Unplugged

Recovery takes on all forms....active recovery being the form I needed the most after a long and hard week of work on the bike.  A slower form of movement and an appreciation for a different pace has provided for a venue fueled by Friday-night leftover pizza and Saturday-night baked goods. It's a wander through time and space that I've learned to love once again.....unplugged from the bike for a day.....I rediscover why I fell in love in the first place.

Venturing out each Sunday for the past month, I've fallen for the Santa Catalina's all over again.  Her protected heart of canyons harbor such dense life zones and micro-climates, that to walk in her presence for more than an hour, will bring you to new worlds.....

I unplug from my routine...one foot in front of the other...no bike to pedal.   I climb on past the point where I stop thinking of the bike and start remembering the music.....the sweet, sweet music that only the desert makes when you absorb it for hours on end with no distraction.  It's the wind-whistling sound you hear when you hold your breath next to a saguaro and hear it speak back in tones nearly imperceptible......

I'd long forgotten this song....in fact, I'd forced myself to forget it.  Riding at paces too fast to hear, I moved beyond it's tune, only taking in it's sound when I consciously chose to.  Here, I am forced to listen to it exclusively....and I am moved.  I have unplugged my headphones and hit pause.....and in doing so, I have rediscovered something......something vast.....something amazing.

Things I tuned out, still speak to me....only now I can listen.....my self imposed distraction no longer, I listen to her babbling streams flowing over worn yet strong slabs of mylonitic granite.  Unyielding, yet transformed into smooth and curved lyrical forms from the ever-present influence of water flowing over her face for eons, she sings back.....

The tinijas altas, as I like to think of them, hold all memories throughout the seasons.  They hold the tune during the stanza of drought and in the crescendo of a monsoon storm.....they persist only through the graceful influence of water which has shaped this place....and us....for we are creatures from the waters and we are drawn to its music....always....

As I look up and focus upon the details of your skyline, the far-off pines at elevation come into focus above the cliffs and spires. Like keys on a keyboard, your white fingers of granite stand in contrast to the darkness of the evergreen forests which blanket your slopes.  Your fingers play upon the tableau in front of me.....I hear the chords you play within my soul....

Stepping back from the bike on these Sundays, I realize that we all need to unplug from the music that plays within us like a favorite song....and open our hearts to a new tune. Foreign at first, a new sun rises until we realize the landscape never changed.....it was us that was moving through it all along.