red columbine and marsh bellflower

today i slept until eleven, had a little breakfast and went back to bed. i slept through my alarm and had to call bert and tell him i was coming in late. then i caught every traffic light the wrong way, got caught behind the train, and for some reason all the traffic was moving at about ten miles an hour below the speed limit.

go figure.

and then i was going to do a little grocery shopping, but on the way i stopped at the essex overlook park where there is a very old and venerable cache. not to visit the cache, although i might have done if i could have remembered where to look, but just because i wanted to go stand near the water. the rocks and sand are beautiful and there are lots and lots of flowers. red columbines are a favorite of mine.

so anyway. i got my groceries and i went home and packed up all the bikes and gear so i could go to the race venue, and meet rumblestrip and the crashcos. especially rumblestrip, since i was functioning today as the bike valet; there is much gear she is borrowing from me. including my blue rocky, a bike i love but don't ride much anymore. there was this thing about needing a full suspension bike because i'm not getting any younger so now i ride the red rocky.

but it's been a while since i last wrote; stuff keeps piling up.

i didn't get around to baking bread, but crashco and i did go to my dad's birthday party. of course we had to stop along the way to find a geocache, but we did get there. my stepsister made this really awesome oreo cake and i ate a lot of it. we had to stop to cache one the way home, too.

sunday morning i actually got to church AT THE RICHMOND CONGO! i met the interim pastor, who is very nice. i think i could get to like her. of course i had nothing for the plate and not enough gas to get home on, so i owe skipper twenty dollars.

at about six o'clock in the afternoon on monday the sun came out. it is beautiful here where i live. and all of a sudden the depression came crashing down on me for no apparent reason. sometimes it just does that.

it is a pain like nothing else; it has no parallel, no frame of reference. it is very hard to face a thing like that without a suicide wish. i felt all of a sudden as if the thing i needed most was to go down to the church, but who would i call to let me in? who would sit with me?

so instead i went out to the driveway to work on the bikes. they need to be cleaned and tuned and polished, of course.

there was one thing that saved me; one thing that made me willing to continue to bear that prodigious pain. i was past obedience and out of my head. i will not tell you what it was.

i will tell you that i had some terse words with bob. why is it i have to be made this way? what good does this serve? i'd rather it were not that, i told bob. but if it has to be that, it has to be that. teach me to be obedient. teach me to love as You love. Instruct me; place Your strength in my hands.

i couldn't sleep monday night. there is a particular dread of laying awake for hours and then rolling over to see the clock show a quarter to four. no matter. i don't have to be especially awake to have them pump me full of sedation.

but then tuesday afternoon i couldn't sleep either. and i got up in the early evening as is my habit and went to run my weekly 5k with the crashcos. this week i ran with my ipod, and from the top of goose hill down to the garden i heard eight minutes of the road goes on forever and the party never ends and i actually came in faster than last week.

and then i slept until eleven, which is i believe where you came in on the story.

but tonight at the race they announced that sunday's race is being postponed on account of bad trail conditions, so it turns out i can go to church at the regular venue, which means i'll be available to sing in the choir, which i love and where i am useful, and on saturday i'll make time to make that bread, probably orange apricot and it will be a lovely surprise for the pastor to learn that the job comes with fresh bread. there will be loaves for whoever bought them at the auction, and there'll be an orphan loaf if you know where to look.

i have to go. for some reason i made a 09:30 appointment with dr. novas; don't ask me what i was thinking. but then in the afternoon i have to go have a physical so they can judge me to be in good enough shape to keep frying me.

so. i hope you sleep well, and i hope you wake refreshed.