thank you notes 6/6
i'm thankful that yesterday morning, i went on the longest bike ride i've ever taken (almost 22 miles). i'm thankful, since i've had to give up going on long runs because of the weird unpleasant mystery symptoms they cause, to have rediscovered cycling as a form of exercise and not just transportation. i'm thankful that like long runs, cycling is great because it gives me a way to explore the world around me and make it new again through that exploration of the places i don't know. i'm thankful that my range is much greater on my bike than it is when walking or running, which means there's much more to discover. i'm thankful for the chance to get out of town and into the rural land all around. i'm thankful for the chance to see places and things that i wouldn't see otherwise. i'm thankful after ambling aimlessly along the road from the meeting barn for a while, as the world around me got greener and leafier every block, to have thought i was maybe getting close to the lake and thankful that a quarter mile later, at the bottom of a steep hill, i saw it.
i'm thankful that biking to the lake and back was one of my goals when i started cycling last fall and i'm thankful to have accomplished it and that i am excited to do it again. i'm thankful that the ride back was harder than the ride there, since it made me appreciate more when i started to get close to the familiar landmarks of home. i'm thankful the cheap bike i bought at target held together through all of this, though thankful that i have a decent amount of savings and think sometime soon i'll buy a lighter road bike, because it is so big and heavy and i bet i could go further on a lighter one. i'm thankful that i didn't feel ashamed the few times i had to get off and walk my bike up a hill. i'm thankful that at the edge of the nature reserve, pumping hard against the incline, i passed one turtle crossing the road and then, a minute later, another. i'm thankful to have stopped at the nice kroger on my way home to get a drink and pulled up to the bike rack and then realized that i didn't have my bike lock, so i couldn't park. i'm thankful for the tiny gas station in the kroger parking lot, where i bought a too-large bottle of red powerade and stood drinking it while cars pulled in and refueled and moved on.
i'm thankful that when i got home, i had a peanut butter cup protein shake (i'm thankful d chose to get this flavor of powder) and half a bag of microwave popcorn and some pork floss and a banana and a container of blackberries and lots of water. i'm thankful for microwave popcorn, which i hadn't had in years and which was really satisfying. i'm thankful that i lazed around for most of the afternoon in a post-exercise carb coma reading a qigong book and a game of thrones. i'm thankful for the experience of reading a game of thrones after watching all of game of thrones, which is a unique experience since i almost never read the book that a film or tv show is based on after seeing the film or tv show, but always read the book first. i'm thankful that the only books i can remember reading in this way were cheap YA novelizations of movies when i was a kid--i'm thankful for my two favorites, street fighter and the last action hero, which i must have read countless times even though they must have been terrible. i'm thankful that i guess novelizations are less important today, since it's easy for kids to see whatever content they want whenever they want, whereas the scarcity of the originals in the old days made these smudgy paperback representations feel so valuable.
i'm thankful for the experience of reading a game of thrones. i'm thankful that i pushed on beyond my initial reflexive issue with the linguistic anachronisms of historical fiction, which had kept me from getting very far in it (and many other books) in the past. i'm thankful that weirdly, because i know the characters and plot are so distinct to me from the show, their images embedded in my brain, it feels kind of like i'm reading fan fiction of the show, even though i'm actually reading the source text. i'm thankful that it feels like really really good fan fiction, though, fiction which is serving to broaden and deepen my experience of the characters and the world as i move along the familiar path of the plot. i'm thankful to have gotten to witness arya's relationship with jon snow early on and to find out (or be reminded of the fact) that he's the one that gave her needle.
i'm thankful that last night i didn't sleep well, with the same symptoms i've had from long runs. i'm thankful that maybe this is a lesson in not pushing myself too hard, even though i didn't feel like i was. i'm thankful that even when i don't sleep well, now, it's just annoying and unpleasant rather than a stage on which my brain makes plays of all my worst anxieties and convinces me that i may be dying. i'm thankful, very much, for that change in the game of my life. i'm thankful that waking up in the morning is just a thing that happens now, the thing that comes after a stretch of (mostly) sleep, whereas in the past it often felt like the end of a long and difficult journey through the dark night of my soul. i'm thankful that breakfast still feels satisfying even though sleep isn't as hard as it used to be. i'm thankful that kroger now produces a generic version of cinnamon toast crunch and that i had a bowl of it this morning. i'm thankful for cinnamon and sugar and the combination of the two.
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