three sisters

i live at the edge of a large flat wetland. on one side of my road it's flat for about four miles; there are natural swamps and beaver ponds and such. on the other side of the road rises up a ridgeline. not oxbow ridge; the one before it. but it is the spine of the beautiful green mountains.

there are three trees at the top of the ridge, larger than the others. i keep thinking htat someday i will go up there and find them, just to be with them. i went once; it's much easier to see the three of them from down here. up there, it's hard to see the trees for the forest.

anyway, the clouds are hanging low, right down to the top of the ridge, and therre's that fantastic sunset wherein the sun is wedged between the land and the low cloud ceiling. it is a green you could fall in love with and the sky just behind and above ranges from lowering grey to that beautiful transitory red that you can't quite name or identify. you can't get it to sit still.

i went up there a long time ago to look for the sisters but instead (and this is rather complicated) i came down on the verge of falling in love.

"i know you are out there", i said, or at least this is a pretty close paraphrase of what i actually said.

"i know you are out there, and i know you are nearby." soon after that there were two of us here. and very soon after that every argument in my house ended with "and when do i get to have a dog?" and some time passed. more time passed, and there was isabella and there was bob, and if you're listening at all, DJC, i have no idea how i could have brought you along on this part of the trip. and i was talking with bob the other night and maybe i'm wrong, but i don't see any way i could bring along anyone who doesn't get bob, so i'm preparing to be single for a loooooong time.

and i know, i know, you thought there was someone else, but it wasn't who you thought it was, not by a long shot.

so i'm just killing time, a little. what i'm doing is NOT telling you exactly what's on my mind because (and i know this will surprise some of you) there are some things even i won't write here.

tuesday evening the craschos and i went to run our usual 5k, even though i'd had treatment in the morning. it took me over an hour to run a 5k. and we ran into the qseekers there; turns out they always go, but we'd never known them.

but anyway, i was slow. and it was painful. i got a lot of muscle cramping. but i kept on going, which i kind of took as a metaphor for my life in general. you can take a thing like that, though, and offer it up to bob. you can ask for the strength and courage to keep going. i have that coin in my pocket to remind me.

please strengthen my hands and steel my soul. give me your work to do. inform and instruct me; let me be your agent.

i rode wednesday and so did the crashcos and rumblestrip. i have no earthly idea what moved rumblestrip to take up racing mountain bikes, but i'm thankful for it. rumblestrip sees me so often when i'm in bad shape and sometimes the worst shape that it is a great blessing to let her see me in that venue. mountain bike racing is what changed me, made me worth saving, so it's good to have her see me that way for a little while.

the Flyingfishers are leaving very soon to go to germany for the world cup; it is a moment i have dreaded. what will i do without Flyingfisher for that long? i have no earthly idea. it's a concept i have been carefully avoiding since i found out about it. i'm really not equipped to think about it.

and d: go ahead, you have earned it.