My New Outlook

I rode about 410 miles today. I left Flagstaff at around ten this morning and arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, early this evening. I’m writing this from the bar at the La Posada. This is a place I came a few years ago with Leigh, Les and Rachel. We came to this hotel for a wine and cheese tasting put on by Justin Winery from Paso Robles. I didn't plan on coming here tonight and didn't realize it until I pulled up. The weird thing was that I was just thinking about this memory earlier in the day and now here I sit.

When I left this morning, I left with a new resolve to do some serious miles and focus on the reason for why I’m here. Yesterday, I questioned why I made this trip. Reminding myself that I'm here to honor Leigh made it all make sense. I started out this morning, not focusing on the day’s destination or scanning the roadside for reasons to stop or change direction. Instead, I focused on Leigh. I started from the beginning. I thought about the moment I knew I wanted to marry her, about moving her from Denver to San Francisco, about that transition and about the time we spent learning how to be together. I thought about the day we left in our car from San Francisco to Arizona so we could get married. I remembered slow dancing with her under an over pass on the freeway on our way there because I said we needed the practice and because she didn’t believe I would do it. I also thought about how I got annoyed at her because she bought a welcome mat for our apartment that I believed we could not afford. And then I had trouble going further with the memories. I do that. I get stuck on those moments when I know I behaved badly. I start to replay them in my mind and it pushes out all the other thoughts and memories. I apologized for getting annoyed later, but it’s not like I didn’t repeat that episode over and over again during our marriage. I was sorry each time, but I kept doing it. I’d get mad about something, I’d pout. Sometimes I would get loud and say shitty things. And later I’d be sorry. And then I’d do it again a few weeks later. We probably fought every five or six weeks about something. By ‘we’, I mean me. Leigh wasn’t the fighter. She put up with a lot of crap from me.

Before Leigh died, I’d always heard that it was never too late to apologize. I think that statement misses the mark. I can tell you now that it is too late to tell Leigh sorry for being an asshole on a regular basis and not recognizing that it was I, not her, that was the source of contention. I was always trying to convince her that she was wrong. I was pretty good at it. So now, too late, I’ve faced that and I’ve done something about it.

Although my therapist traded me for year-round seventy five degree temperatures, she did leave me with ways to recognize myself for who I really am, think about who I really want to be, and suggest ways to make up the difference between the two. It’s not like I don’t have my moments when I get angry or annoyed, but I’ve stopped looking for whom to blame for my bad mood. Too bad it’s too late to say sorry to Leigh for being like that. You can say sorry for something you said, but there is no more complete way to say I’m sorry and I love you than doing something tangible about it. Every time I think about a moment that I spent pissed off at her and telling her how she was wrong and what she should she do to stop being wrong, is a moment I stole from her and ultimately stole from me. You don’t get those back. Word to the wise.

So this is what I focused on. I focused on serious riding. I focused on Leigh. I maintained a Zen like state of purpose, thought and mission. Until I saw this sign.



Anybody who knows me well knows that I have a thing for cosmic destruction. I started seeing the signs miles away. Meteor Crater 23 miles. This is not why you are here. This is not the purpose of your ride. Meteor Crater 15 miles. Think of Leigh. Think of your mission. Focus on your life with Leigh and letting go of the things you can’t change. Meteor Crater 6 miles. After making this gesture of love to Leigh, you need to turn around and get home. You will not make it back on-time if you allow yourself to be distracted from the goal. Meteor Crater Next Exit.

The crater was awesome. When I made way up the stairs, past the museum and gift shop and out the doors to the walkway to the crater rim, I started to feel my heart race. This is THE crater by which all earthly craters are measured. A mere 50,000 years old, this crater is in perfect condition and tells the real story of what happens when the cosmos says ‘WHOS YOUR DADDY!’. WHAM!!! I started to tear up as I looked at the enormity of the devastation. I stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon a few days ago, and frankly, it was hard grasp. It’s just too big. Two hundred and fifty some-odd miles and ten miles across? It’s hard to really see it. I stopped every ten miles or so, while riding the canyon rim, and took a look. It looked the same as it did ten miles earlier. But this impact crater was something you could grasp. At one mile across and about five hundred feet deep you could definitely put your finger on this. You could feel the power of the Universe. If you believe in god, and you look at this impact site, you would probably feel like god should look the other way when this thing hits because something is about to fuck up his art project. The undeniable future of the human race can been seen just a few miles from a corner in Winslow Arizona. “Hey honey, we should really change these incandescent light bulbs to more energy efficient compact fluorescent bulbs. If every household in America installs just five of these bulbs, we’ll save seventeen million tons of greenhouWHAM!!!!

If I could choose my death, it would be by mass extinction. I’m a people person and would find some satisfaction in that.

But I tried not to stay too long. I felt the pull of my mission and I needed to get back on the road. I started focusing again and reaching for that Zen like state. Then I saw this sign. Rocks and wood together in one place? Free for the taking? Who put chocolate in my peanut butter!