Don't You Feel A Change Is Coming?

Can you feel it?  It's February.  Spring and change are right around the corner.  We've rounded the bend, I can "smell the barn".  It "should" be all downhill from here. 

When the clouds have all gone
There will be no more rain
And the beauty of all things
Is uncovered again

I couldn't resist snagging some of Cat Steven's lyrics for this post.  As a kid, he got me through so much change, to this day I don't know what I would have done without him.  I doubt many kids used vinyl as their "security blanket", but nothing could soothe me more than his voice.

And like any change--be it good or bad--I tend to fall back into my old ways, turning to music or bikes to get me through. During the past few days, when the air smelled of spring, and I felt a stir in my body pleading with me to go explore, I obliged. One day of hills on my own, one day of hills with friends and one day of slowly rolling over patches of ice with my Sunday riding crew.  Three days in a row of not feeling my ears forced to my shoulders made me hope change was about to occur. 

With this anticipated change of season, however, comes some bittersweet feelings.  I only have a few more weeks of "social" Sunday spins, the riding group will shift when the roads allow us to take out our fancy steeds, and I may not see some of these folks until late next fall.  I will also have to start taking training a bit more seriously if I hope to finish my spring gravel centuries without too much pain (honestly I'd rather just goof off and play on my bike, but that doesn't get me to the events I've grown to love). 

And so with this imminent shift, I begin to clean house, clean my mind and get ready for the adventures which are about to come. When I feel myself resisting slightly, I just remind myself of this poem:

Nothing that is can pause or stay
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
Tomorrow be today
-Longfellow