kind, not only with others but with yourself. We are in unknown territory

 

Athens is only a great place to live if the Earth is a good place to live.

The other day I went to Covenant Presbyterian Church to staff a table after a service focused on the environment. The pastor emphasized our ethical obligation to do something about what humans are doing to the planet. He read most of a TED Talk by Greta Thunberg, a 16-year old Swedish climate activist. As a part of her talk, she describes how she’s been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and wonders if others with her diagnosis might be the ones who are really normal:

“The rest of the people are very strange, especially when it comes to the sustainability crisis, where everyone keeps saying climate change is an existential threat and the most important issue of all, and yet they just carry on like before. I don’t understand that, because if the emissions have to stop, then we must stop the emissions. To me that is black or white.”

That’s the way I feel about climate change, and that’s the way I feel about funding the SPLOST Energy Sustainability Project that will help Athens transition to 100% renewable energies by 2035. The commission will be voting on a 100% Athens resolution in a few months.  I don’t understand why everyone else doesn’t see funding project 84 as a top priority. Why are the glasses I look through seemingly different than everyone else’s?  I only say this because the 100% Athens Energy Sustainability Project was among the last to make the citizen committee’s initial selection of projects to make their 150% list. I am deeply worried that it might not make the final list of SPLOST 2020 projects.

SPLOST Project 84 Energy Sustainability Project (Click for full Power Point )

I am not supposed to write about the ethical, moral reasons for supporting project 84. Instead, I’m supposed to focus on the economics if I want to be persuasive. But for me, the moral arguments are the most important. An increase in carbon dioxide levels is warming up our planet, with disastrous effects on our oceans, polar ice caps, and weather patterns. Like Greta says, “There are no gray areas when it comes to survival. Either we go on as a civilization or we don’t. We have to change.”  We all need to do our part and make doing so a priority. By funding project 84, Athens would be doing its part to mitigate this global crisis. It’s as simple as that.

Instead of such moral arguments, though, I should write about the economic reasons for supporting project 84. The ones that are true and practical and will sway the electorate, I am told.

I’m supposed to emphasize how project 84 is one of only three projects that will pay for itself over time with 13 years of energy savings costs equaling the project’s initial cost of $10 million.

I’m supposed to emphasize that with this project, you get to spend the money twice, once for the initial energy sustaining purchases – solar panels, electrified vehicles, LED lights, other energy efficient insulation – and then once with the money added to the general budget from reduced energy costs.

I’m supposed to emphasize the practical nature of Project 84, how we can use these funds to add renewable energy sources and high-level efficiency measures to new buildings being planned like an Eastside library and a new judicial center.

And I’m definitely not supposed to put down other projects.

However, I can’t help but point out the obvious. There are lots of projects on the list of those being considered that would be great for Athens. I love the Memorial Park zoo and Bishop Park and the Holland Youth Center.  I want to do something about affordable housing. I care about making our roads and intersections safer and keeping our police and fire departments equipped with the latest essential technology and vehicles.

But Athens is only a great place to live if the Earth is a good place to live. Climate change IS an existential threat, and I want the city I love to be part of the solution.  We have to be. There’s no other way that we can look future generations in the eye if we don’t do our part. And that’s why the Energy Sustainability Project (Project 84) should be at the top of the SPLOST 2020 list.

If you agree with me, please do one or all of the following:

1) Attend the SPLOST Citizen Committee Public Forum on Wednesday, April 10, 5:30-7:30.  Starts with overview of SPLOST program by Keith Sanders but then is mostly a hands-on meeting with citizens having time to prioritize their project choices via stickers. 120 W. Dougherty, Planning Dept

2) Submit an online public comment in support of Project 84. https://accsplosttest.formstack.com/forms/splost_2020_comment_form

3) Email your county commissioner in support of Project 84: https://athensclarkecounty.com/DocumentCenter/View/60/Mayor–Commission-Contact-Information?bidId=

4) Attend the Mayor and Commissioner’s Public forum on Wednesday, June 19. Time and place TBA

5) Attend one of the commissions’ agenda-setting and/or voting meetings and make a comment during the 3-minute public comment periods. The public can make comments at the end of the voting meetings on any subject. SPLOST 2020 project selections will be on the agendas for both the June 18 agenda-setting meeting and at the July 2 voting meeting, so there will be public comment periods earlier in those meetings. https://athensclarkecounty.com/176/Mayor-Commission-Meetings

Book Report #1 – Barbara Kingsolver’s “Unsheltered”

Part of my December Christmas season reinventing this year is doing more writing, working on my too-long abandoned manuscript of my 2015 bike ride across the country created from my blog posts and then just writing more blog posts. This blog post is something new, a book report.

