Lesson Learned

This morning Rob came home after giving a final exam and said, “You want to go for a bike ride?”

It's December. The riding season is over. But there's no snow to pull me outside on my skis, and a pulled muscle keeps me from running. I haven’t done anything fun outside in days. Maybe that’s why I’ve been in a funk. Or it could be because we’re approaching the shortest day of the year or because my son has just left home for good and won’t be back for Christmas.

I looked out the window. I could hear the wind even as I saw the trees swaying back and forth. But the sky was blue. I checked the thermometer - 48 degrees. Forty is the cutoff.

“Sure. Let’s go around the reservoir.”

That’s our shortest loop - past a horse farm, then an old barn and farmhouse before turning up a tree-lined residential road and on through a wetland. Past more houses and through some woods then onto a stretch of highway and along the reservoir, and back onto country roads before finally completing the loop. It’s one of the first rides we do in the spring when we’re just getting back on our bikes, the buds starting to show on the trees and daffodils blooming alongside the road. In the summer it’s our quick gotta-get-out-but-don’t-have-much-time ride and I’ll admire the gardens we pass, all much prettier than mine. And in the fall, we track the progress of the leaves changing, some individual trees particularly spectacular year after year, and we marvel at the trees' vibrant reflections on the reservoir.

Today, there was little to admire. Brown leaves covered the ground and the trees were a drab gray. Even so, after a half mile I felt my doldrums lift.  Being out under a clear blue sky, riding past fields and open spaces, feeling the cold wind on my face, and pushing myself physically, I felt invigorated. 

There is nothing remarkable about an 11-mile ride in December. But today, it was exactly that.

Thank you, Rob, for getting me out.