This weekend I was a smidge under the weather. I spent the bulk of my time moaning on the couch. In between moaning and writhing in pain, I read about riding. And drooled over pretty cycling jerseys. And best of all, I ogled bikes. Ogling bikes reminded me of a pile of bike photos I’ve been collecting since February. I give you Bike Love, Part 2.
I love cycling because…
When I’m on my bike, I feel like a kid again.
On rare occasions, I feel like I can fly.
Image from ratrodbikes.com
Pedaling for all I’m worth lights a fire in my belly.
Image from utilitycycling.org
I’m reminded that being stripped down to the bone can be the first step in building something beautiful.
Image from instructables.com
I find that my load isn’t as heavy as it seems.
I ride in the company of some of the greatest people on the planet.
Image from hypebeast.com
My trusty steed is always ready for adventure.
Image from inhabit.com
I’ve fallen down, but it’s the getting back up that I remember most.
When I feel hollowed out, riding fills me back up.
My bike gives me a place to grieve without shame.
At the end of each ride, I get to come home to the one I love.
Image from junemeadow.com
When I lay my head on my pillow at night, I fall asleep content with the mark I’ve left on the day.
My blogger friend, Hippie, has this cool collaborative blogging exercise going on as part of her Algonquin Experiment. It involves Hippie posing a question and people responding on their own blogs.
So this is the question she posed: What do you love more than love?
I thought of a thousand answers. God. But that one’s sort of obvious. Cycling. Obvious squared. Ice cream. Sadly, also very apparent. Writing. Same. My friends. But everyone loves their friends. My little ones. But I’ve written about them ad nauseam as of late. My husband. (A fact I should probably mention to him more often.) All of my answers were so generic.
Except one.
The thing I love more than love is being on the other side of it.
Huh?
Sure love is great when it’s new and shiny, when your beloved can do no wrong. And after a few years when the sheen wears off a little bit and you settle into the day to day acts of love, mmmm, that comfortable love is good, too.
But sometimes love unravels, frays at the edges and begins to fall apart in the very hands that made it.
I’ve been in this stage of love, too. When love was painful work, when it was all we could do to hang onto each other and pray. A lot. This isn’t the kind of glass slipper love that fairy tales are made of. It’s not pretty. It is devastatingly hard, so much so that for me, heartache was actually physically painful.
But we chose to press into God, to hold onto the frayed pieces. We chose to love when it wasn’t the easy choice. And that’s what I mean by the other side of love.
So the thing I love more than love is love that has been worn thin. Love that has broken into shards. Love that has taken on water fast and is listing badly. You might be thinking that’s a bit of a metaphor overload. If so, to you I say count your blessings. Others know with painful precision what I’m talking about. You, dear ones, know that it’s possible to be frayed, shattered, and sinking all at once.
I can only hope that you also know about the love that comes out on the other side of all that pain. This love is scarred. And fierce. And secure. And more wonderful than anything I could have ever imagined. This is the love I have in my life. I thank God for it every single day.
You know, I wish fairy tales did talk about this kind of love because I can say with assurance that this is the kind of love that creates a happily ever after.
Thank you for falling on my head when I had my arms full of laundry and was defenseless against your attack. And thank you for doing it just as I was trying to move myself up a number or two on the Valentine’s Day scale of attractiveness. My head was getting a little too big and big heads just aren’t attractive. (For the record, big heads with bumps aren’t that pretty either.)
Sincerely,
The Girl Seeing Stars
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Dear Hammer,
Thank you for smashing my thumb into oblivion when I was putting the curtain rod back up. It took my mind off my throbbing head.
Fondly,
The Girl Typing With Nine Fingers
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Dear Papa Murphy’s Take n’ Bake,
Thank you for making heart shaped pizzas for girls like me who should never, ever, ever be allowed near the oven. It was nice to give my special someone something edible for a change.
With love,
Me, My Hubby and Our Full Bellies
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Dear Google,
Thank you for putting this little graphic on your page for Valentine’s Day. You sent tons of traffic to my LOVE post. What a nice Valentine’s Day surprise.