I told a friend I was reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Unsheltered. He asked what it was about, and I bumbled out something about being a story about two families that lived in the same house but in two different time periods. It was such a poor summary of the book, lazy thinking. Writing helps me figure stuff out and forces me to more clearly explain my points. So, I decided to write something like I would write for my students as an example summary. Here’s what I came up with….and tying the book to the season, it would make a good Christmas gift, though not for me since I’ve read it already.

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Barbara Kingsolver, Unsheltered

Read early December 2018

Kingsolver built a novel around the inhabitants of a house in Vineland, NJ, switching between those living there in present time and those living there in the late 1800s. What makes Kingsolver’s novels different is that she incorporates history, current events, political tensions, and even science into her fiction without being too heavy handed.  In Unsheltered, the present-day family is narrated by Willa, a woman in her late fifties, and also includes her husband Iano, her dying Greek father-in-law Nick, her daughter Tig and her son Zeke who brings his newborn son Dusty to live with the family after his wife commits suicide. Kingsolver’s focus is on the family, their struggles and dynamics, but their lives and concerns are affected by current socio-political issues — changes in the the economy that make Willa and Iano’s careers in journalism and academics less than successful, Tig’s involvement in the Occupy movement that cause her to reject pursuit of the standard American Dream and belief in the need for continued national economic growth for, Zeke’s Harvard-educated pursuit of financial success, even if he’s trying to do it in a socially responsible way, and Nick’s love of rightwing radio while his body falls apart and the family stressfully tries to find a way to get his insurance to pay for his medical needs.

Every other chapters switches to the voice of Thatcher Greenwood, a science teacher in the Vineland, NJ, a temperance town with utopian tendencies built by Charles Landis in the 1880s. Thatcher has landed there after marrying Rose, a pretty woman obsessed with her own amusements and her place in society. Thatcher meets the neighbor, Mary Treat, a woman who quietly pursues her vocation as a naturalist and even corresponds with Charles Darwin. Treat and Landis are real people who lived in Vineland, a real town, in the late 19th century as well as another character, Uri, who published a newspaper critical of Landis and who Landis shot one day though never jailed for the crime. With Thatcher’s story, we see his struggles to teach evolution and any reason-based science in a school run by a creationist spiritualist . The contrast between Thatcher’s wife Rose and Mary Treat, who Thatcher grows closer and closer to, forces Thatcher and the reader to consider the role of women and what defines womanhood. Also Vineland is supposedly embracing utopian principles but Landis’ town is full of poorly-paid immigrants, something Thatcher sees in the lives of his students.

What makes Kingsolver’s novels so excellent is her ability to develop characters and their relationships with depth and complexity and place them in worlds that incorporate socio/political/economic issues and do so in a way that doesn’t seem forced or just superficially thrown in as window dressing. She makes me care about the characters and think about the issues — a modern day American Balzac. 

And I haven’t even explored the meaning of the title Unsheltered.

Note for my teacher friends: Now that I’ve written this, I see that this book would be a good one to teach in class. Lots of essay topics for students to write about

Embracing a new Christmas

Happy this morning with my new life. The river is flowing fiercely, a dull orange. The tufted titmice, chickadees, cardinals, and finches are gorging at the bird feeders. It is very grey and cold outside.

Confession. After my mom died last year, I used some remaining money on an Amazon gift card someone had given her to buy some squirrel-proof bird feeders. During the short five months we lived together in this house, we had hung some birders and enjoyed keeping track of the different birds that visited us. One day, against my mother’s wishes, I turned an arm chair around so that it faced out though the glass doors to the deck so that she could bird watch in more comfort. She succumb to the temptation of that chair and spent a few hours just watching the birds. Later she chastised herself for that indulgence, so much time just sitting there watching instead of getting something done. I don’t wonder where my desire, my need, for productivity comes from.

