This is the face of someone who is taking a day off to go for a ride.
It's been ten years since Dwayne and I did a ride together, and I can't for the life of me figure why we stopped doing them. With a new-to-him off-road vehicle, of course I needed to get my ride in.
I'd forgotten how relaxing a ride through the woods is. I'd forgotten that I knew how to relax! I'm always so busy thinking of the next Facebook post or online church group poem I need to write, or of the edits for the book that are coming to me next week, or of school starting in a month that I figured my mind would be churning up thoughts like a side-by-side churns up dust. I packed a notebook but never opened it. Never even thought about it.
This is why: I love trees. I find trees fascinating. I love looking at tree and at the ground underneath them. There is so much to see in the woods, in the wildflowers growing alongside the trail, and in the ponds -- pond lilies and lily pads -- that I just rode along looking and not thinking. It was very relaxing.
It was like a meditation. The purists would be appalled because the side-by-side is noisy and moves along but the fact I was able to shut off my brain and calm down and sit still simply by focusing on the nature around me says it all: it was a meditation.
Turns out, that's exactly what I needed. A chance to rest my brain. A chance to turn off the faucet on the thoughts. The notebook stayed closed, the pen was not used. I didn't do any thinking. All I did was sit back and enjoy the ride.
And it was the perfect day for that.
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| Oh, the places you can go! |
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