Loving You More Than a Google,
The Girl Who Will Now Stop Obsessively Checking Her Blog Stats
Happy Valentine’s Day! Maybe today is your favorite day of the year and you’re surrounded by chocolates and roses. Maybe you’re spending today in your own good company, but you wish you could just pull the covers over your head and stay in bed until February 15th shows its face. No matter what today looks like for you, I hope you find a way to show someone you care about that they’re loved.
And to get you in the mood, here are a few love poems written by my little ones.
Here’s one a little girl wrote for her mommy.
Marshmallow Hugs
Mom, you are as beautiful as a rose!
Your hugs feel like soft, soft marshmallows.
I love you more than the moonlight.
XOXO
I love you, Mom!
And a couple for sisters and brothers.
My Love Poem
You are as sweet as a rose.
I love you so much more than my dog.
Dear Brother,
Happy Valentine’s Day!
You are kind.
You are sweet as sugar.
I like you because you share with me and you help me read.
Last, but not least, here is my favorite poem written by a little boy to his dad.
My Love Poem
Your love is soft like a soft cloud.
I love you to the ocean.
You are handsome like a tiger.
I love you with joy.
I am so using that tiger line on my hubby tonight. Happy Valentine’s Day!
I’m a sucker for a good love song. Love songs for your best beloved. Love songs for your friends. Love songs for your home. Love songs for God. I can’t get enough. I just can’t help myself. Here are a few I listen to over and over again.
“First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes is a happy tune, the perfect driving song. So, crank the windows down, grab the hand of a loved one and get ready to be giddy. My two favorite lines are: “This is the first day of my life, swear I was born right in the door way.” and “These things take forever, I especially am slow.” You and me both.
“Have I Told You Lately?” by Van Morrison is a song I’ve loved for gazillions of years and will love for gazillions more. I’m swooning just thinking of this song. And the line that makes my heart do a little dance? ”For the morning sun in all its glory greets the day with hope and comfort, too.” What a way to start the day, filled with hope and comfort. Go listen to this one right now. I will, too, and then we’ll meet back here, ok?
“Falling Slowly” by The Frames isn’t a happy-go-lucky kind of love song. At all. But for me it’s so tender in the wanting, wanting to pick up the broken pieces of a worn out, worn down, tattered love that’s worth saving. The line that strikes me most is “Take this sinking boat and point it home, we’ve still got time.”
Next up is “You’re Beautiful” by Phil Wickham. I saw him in concert, and if you can fathom it, his voice is even more pure in person. Hard to believe, I know. I love how big this song feels, how he sings about all the things in nature that remind him of God. My favorite line is not the most complex line in the song, but the simplicity of it moves me. ”I see Your face. You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful.”
You’re going to make fun of me for this next one, but I don’t care. “Ice Cream” by Sarah McLachlan is on my love song playlist. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I will give my right arm for ice cream. And if it’s Slow Churned Moosetracks, I’ll give you my left arm, too. Although it would be really hard to eat ice cream without any arms. I digress. When Sarah sings the line “Your love is better than ice cream, better than anything else that I’ve tried.”, I’m amazed because she gets it-she gets how much I love ice cream and how much I love my hubby. I prefer the live version of this one because it seems like the audience is having so much fun singing along.
“Grandma’s Hands” by Bill Withers might seem like an odd choice to be on a list of love songs, but love takes many forms. It’s got this great bluesy feel and when Bill Withers sings the line “Grandma’s hands used to clap in church on Sunday mornings.” I can picture my own grandmother’s hands clapping along to all those Baptist hymns. And the last line “When I get to heaven, I’ll look for Grandma’s hands”, well, that one is so true, so raw that it leaves me aching for that day.
Friends, Peter Gabriel could sing the phonebook and I’d be smitten, so it’s no surprise that “In Your Eyes” is a favorite. Right, ladies? I don’t even mind that it’s riddled with 80′s synthesizer. That’s how good this song is. In fact, I don’t even have a favorite line in this song because the whole thing is all kinds of delicious. Not to mention the added imagery of John Cusack standing outside the house with his boombox held overhead. I love being a child of the 80′s.
“Close Your Eyes” by Jump, Little Children is another non-traditional love song. It’s such a tender song from a father to his child. It’s the lullaby that keeps me company in the wee hours of the morning when sleep is elusive. The second best line is “Tell me the stars are made of tin and that they’re banging on the roof.” Man, I wish I could write like that. And the reassurance that “The sun will rise and keep your mind at ease.”, that one makes me yawn, close my eyes and relax back into the soft arms of a dream. Sadly there aren’t many videos out there of this song. The one I linked to is the best one out there and it doesn’t even begin to do the song justice. This one deserves a listen in iTunes.