After a few months, the squirrels finally discovered the feeders and thus began my futile attempts to limit their intake. I suggested to my mother that we buy some squirrel-proof bird feeders. Her frugality, another value I inherited, put an end to that. Too much stuff, she’d say. We don’t need to buy anything more. And yet, she died, and I bought them. I went against her wishes there but don’t have regrets. Each of those birds out there brings back sweet memories of my mother’s enjoyment of her new life in Georgia.

It’s the time of the year for me to think of her. December last year was probably our best month. We had moved into this new home and established routines. Yesterday, with the day’s outdoor activities canceled due to rain, I used the time to find the little artificial tree I set up last year and then to figure out where I had stored the Christmas stuff.  New life and new home has meant new storage spots.

I found the Christmas tree in the downstairs storage room and took out the Christmas items chosen to make the trip to Georgia rather than go to the Catholic social services shop back on Long Island before we packed all of Silver Lake Place into a POD to ship it south.  My Christmas decorations, thus, are really my mom’s — her festive silk fruit centerpiece, the gold manger music box that was always a delight to wind up as a kid, the bird Christmas ornaments, another wooden German music box. My mother loved music boxes.

I’m good this year with mostly my mom’s Christmas stuff. Maybe I’ll go down to Richard’s house and get some of the decorations that we used as a family unit (we are very easy going about sorting out our accumulated things). Much of our Christmas stuff is actually from my mother. As a grandmother, she kept the girls clothed and overflowing with Beanie Babies and contributed heavily to our Christmas decor. I will probably get some Christmas lights. I like the idea of outlining my little front porch with electrified Christmas colors, a little something for those passing by at night and me driving home from an evening event.

And so December continues. I will continue to re-invent my life and that includes embracing a new version of Christmas. I don’t want to reject it, ignore it, run from it. I like having a time of year different from the everyday life of the rest of the year. I like the lights and Christmas parade and announcements of Christmas concerts and holiday pottery sales and the Christmas sing-a-long at Little Kings. A yearly time of reflection and gratitude and family and friends and celebrations and quiet moments and nature quieting down as we end yet another cycle around the sun.

A Way of Life

Today I went for another bike ride. It’s part of the “practice” of my life. It has “value independent of outcome. It’s a way of life, not a job with a clear payoff. A joyful habit. The right way to live.” An anchor in my life.

Another October, though here in Georgia it feels just like summer (and not the cool days of summer; temps were over 90 degrees today). A year ago I was in New York packing up my mother’s house. I had just pushed through a depression I fell into as a result of turning my life upside down. Three years ago, I had just returned from my solo bike ride across the country. I had just retired, and it felt like I would never get my workplace out of my head and my heart.

It finally has, of course. Did it have any choice, really? Time helped but it was pushed out as well by my daughters’ two weddings, my second less successful bike trip across the country, my separation from my husband, moving my mother to Georgia from NY where she had lived for ninety years, our making a new home together, her subsequent diagnosis and death from pancreatic cancer, and finally my divorce from Richard.  Repeating it all in one sentence helps me understand the depth of what I’ve gone through. Like with my retirement, the months and years will pass, and this past year’s events will slowly become part of my past instead of my present.

In fact, they are already starting to feel that way, and what a relief that is. I feel that change on a day like today, on weeks like these past few ones. I spent a week riding the Bike Ride Across Tennessee just west and northwest of Chattanooga. It was bike camp for a week, with about two hundred others, mostly other retirees like me. We eat breakfast together, camp together, ride our bikes on the same routes, visit the same rest stops along the way, eat dinner and shower and brush our teeth together. I went alone but was never lonely. I visited my old Arcosanti friend Tal on the way home and stayed overnight at his lake house. We talked over dinner, we talked over breakfast, both on his pontoon boat. A friendship renewed. A week later was the Six Gaps ride

in North Georgia, a massive feat in my bike world, that I accomplished with just under a thousand other people. 

In Athens, I am at home in my new house. A comfort that I like keeping calm and clean. I make my bed each morning and straighten up each day. The dishes get washed. I listen to podcasts and NPR and Spotify.

