Going Back to What's Important

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order

-John Burroughs

The past few months, to be honest the past year, I have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. My divorce, selling the house, buying my condo, getting a roommate, pet sitting gigs and bike event trips have left me a bit depleted. I routinely wake up in the middle of the night, not knowing where I am or what day it is. I've been in a constant state of packing and unpacking (lately I've had two piles going in my room at all times depending on where I'm headed). I don't cook much anymore, instead opting to eat quick and easy meals yet still trying to get a balance of produce, protein and non-processed carbs (some days are better than others). There has been very little time to reflect, sit in silence or "just be" other than on long solo road rides. These rides have essentially been my saving grace. Bringing me, at least somewhat, back to the earth...back to what's most important to me. On long rides through the driftless, there is not much else to think about besides the cranes in cornfields, what flowers may be blooming at the time, the next big hill coming up and where the next water source is. Because these long rides are few and far between, and they weren't tiding me over, I felt it necessary to take several days following my 42nd birthday to get away from everything "city" and rediscover myself...and the world around me.

This takes me to where I sit currently. Looking out over the deck of a cabin unbelievably kind friends let me use. Looking out onto a small, no motor lake just outside of Lac du Flambeau, WI. Watching the remaining drops of rain fall out of the clouds which have been soaking the area the past couple days. In between the raindrops hitting the lake, I see ripples created by water bugs, fish and turtles. I have just dried off, am well fed, and am warming to the bone following an all morning exploration ride down long winding paved roads and over squishy gravel roads leading to lookout towers, marshlands, creeks and ponds. The scent of hemlocks, duff, rock, wintergreen and bog still hang in my nose. If I could bottle this smell, I would carry it with me wherever I went. I'm not sure how to put this, but I feel, for the first time in ages, so completely calm, present and content that not even two days of solid rain bother me. In fact, on my ride back to the cabin today, I was soaked so completely it looked as if my elbows were rain chains, and yet I noticed my cheeks hurting terribly. I paused a moment and wondered why my cheeks hurt so badly and then I realized I most likely hadn't stopped smiling for hours. I didn't even know I was smiling. It's in those moments, so genuine and true, I KNOW, without a doubt, how happy to be alive I am. And it's those moments, when I realize what a simple thing, like a wilderness ride in the rain, can do for me.

Each time I come up to the north woods, I wonder "could I live here permanently?" Although I love visiting, the answer always comes back "no". I wouldn't be happy without my circle of friends around me. I wouldn't be happy without good ethnic food, art or live music. And I would certainly not be happy with the onslaught of black flies and mosquitoes each spring. No, I belong, for the most part, in a small city. I've tried to do the northern girl thing in the past. It worked for awhile but , atvs, snowmachines and fishing just don't do it for me. So for now, I just need to carve out some time each year to come up here. To sit under tall pines and listen to the wind make music through the needles as I breathe in their heady aroma.