Two consecutive sunny days with temperatures in the low 60s is a positive tonic. The added hour of daylight at the end of the working day is also a wonderful thing. I had been meaning to visit the motorcycle in the basement and remove the battery for charging, since I have not touched it since the end of Fall.
 
I pulled the cover over the handlebars and thought I would see if it would turn over. Much to my surprise, it roared into throbbing life. Taking that as a sign of sorts, I backed it up and dropped it into first and went for the first ride of the year.
 
Just the neighborhood, mind you, since skills must be used to stay current. The fresh air and crisp temperature were a simple and positive tonic.
 
It was very useful. This is a tough week, though the world around us is waking to the first hints of new life. I would tell you about it, but it is not my story. I have to leave it at this: something awful occurred far away that is so powerful that I can feel the intensity of its black flame sucking the very oxygen from the air.
 
Like most of the string of events that have occupied this barren holiday season, it is unrelated to anything that I could have altered, even if I knew what was coming.
 
Most of the sad things happened to others, though some are close. As a itinerant scribe, I absorb things and regurgitate them in ways that I delude myself into thinking they reflect higher, or lower, truisms of life. Sometimes I dramatize for effect, sometimes underplay things that we all know are deadly significant.
 
The wide world has its issues. I have seen relatively informed commentary that suggests that things as disparate as the German insistence of fiscal responsibility could prompt the collapse of the New Europe; that the Chinese could embark on the dismantlement of the American Empire sooner, rather than later; that Iran is about to provoke Israel into the ultimate struggle for its existence; and that right here in the US, state nullification of Federal mandates could cause a show-down that will make the Union disintegrate.
 
The event horizon for most of these is within the next five years, so I am excited that I may be here to see if any come to pass. Most of these are fevered hallucinations, I hope, like the doomsayers on the environment. There does not appear to be a single thing that any of us can do to influence them, except possibly recycle more and drive less.
 
So, what is a person to do?
 
We agreed around the extended family dinner table down in Raleigh that it was probably prudent to relax a little bit. To take joy in the simple animal things that make us human.
 
Exercise, for example. The distractions of the winter caused me to become less interested in food, though cooking remains great fun. That led to some weight loss that makes me feel better than I have in years.
 
I decided to see if I could capitalize on it, since the chronic pain wasn’t helped any by inactivity. I have a personality, as you know, that tends to the obsessive. The usual pattern in my life was to challenge fitness to ever higher and higher levels that eventually became unsustainable, either by time or inclination.
 
Along the way I recalled two simple maxims that, between life crises, seemed to work pretty well.
 
The first was that if you eat three American meals a day you gain weight. If you eat one you lose. There is a happy medium in there someplace and I am going to find it.
 
The second is that you must break a sweat once a day.
 
I am investigating that one. I need to find that zone somewhere between the old five mile runs and the fact that the knees don’t work very well. But vigorous exercise is a relative, ting, and I am seeking that golden mean. The bicycle is part of that.
 
So with those improvements, life should feel better, even if the vast tide of it rolls along uncaring and raw. Simple things are good.
 
Looking around, I think I will make things a great deal simpler. Of course the simplest thing in the world is to care about something else, so that is an excellent case for getting a dog.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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