I’m still trying to figure out life post retirement; for certain, it is a journey, not a destination. Adult life part one had goal posts — marriage, children, job, career, retirement.  Adult life part two only has one defined goal post — death. Otherwise, the rest is left up to me to discover.  Right now, that life seems like a practice, a way of being, rather than a goal post.

Bike riding, involvement in my community, friends and family, Crossfit, reading books, the river behind the house, therapy — these are the “practice” of my life. They are my present that bring me into the future.

Quotes from “Stop Climate Change. It’s Hopeless. Let’s Do It,” an article that makes a lot of sense to me and reassures me about the value of my work on bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

 

Becoming an evangelical cyclist – Barnett Shoals Observations

I am tempted to become a militant, evangelical cyclist devoting myself to spreading the word that cycling is good for people and the world.

There is more dislike and anger aimed at cyclists than even I realized. Last night was a public forum on the trial 2-way bike lanes on Barnett Shoals between College Station and the light at Whitehall, a very short stretch but an extension of the bike lanes on College Station. I walked into the public forum at 5:10 pm. It was already very crowded and heated. I proceeded to sit there and mostly listen until 7 pm. It was not a pleasant experience. People were very upset. If the 2-way bike lane had been added as an addition to the four-lane road, I’m sure that people would have been fine. But it was really the reduction of 4-lane road (two lanes in each direction) to a 3-lane road that angered people. The four lanes have become one in each direction with a turn lane in the middle. How could this kind of configuration even be considered? It didn’t make sense and the traffic back-ups were so extreme that people were finding all sorts of ways to avoid the area. And most people hadn’t seen a cyclist on the paths at all. At least, that’s what people reported last night.

I had observed the new configuration as it was being put in two Thursdays ago. It was about 5 pm and there didn’t seem to have been problems then, but I could sympathize somewhat with what people were reporting. It wasn’t just one or two people complaining.

I decided I needed to see first-hand what was happening, so I set me clock for 6:45 am and by 7:45 am, I was in place on Barnett Shoals. Notebook and Iphone in hand, I sat there until 9 am and documented what I observed in front of me.No traffic backups during morning rush hour. No one had to wait through a two rounds of traffic signals. No one had trouble getting out of Greencrest (I was seated 50 feet away). Residents were able to turn out of their driveways. And there were nine cyclists during that time period. I took time-lapse videos every 5-10 minutes during that time. Traffic was clearly NOT a problem.

I plan to return to the intersection later today to observe how the end-of-day rush hour is.

I also road up and down the cycle lanes twice, once when I got there and once when I left. All those people there last night didn’t think that the lanes made cyclists feel safer. Because cyclists ride against the traffic as they head south, it might appear that it would be scary to cycle there. However, with the bollards and striped separation strips, I am here to attest that it does feel safer for cyclists. In fact, it felt quite peaceful and unlike cycling on most stretches of Athens’ roads. I am convinced that if there were a two-way cycle track that continued on towards Gaines School road and out to Lowes, that the number of cyclists would increase significantly. That’s a flat stretch of road, something we cyclists like.

What I experienced last night was a lot of anger – at cyclists and at the government – and a lot of exaggeration and misinformation. Basically, a lot of people really felt that cyclists shouldn’t be on the roads at all. They are for autos and not bikes. Bikes don’t pay taxes, and cyclists are crazy to risk their lives on roads that really don’t belong to them. The end conclusion of many of the arguments presented was that bikes should not be on the road.

I propose a different argument – that we won’t have more cyclists on the road until we build an infrastructure that makes them feel safer. And that’s going to happen little by little. With our new bike pedestrian plan about to be voted on, we will have a process for building a network of safe bike and pedestrian infrastructure that will connect existing pathways and build more. The goal is to build a system that encourages more users. We won’t have the users until we build it. The Barnett Shoals cycle track is the end point right now of bike lanes and paths that can get cyclists from the east side to campus, downtown, and Sandy Creek Nature Center. Being at the very end, of course, there will be fewer users, but we can’t make the better system without such extensions that will not be heavily used until more are built. That seems like common sense to me, but maybe that’s just bike common sense.

