Last week I had a major work setback. I submitted something that was not up to snuff, and it got sent back with scathing commentary. I can resubmit. And, I am, unsurprisingly, worried about whether I can do a better job, because now I’m in the vicious cycle of doubting myself.
So, I woke up on Saturday morning weighed down by the blues and decided the antidote was to do the hardest mountain bike ride I did last summer. As my second ride of the season this year. A trail that starts at the far edge of Canmore Nordic Center and plunges into dense forest on its way to Banff.
The blues-fighting ride I decided to do is rocky and root-y to an extreme. Last year, it was raining and cold (4C/40F), so the roots were all the more slippery. I walked my bike. A lot. My phone went into SOS mode from the cold. When I decided to do it this past Saturday, my reasoning was this: Physical effort aside, the trail requires the particular intense mental focus that I love about mountain biking. That dance between laser attention and allowing the bike to flow with the landscape. The dance of vigilance and letting go. The ride would be an exercise in trusting myself, just at a moment when I wasn’t. Also, I had barely gotten reacquainted with my mountain bike the morning before. So my bike and I were still re-establishing our trust.
No matter. I needed some rock and root therapy. I needed something that demanded my attention and, as a double and triple bonus, passed through breathtaking landscape and wrested me out of my looping thoughts and into my heartbeat.
When I finished my morning meditation, the mountain outside my window was sun gilded. Auspicious. The weather was a balmy 7C/45F. No rain in the forecast. Long story short. My bike and I found our mutual groove. The drier trail meant more grip over roots. Together with a more aggressive mindset, the kind of mindset that seeks to purge toxic thoughts and relocate in the here and now; I rode 80% of what I walked last year. Okay—that’s a wild guesstimate. And it sounds so official, I couldn’t resist. I walked my bike. Very little. My teeth were not chattering, my phone did not retreat into its SOS mode, and I was mostly dry when I arrived in Banff. Plus, quadruple bonus, the shuttle back to Canmore was sitting at the stop, as if waiting for me.
When I got home, I sat on the front porch in the sun and bathed my spirit in the rocky mountain filling my eyes. I thought about how hard it can be sometimes to enjoy the moment, to be here now. What more did I need right then? A mischievous part of myself chimed in that she could make a list of things I needed. Then she quieted. And let me just be. I spent the better part of the afternoon lying on the couch reading Samantha Harvey’s transcendent novel, Orbital. Yes, from time to time I thought about the work setback and what I needed to do to rectify. The challenge felt more surmountable after several hours of dancing with the forest terrain. The setback was not gone, of course not. Simply mitigated. Reframed. The shift in perspective offered by rock and root therapy, bringing me back to the here and now.
