fires.

fires burn, if there's fuel.
in the mind, inspiration is fuel.
no inspiration, no fuel, no fire.

gimped up coming out of
the spectacular ski season.
something just wasn't
quite right.

not like it was before.

singular focus and lack
of proper maintenance
produced some apparently
serious imbalance issues.

balance between muscle
groups, balance of desires,
motivation, inspirations.

what more is there, was there,
is there? felt like I'd written a
good bit of that story, definitely
put a bit of final punctuation
on this most recent chapter.

step back, let the embers
smolder and seek some
balance. thought that balance
could come from substituting
sport for sport, but it runs
deeper.

springtime came, and there
was no desire. no desire to
log the pedal stroke suffering
it takes, the commitment, the
convictions of belief that it's
'worth it'.

there was no longer fuel
for that fire.

the knee.

the knee ached, does ache.
the MRI shows minimal issues,
beyond a poorly tracking and
stressed patella. the meniscus,
the Xcl's are all intact and looking
healthy solid, so those doubts are
now at rest, and I can sleep easier.

the knee, I reflect and wonder.
cuz now it kinda feels like a
scapegoat, an excuse for not
having that fire in the belly that's
been there for soooo many years.

an excuse to not admit that I just
don't have it, that the fire's gone
out. it's a pill to swallow after
fighting all those windmills.

an out, a reason not to.
a reason not to saddle up and pedal,
a reason to do something else.
something much less taxing
on the body and mind.

revisit neglected passions
and seek and explore.

took a laissez fare approach,
just see if things would come
around on their own, they have,
sort of, but it's been slow, tiny
little baby steps towards betterness.
the magnetic pictures tell a tale,
and now put the onus
squarely in my lap.

I want to ski this winter.
I want to ski hard this winter
carve thru the trees and rip
the shit out of some favorite
lines and float again thru that
quiet expanded space of mid
air launching.

whooosh, poof, ahhhhh.

And I want to catch more trouts,
and pedal my bike. And pedal
my bike once again in pursuit of
things not yet done.

I have ideas, dreams, that were
backburnered as I've dealt with
this transition. I've felt that if
I would just harden the fuck up,
the knee thing would correct itself.

But that's not the attitude I need,
not the attitude to make it work.

Accept that I'm softer now with a
belly full of embers, not the previously
raging flames and it's about balance,
finding the balance to feed the beast,
with time given to not feeding that beast,
to not satiating that hunger.

Got a couple months to shed this lazy
man's anchorlike belly, a couple months
to get that patella tracking as it should
and find that balance between adrenal
desires, dreams and intimate mtn stream
mind game pursuits.

So I'm gonna close this chapter,
this chapter's worth of summertime
rebooting. Been checked out in
the shop, and there's work to be
done, but not work work, not like
before. Can't go back, can't ever
go back and catch that wave again,
it's run itself out and crashed onto
the shore.

So gotta find those smaller swells,
let it come to me, breath deep
and wait for the next set, and the
one after and the next and the next,
doing the prep it takes for when that
cyclical storm calls once again.

Square one, once again.