Update and Recapitulation

It's November now. The trees are bright with color and I'm totally amazed, like I am every year. My eyes feel as though they are two young kids looking up at their first sideshow. It's hard to imagine a fall without trees. I'm lucky because there's a good-sized chunk of forest behind our home and Marley and I walk by it everyday.

As I walked Marley today, I thought about a walk back in September when I found one of my favorite trees dead on the ground. It had been knocked down by a storm. It was a big tooth aspen, a tall, mature specimen. It had been there for years, but I first payed attention to it after my 2007 Megatransect bike tour which really helped me focus my looking and learning. I never knew that species existed. Walking with Marley, I saw some big tooth aspen leaves on the ground and remembered what I already knew: death is part of life.

And when my thoughts walk down the road of death, they always come back to one thing: life is something to enjoy and something to work at. I'm not afraid of getting older. I see it as a good thing. As time goes by, I can become a better person and do the things that I want to do. My enjoyment of the seasons has certainly heightened over the years. The seasons are beautiful and fun and a reminder to me to keep falling in love with the Natural World. In my part of the world, the seasons come on nice and slow--about three months between each season. It takes about three hundred and sixty five days for the earth to go around the sun. And it's that yearly circle, combined with the tilt of the earth's axis, that gives us our seasons.

With the coloring of the leaves, I felt that fall was official. I was back at home, with my mother and brother, and a fresh batch of time on my hands. I was thinking about my family and friends, and the recent wedding, and my travels. I was listening to Phish's 2009-10-31 show where they played Exile On Main Street, the Rolling Stone's album, as their musical costume. I made my daily round of phone calls and emails and made an effort for some local friending. I checked out Kobus's blog that he had started in Alaska. I went to my local library. Money was getting low. Expenses needed to me minimized. Then another trip took shape.

I packed four Aloha shirts, my bicycle, and my computer. My brother packed his clothes and computer and bicycle too, and we headed north in his 1988 Honda Civic. We drove to central Pennsylvania again to see our grandparents. As always, we had a great time. Thanks again Grandma and Pap! On a previous trip, Grandma had taught us how to make pizzelles. So Chris and I got out the pizzelle maker and we made another 12 dozen or so--which meant there would be some for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Chris and I rode bikes around our old home town, exploring roads and trails from our past, old neighborhood streets where we both learned to ride.

And then back to Maryland. I settled back into my writing, and started a string of writing days. I could feel myself transitioning from my full-time friending days into my full-time writing days. But there's a lot of hours in a given week, and I tried to keep the balance between my time spent building relationships and my time spent working.

And that pretty much gets us up to date. Which brings us to the recapitulation, a restating of the theme: my goal with my full-time friend mission was to strengthen the bonds of friendship. I used (and am still using!) everything in my quiver: personal visits, road trips, bike tours, other missions, late nights, early mornings, phone calls, music, conversation, birthdays, emails, packages, and postcards. But I am still learning. The goat of laziness sometimes gets in the way, but I keep trying. Every friendship is a little different. And there are no rules. There is only love.

Thanks again friends! I'll write a little something next month. Right now, I'm going to step away from the computer, eat some pizzelles, and go for a bike ride with my brother.

Enjoy the upcoming holiday and travel safe.

Jeff