ENVIOUS OR SORROWFUL?
Wednesday August 17, 2011 7:57 amI was a little conflicted this morning as I began my ride. The first thing I realized was that I wasn't dressed warm enough: tee-shirt and shorts was not getting it on this chilly morning. I knew I would have to pedal hard for a little while in order to warm up. At the six mile mark on this particular route there is one hill that I knew if I wasn't warm by then... I would be by the time I crested the hill: it worked like a charm.
The reason I said I was conflicted at first was that as I was leaving our little city behind and heading into the countryside I saw that almost every home I was passing was still closed up for the night with drapes all drawn... and I wondered about the people in these homes who can apparently sleep with ease and I felt somewhat envious of the unnamed souls in those houses. But, as I really started looking around, soon I felt differently.
The sky already had some light but the Sun had not yet climbed high enough to make an appearance: so the big, white, Moon was still clearly visible: also over all of the low lying pasture fields a heavy white fog had them all but blotted out.
I could feel my legs beginning to burn as I forced myself on but it was a good and not a bad feeling. Off to my right and in a break in the fog I saw a large wild turkey strutting along. I see them every once in awhile but usually they are in small groups. This guy, or gal... had ventured out on its own. I called out to him but he completely ignored me and kept moving toward whatever goal he had set for himself.
A little later I first heard... that unmistakable sound that precedes a gaggle of geese and I looked up and saw a perfect “V” formation these birds so often form, and I knew that they would soon be directly overhead. Inexplicably, just as they were passing overhead their formation broke and for a little ways they were in a long straight line, I counted 18 of them as they noisily flew on their way.
At my turnaround point as the fog was lifting and off to my left in a field far below there were four deer... all doe's, scampering and playing in the wet grass. Most probably there was a buck nearby keeping watch, but if he was there I didn't see him this morning.
With the early morning Moon still apparent, even in a light sky... the heavy, wet, fog hanging over everything: turkey, geese, deer, and my heavy breathing with exhales of white plume and my legs on fire... I understood that it was a good morning to be alive! Now, instead of feeling envy for those who sleep so long and easily... I felt badly for them knowing what all they missed this morning by sleeping in. Now... to any of my sleepyhead friends who reads this and was still slumbering at 5:30 this morning... don't you wish you could have been biking with me to see and enjoy what all I saw and enjoyed (:
posted by Robin Johnson @ 9:03 AM
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