Yesterday, I brought my road bike into Georgia Cycle Sport on Baxter for some needed work on my rear hub, pedals, and back cassette. After some bike chit chat, Micah, one of the owners and their star mechanic, offered me one of their Specialized e-bikes to try out. I took the bike for a spin through the hilly parts of Five Points. With the electronic assist, I was able to wiz up the hills without much effort at all and with a big smile on my face.  Specialized, one of the largest bike companies around, anticipates that e-bikes will make up about 50% of their sales in five years. E-bike sales are already reaching those numbers in Europe.

I thought two things. First, I want one of these. That way when I meet a friend for coffee, take a trip to the library, buy groceries, or go to the bank, there will be no question that I will hop on a bike to get the four 3-4 hilly (sweaty) miles that it takes instead of hopping in my car. Second, once everyone else learns about ebikes, there will be a lot more people in Athens riding their bikes because right now it’s the hilly terrain that inhibits a lot of bike riding. With the combination of new bike lanes and paths and ebikes, Athens can really become a bike-friendly town.

My friend Donald just told me I was already a rather militant bike evangelical. Perhaps so but I am not really confrontative by nature. Militant is not my style. But an event like last night does energize me to get on my bike more often for normal daily activities and chores. I want to be on those bike lanes as much as I can be so fewer people will have the opportunity to say that no one uses them. Plus, of course, bike riding just makes everything seem like more fun. I will try to grab my car keys less and my bike lock more. That’s my goal.

Update: Did another observation session from 4:30 – 5:45. Once again, no traffic issues. All traffic able to get through intersection in one light cycle. Didn’t seem much different than during those hours I’ve stood out there waving campaign signs at that intersection over the past almost 20 years.

I am a kid who likes to play kickball

I am a kid who likes to play kickball in the street. We climb the apple tree too. We jump fences down the block, evading the eyes of grown-ups who might yell at us. We play hide and seek using the whole neighborhood.  In winter, we sled at Silver Lake and skate at Loft’s Lake.

I am old enough to join CYO at St. Christopher’s around the corner. There are Saturday mornings spent playing volleyball and doing relay races and then tryouts for the basketball team. At the beginning of the season, there’s the excitement of getting our uniforms and the schedule of games. We travel to other parishes for our games – Our Lady of Redeemer, Sacred Heart, St. Barnabas.

At Baldwin High School, I am asked to be in Leader Corp and so wear a white uniform during gym and lead my class in calisthenics. In the fall, I play field hockey; in winter, it’s basketball; and then in spring, either softball or track.

I am never a star but sometimes I play first string. I’m an A minus athlete on a good day, often B or B plus. But I like doing it all. I like moving my body. I like the game, the competition. I like pushing myself so hard my face gets red. And I like being with others doing something together.

I used to be shy. There’s still a part of me that is. Sports were my way of being with other people. I wanted to be a gym teacher and coach because that way, I’d be able to help other girls like me. Sports allowed me to be myself and be part of a group. I was no longer on the outside trying to figure out how to fit in.

I try now to notice what makes me happy, what gives me pleasure or makes me content. One thing is clear — sixty years on this earth and being outside, playing sports, and moving my body still give me more pleasure than almost anything. Yesterday I rode thirty-nine miles with my Nitty Gritty Bike Band buddies from the parking lot behind the courthouse. We did the Antioch Church loop with the 12-mile add-on that gave me some of the hill work I missed because of Saturday’s cancelled mountain ride. The temperatures were cooler than usual but the humidity just as high as usual. I chatted with Chick about touring in Europe and with Steve about the “tender human heart.” Afterward we ate watermelon in the parking lot.

Saturday, with the Hog Pen ride cancelled, I went to Legion Pool and swam fifty lengths. Friday, I met Steve at East Athens Trail Creek Park and did the mountain bike loops. Thursday was Crossfit day for me. We learned how to do the Turkish Get Up and then for time, did our WOD (workout of the day in Crossfit speak) — four rounds of a 400-meter run, 25 squats, 25 push- ups, and 25 ab mats.

I’m sure there’s something biological going on. 23andMe have my DNA and send me updated reports. I am more likely to be able to detect the asparagus smell, have average odds of misophonia (the dislike of chewing sounds), am more likely to have wet earwax, and have the genetic muscle composition common in elite power athletes. Voila, there it is. Another report might tell me that I am more likely to run after balls (a trait Clare and Anne didn’t seem to have as young children).

