Rhythm - ALPSinsight

Passo delle Erbe

My speed picks up, what was a casual, settled pace becomes frenetic. I’m entering a different place, the road is narrowing, more defined, soon it’s just a path lined with green, lush life. Still I climb, as I have been doing for so long, but suddenly it becomes purposeful, not for the top but for the feelings.

Eminem is along for the ride, reminding me of other ways, other styles, but universal words apply.

I got every ingredient, all I need is the courage
Like I already got the beat, all I need is the words
Got the urge, suddenly it’s a surge
Suddenly a new burst of energy is occurred
–Eminem: 8 Mile

A sublime sense comes over me knowing that I am on my own path, the path I have earned, that I have created, not the path that I could be on.

I have never really understood what drives me, what gives me the “Go” I have always felt for living the way I have chosen to live. I have never really understood why I ride like I do.

This day helped me to understand. It is my dance, life’s rhythm that I move to, through the mountains, the environment or sometimes just the energy of life, on my bike, dancing – is enough for me.

My temples pound, the sweat cools my brow, my jersey unzipped and wide open allows the cool mountain air to pass over my body. With hands on the hoods I rock the bike back and forth, legs churning with the rhythm of 25 years of experience climbing. I float upward, today there is no sense of fatigue, no questioning, no doubting, just existence, a presence that is too infrequently felt.

Continuing on I am no longer sure if I am going up or down, nothing matters, only the rythm. The road twists, turns, rolls, steepens, yet I easily flow through it; present and, …what? The term awaits me, insight to that nagging question. Is being present enough?
Finally, and so simply, it comes to me… Having found my path, the next step is to experience it in the presence, honestly, and with no expectations. Always.

As I consider where I am, my actions, I begin to feel at peace. I am present. The landscape is opening up as I near the top, the road is steep again just when it hurts the most, when I think I see the end.
I arrive at the top, just a word for where I find myself. There is still much ahead of me, the descent.

But now I must find water and so I ask the only other person on the pass, an old man mindfully stacking wood, where I might find some. He is impressed when I tell him where I have come from and what I have done today. He points far below into the meadows, down all the many paths, to a village in the distance, his village, from which he has done so many things over a lifetime.

I take my water and begin my descent from the mountain back into the bustling valley.