how time flies…

i am now well into my second spring, free and clear of owl surveys. i pulled the cord on april 12, 2012 after my fifth or sixth night without owls and after 25 years of mind-numbing, rigorous, repetitious surveys. i don’t miss the excitement or disappointment; i don’t miss the physical degradation. i do however, miss the night and its myriad discoveries. oh, and i miss the owls too…can’t tell you how much i mess them.  

the lack of owl surveys means i suddenly have time on my hand and if i’ve learned anything in life, it is that too much time is bad, as is too much home brew or too many gumdrops or too many doughnuts or chips or anything that, if present, sends a bold-print message to me: make it go away.

that same “zeal” to make food and beverages disappear, seems to have connected with other facets of my life. i tend to become highly enthusiastic when something appears interesting and enticing and so, the fact I have morphed into a slave of exercise makes perfect sense. with so many other salacious options, I am proud that my drugs of choice are cross country skiing and mountain biking…never mind springtime owling or home brew and gumdrops cuz those really aren’t drugs.

those are just things I can easily make disappear.

skiing and mtb’ing are no-brainer “drugs” because both sports are purported to be low impact and exhilarating and beneficial and freeing and both can douse one with copious amounts of endorphins and therefore, are perfect for the body as it begins its slow journey back to elemental carbon. of course, the experts don’t mention that if you fall off a rock garden while mountain biking and open a 17-stitch gash in the meaty, underside of your forearm well…it would be considered high-impact; or, if you ski through obvious pain and afterwards can’t straighten your leg because your once pliable knee ligament is fragile, like a tortilla shell left out on the counter overnight…that too would be considered high-impact.

but whether low- or high-impact, the true pain comes when you can’t do either and that is the little table-top flat place in life i now find myself. i am antsy and eager to get on the bike and be done with winter and its encrusted reminder that all this started back in mid-november and has kept coming like a roiling tide.

i have awakened to over 85 daybreaks with below zero temperatures this winter and despite professing to “live for winter”…simply because its end used to mean the beginning of owl courtship, i don’t think i profess to that any more.  now, all i want is to overcome injury so i can again return to the celerity of my youth, whether real or imagined.