I didn’t order these traits. They are what I came with. I used to not value this enjoyment of physical activity. It was more valuable to be artistic or musical. Now though I think I am quite lucky. Again and again, we hear that physical activity and social interaction make a significant difference in all sorts of physical and mental health indicators. I’ve known this intuitively all my life.

Last fall I joined a spin gym on Long Island and went almost daily. After about a week, I woke up and wasn’t depressed after the worst depression of my life. I kept my fingers crossed that it would last and it did. And it continues to do so.

Today is Crossfit. I am going to find a new one rep max on my shoulder press and then do six rounds of a 200-meter run, 25 sit ups, and some scaled version of a pull-up. Simple pleasures, for sure, but isn’t that the key – finding joy in small things. Of course, that’s easier said than done. Today though, that’s the case, and I’m savoring it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transforming My Home

 

My new spacious bedroom with a deck of its own.

I’m trying something different today and sitting this morning with my tea at the dining room table. Usually, I drink it in bed. And I usually don’t write but sit and sip my tea and listen to NPR.  I’m not against that. I will do it again.

But I’m working on myself these days, getting myself to a new stable place. There’s been so much change in my life this past year. Maybe if I look at it directly instead of keeping busy, that will help me.

 

The dining room with a new sideboard from Lexington Vintage. Had never visited antique and vintage stores but now I’ve visited nine in Athens.

I have spent the last month or so since I rode BRAG (Bike Ride Across Georgia) transforming my home. I hadn’t quite grasped the obvious, that my home was filled with all my mother’s stuff and not mine. In October, I emptied my mother’s house in New York, the one I had grown up in, and brought my mother to live down here in Athens with me. We’d be roomies, and we were good ones.  I took all my mother’s furniture and wall hangings and tchotchkes and created a home for us. I was proud that the house didn’t feel like a replica of my mom’s house back in New York but felt like it was ours now. My mother was pleased and kept repeating to people how I had made all her things feel fresh and new.

Transformed living room. Gone are my mother’s green couch, her favorite chair and ottoman, and an inherited overstuffed recliner. On the wall is the quilt I bought to bring joy into my office when I became dean at Athens Tech.

It was a fresh and new life for my mom and for me too. She wasn’t living in Baldwin where she’d lived since 1956. I wasn’t living with Richard with whom I had lived since 1982

Then my mom got sick and died.

That was over three months ago now, back at the end of March. It was just last June that I proposed the idea of moving to Georgia to my mom.  I have felt guilty about my mom dying so soon after we moved in together. I didn’t know six months ago if I’d be taking care of my mom for just a few years or for another ten years.  Would my life for the next decade be as a caretaker? How feeble would she get? When she died,  I had hardly taken care of her at all.

 

The view from my new office (and my old bedroom). That’s the orange muddied North Oconee River way in the background.

My friend Suzie’s mom was in a hospital bed in their living room for several years. Linda drove into Atlanta every weekend for years and years to help her mom and dad. Diane can’t think of traveling without thinking about her mother’s care and so she doesn’t travel. How did I get off so easy in terms of care taking?

I realize now that it just is what it is. I didn’t make things happen this way nor did my mom. And I do miss her company. We were closer than we’d ever been. She was here always eager to hear my day’s adventures. We’d talk about the birds and what we read in the Times, which we were having delivered daily.

The formica dinner table my family ate at every night at 6 pm, updated with three Ikea chairs.

Now I’m on the other side of that life.  My mother and I created a wonderful new home and then she left; pancreatic cancer wasn’t an easy way to do so. She gave me the love and the physical space to start this new life.

My grandmother’s desk, my desk, and assorted decorations, many of which were in my Athens Tech office.

Some days are harder. Here I am, just about to turn sixty, and I’m starting fresh. There are tears that come and go. There’s fatigue from the past year. There’s a lot that I have – friends, family, love, things I like to do, causes I care about — but there’s also a lot of grieving that I’m doing, grieving for my mom and for the life with Richard that I’ve left behind.

Mary Chris came down from New York and helped me transform my home into “my place” rather than “my mom and my place” and into a pleasing, peaceful place I like being in.  Now the work and adventure of transforming myself continues.

The expected bike pillow and the not-expected “Good Morning, Gorgeous” pillow Mary Chris thought would be both funny and a helpful daily affirmation for me.