In the middle of the journey of my life, I am--as always--a woman on a bike. Although I do not know where this road will lead, the way is not lost, for I have arrived here. And I am on my bicycle, again.
I am Justine Valinotti.
29 September 2014
28 September 2014
Believe It Or Not, It's Almost Tweed Season
Even though the temperature has reached 28C (82F), it's officially Fall, and has been for five days.
Even so, it's hard not to notice a change in the light surrounding the still-green trees. It's especially noticeable at dawn and dusk: The red, orange and yellow hues of the sky are starting to take on their autumnal tones more like the ones we will see on the leaves in a few weeks.
It's not quite time for tweed yet, but it will be soon enough. The folks in the Alpena (MI) Tweed And Bike Club certainly seemed to be embracing the change in the seasons when they announced an upcoming tweed ride a few years ago:
You can't get much more autumnal than that, can you? But a black-and-white image that accompanied this one also conveys the spirit of the season nicely, I think:
Even so, it's hard not to notice a change in the light surrounding the still-green trees. It's especially noticeable at dawn and dusk: The red, orange and yellow hues of the sky are starting to take on their autumnal tones more like the ones we will see on the leaves in a few weeks.
It's not quite time for tweed yet, but it will be soon enough. The folks in the Alpena (MI) Tweed And Bike Club certainly seemed to be embracing the change in the seasons when they announced an upcoming tweed ride a few years ago:
You can't get much more autumnal than that, can you? But a black-and-white image that accompanied this one also conveys the spirit of the season nicely, I think:
27 September 2014
Turning Back The Calendar
The clock’s been turned back. Or, more precisely, the calendar: a month or so, it seems. At least, one could reach such a conclusion
after the kind of weather we’ve been having in this part of the world.
It was as warmer, yesterday, than it was on most
days during the past summer. Perhaps it
doesn’t exactly qualify as “Indian summer”:
Autumn began, officially, only four days ago, and the temperature
reached 27C (80F). That says more about
how mild the summer was than how much like a momentary heat wave (Is that a
contradiction in terms?) the day felt.
At least it was sunny and the sky wore a hue even
more turquoise than a pendant I wore when I was in college. (It was actually a
lovely piece, if a bit out of fashion at the time.) Having nothing work-related to do (i.e., I
was procrastinating) yesterday afternoon, it was a perfect day to ride. So what did I do? I took Arielle for a spin to Point Lookout.
Actually, I had one other motive besides the pure
joy of riding Arielle. (What else can you expect from a well-tuned Mercian?).
You see, last year or in some previous year, I saw a swarm of monarch
butterflies alight from the bushes near the ballfield on the Point. It was as if a massive cloud of black and
gold rose and lifted itself to the heavens and took a right turn just before
some pearly gate.
Those monarchs (who really deserve their name, in
my opinion) had completed about a quarter or a fifth of their journey, which
had begun about a month earlier in Newfoundland or somewhere else in the Great
North and would land them in South America in time for Christmas.
As I recall, I saw that great mass of flight right about this time of year: during the earliest days of Fall. In purely logical terms, it made sense to hope for such a sight as greeted me on a ride taken on the same spot of a previous year’s calendar.
Now, some would say that my problem was putting
hope and logic in the same sentence, as it were. By now, you’ve guessed what happened: I didn’t see my flight of monarchs. (“My flight of monarchs”: If that doesn’t betray a sense of
entitlement, I don’t know what does.) I
didn’t express my disappointment to the ones who greeted me when I arrived in
time for the receding tide:
I guess this avian creature in particular has
his/her (Can’t be sexist, can I?) own kind of majesty, or at least
imperialness:
All right, I’m not complaining—at least, not
much. Seeing birds colored in the foam
the tides leave skipping from rock to rock or resting on a sandbar has its own
kind of grandeur, one borne in serenity.
And, of course, I had a great ride on Arielle.
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