Quiet day

Today is this incredibly beautiful day. The sky is so blue and bright with white sun and the wind is strong, and good, because I'm not riding in it. The dry leaves still left from the fall are bright and dry in the sun, still intact, but looking like they would crunch and dissolve into dust under my shoes. It's a good day for living. I'm sitting by a window with half-open blinds and a little dusty sun spilling on the table next to my lap-top. It's surrounded by Faulkner and Garcia and Melville, and there's a cup half full of tea by me. My chair is wooden and a little creaky, and the worn surface of the table is humble in the full light, and like home, or something, and there's easy folk music, almost country but just escaping it, too soft and modest.

Days like today are good for my soul. Not because there aren't or aren't going to be other bright blue and white days with hot tea and quiet acoustic guitars, but because today I can find some peace in all of that. We lead such full lives, triathletes. We work hard, we train hard, and often, we play hard as well. We do so many things to the greatest extent that they can be done. And our full lives are, secretly or not so, the envy of others who keep existing on the fringe of living. Those who haven't found those things worth living for, those things that make life worth living. But in our great desire to really live, it's easy to forego the quieter things, the sitting and the thinking. To just live big and loud and excited all the time and not be about quiet trails and smooth country roads in the fall and big, quiet blue skies. Rest days. Recovery. The other half of our lifestyle.

I've been so hooked on the excitement of triathlons, 5k's, cycling tours, and half-marathons, that it's easy to forget who I was before all that. Because I know I'm still Morgan and everything that I loved before my favorite obsession of all time doesn't cease to exist or be important just because I've found something else that I love as well.

Before I was Triathlon Morgan, I was also an avid reader and writer, bass and guitar player, nature-lover and backpacker, organic-foods-obsessed gardener... You see, I have this tendency to find something new that I love and to throw myself into it head over heels without looking back. And, lucky me, it's always worked out. I'm so glad I'm a triathlete now, and a slightly obsessed one as well. I love every aspect of the sport, even the goofy clothes we wear. But recently, I've been lying in bed, looking over at my very sad and lonely acoustic guitar sitting in the corner of the room next to my foam roller, and realizing I've done it again. Tried to make myself all about this one thing when there are so many interesting thing I can be about, and have been about. I think I've mentioned before that moderation is something I struggle with.

I recently hurt myself (not badly, but just enough to put me out of the game for a couple of days) doing yoga, and my coach said no more training until I don't hurt anymore. So today I'm taking a real rest day, instead of riding up a hill repeatedly in high winds and cold temps at 9:00 in the morning. 3 months ago, this would have killed me. I hate missing training. I am Type A. Extremely Type A. Ask my parents. They're the ones I get it from. But... today I had a big breakfast with my dad, and then just sat and talked to him for 2 hours. Something we hadn't done in a long time. And then, instead of sitting around wondering when I needed to be ready to run/ride/swim, and where I was going to do that, and what I was going to wear, and whether or not other people were going to be joining me, I looked outside and thought it was a perfect day to sit around and do something I hadn't been doing nearly enough recently - reading and writing. Yeah, I'm a complete nerd, it's ok, you can think it. I'm secure in it. So I got all my things and went to this place in Denton called Art 6 that is like, one of my places. Where I go. When I need to be quiet and sane. It's an old white house that a friend of the married couple who I rent a room from looked at and decided would be a good place for coffee and tea and art and music and movie nights in the summer on the deck outside. And I got my usual pot of tea and found an table by a window where I could see all the blue in the sky and all the dry leaves on the ground and people laughing at tables, in chairs, outside where I can't hear them but can still see them being all light and happy. And I read for three hours. Now I'm writing this.

My soul is a little more still. My knees hurt a little bit less. It's been a good day.