Fading Daybreak

Dear Blog Reader

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. I mentioned last week that I had a lot to write about. It was the time to write it that is the problem. I have two good blogs and time to write one. So I need you to remember the weather July 4th weekend. There are some observations about a rained out 4th of July. They can keep for a week or so.

Big news alert; my daughter Grace and I will be riding across Indiana in the RAIN ride. It is 160 miles from Terre Haute to Richmond on SR 40 with a detour around Indianapolis. It will be my second time and Grace's first time. It is exciting and a bit nerve wracking at the same time.

Speaking of riding my bike for special events, I am coming to the end of a special annual set of rides. I ride early in the morning for training during the week. When I started riding, I would ride in the evening. Get started by 6:30 or 7:00, and except for the small time from November to March, I would be riding in the light. Of course, they say you should never vigorously exercise immediately prior to going to bed. There were a few nights at the beginning when my endorphin charged blood stream would not let me go to sleep. My body adjusted however and I was sleeping fine. This schedule allowed me the opportunity to get up in the morning and veg out for an hour or so. For some reason, I love to get up at 5 and sit, read through the news and Facebook, browse a couple of sites where I get other news and generally contemplate life.

The only drawback to this plan was that I lost that hour of lovely Miss Beverly time in the evening. Compromise is the spice of life. So, I changed up the routine. I started biking in the morning. In order to ride for an hour and make my hour commute, I need to leave the house at 5:00 a.m. I found pretty quickly that I still needed some time to engage the brain before my butt hit the bike seat. So I get up at 4:19, spend 26 minutes doing the mini cross word, checking the weather,reading the news. At 4:45, I get in my bike gear and am out the door by 5:00 or so.

Speaking of lost hours, the hour that I routinely give those who have enough power to take with Daylight Savings Time means that these morning routines never see the light of day. Well almost never. For 3 and a half weeks, centering around the Summer Solstice, I get to ride in first light and I get to see day break for about one week. First light is that lightening time. You can't see the sun over the horizon. However, it provides enough for shadowing to be able to turn off the headlights.

I do not get this benefit for the entire ride even on the longest day of the year. Even on June 21st, the first half of the ride is made in the dark. I am using every light I have sweeping the fields and side-ditches for assassin deer or skunks out for their morning constitutional. I am also on the look out for any road kill that might be littering the road. It is never pleasant to try to rekill the already dead and somewhat squishy on a bike going 16 miles per hour. You kinda have to brace and hope for the best. A certain amount of mouth breathing helps also.

So 40 minutes in the dark and eventually 20 minutes in the light gives me the perfect ride for three and a half weeks every late June and early July. It is perfect because 6 months ago I found a different ride. I used to do two laps through the countryside and finally got bored. So I went East and went through the small town on Pendleton. Pendleton has a great downtown consisting of mainly restaurants, antique stores, and a donut shop. They also have a neon sign maker. Many of the shops have his handy work and like to leave it on all night long. So riding through down the street under the mercury lamps and the bright neon signs brings joy to my soul in the predawn hours. Plus I get the added benefit of riding past people's houses wondering if they are having a good nights rest.

That joy is doubled during these 3 and a half weeks, the first half through downtown Pendleton, the second half 20 minutes later turning down 750 W. and heading north the first light slowly fading the lighting ability of my headlamp. Last week, I found myself delaying may departure by a couple of minutes a day. I have just been trying to hold onto to the perfection for a few days longer. This week I am sure that I will make the choice to stay gainfully employed and avoid speeding tickets to make up the lost time. I will leave the house on time. I will accept the single joy of the lights of Pendleton. I will ride in the dark for the next 11 months.

I know that this dark riding is the fault of the "powers that be." Who knows who those powers are? It could be big golf. It could be big evening barbecue, I suspect that big keep you up until the 11:00 p.m. news is part of the cabal. I used to be angry at all of you. But that changed this time through the joy of these few weeks.

My journey to releasing this anger is a stretch. But riding my bike thinking things often stretches me physically and mentally. Every time that I thought about the time that is taken by those in power, I would flash back to a passage written by C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. He was answering the question is "psychoanalysis okay within the Christian tradition."

To paraphrase; he stated that the idea of mental illness is one of the reasons that Christ admonished us not to judge others. Those with mental illness combated forces that were ingrained and brought upon themselves with little fault of their own. He went onto say that it is impossible to determine the blame for another. Maybe the alcoholic that was able to forestall a drink for a couple of days or who swore to stay sober for the 10th time to fail two weeks later was showing more of Christ's grace and sustaining power than a teetotaler who never drank a beer in his whole life, simply because he never liked the smell of alcohol.

Somehow on those rides, I came to feel the same way about the stealers of light. You are doing the best that you can. I wish you well with your 9:00 p.m. sunsets, and am thankful for the 25 days of watching this sliver of joy rise in the East, having it erase the beam of my headlamp, and letting me see the deep greens of deep summer in the quiet of a warming morning.

Take care.

Roger