And finally, finally here is my absolute favorite love song, “How He Loves” by David Crowder Band. It expresses perfectly how in awe I am at the depth of God’s love. I get chill bumps every time I hear it and when we sing it in church, I can barely choke back the sobs that bob in my throat. My favorite line is “Heaven meets earth like an unforseen kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest, I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way that He loves us.” Love that leaves no time, no space for to wallow in regrets? Yes and amen.
Now it’s your turn. What love songs do I need to add to my playlist?
February is a special month for me because not too many Februaries ago, my own little heart got a big fix. And that big fix allows me to celebrate love in its purest form. The purest form of love being bike love, of course.
This February I’m sending you a big bouquet of Valentine wishes.
I hope you find love in unexpected places. I think you’ll be surprised where you find it if you take a moment to look.
Image from bikerumor.com
I hope you find a warm embrace in the arms of a loved one. And that you take the time to hug them just a second or two longer than usual.
Image from fineartamerica.com
I hope you’ll be bold enough to let down your guard, to wear your heart on your sleeve.
I hope you write and receive many, many love notes.
Image from candycranks.com
And that each day you find something new to love.
Image from sp.life123.com
I hope you find comfort in love that has been around the block once or twice, love that has lasted, love that has lost a little of its sheen, love that has lost all the sharp edges, love that’s your soft place to fall.
Recently many of my women friends have lost mothers, grandmothers and even children. While I’m not thankful for the losses, I am thankful for my friends who are able to look grief in the face and also see blessing.
I am thankful for these women who wear their hearts on their sleeves and teach me about compassion and empathy.
I am thankful for these women who teach me about strength by getting out of bed each day to embrace life in all it’s heartache and all it’s glory. Sometimes the two are entwined and I’m thankful for that, too.
I’m thankful that love acts as a salve over tender places where we are burned and broken.
I’m thankful that love lives on beyond our earthly bodies, that we are not just flesh and bone, but we are filled with love, both past and present.
Click on the photo above to see some more amazing photos by this photographer and the 365 iphone photos project.
A long time ago in a space that seems fuzzy and far away, before I owned a road bike or called myself a cyclist, my step-dad, Chris, used to take me mountain biking. I use that term loosely because it’s not like I was hopping up boulders or screaming downhill, whipping through singletrack or anything. I was riding mostly flat dirt trails on my mountain bike.
Often Chris would bring along his dog, Jack. Jack was the blackest dog I’ve ever seen. His coat was a glossy obsidian color and as he ran alongside us, his pink tongue would hang out. His tongue had one black spot right in the middle. In his more nimble days, Jack would get so excited about riding bikes that he would bite at our tires. I would nudge him away with my foot, half smiling at his mischievous side. Not that I could relate or anything.
As I tootled along the dusty trails, I tried, with varying amounts of success, not to get lost and not to crash. Quite often I got separated from Chris and he’d send Jack to find me. I was never afraid of being lost when I rode with Chris because I knew Jack would always come back for me. As I stood befuddled as to which way to turn on a trail, Jack would lope up to me, his polka dot tongue waggling at me. I would say “Hi, Jack. Thanks for coming to get me. Take me to Chris.” And sure enough, Jack led me to Chris every time. He was my own personal rescue dog.
Today Jack died. And I am sad. I know he was old and no longer spry enough to run rescue missions on the trails. And I know he wasn’t even my dog. But I am sad. Sad that he will never nip at my tires or grin at me with his silly polka dot tongue.
I rode my bike to school today and in the late morning Terry dropped by my classroom with a bouquet of stark white roses. When it came time to go home, I jimmied the bouquet into my backpack and strapped on my helmet. The roses bumped against the back of my helmet as I pedaled up the hill home. Every little bump seemed to release a new wave of fragrance into the air. It was lovely.
As I inhaled the scent of the white roses, I thought of black Jack. I thought of how grief is anything but black and white. It is shades of gray, birthed from black sorrow and white joy stacked one upon the other, like crying and laughing in the same breath.
When I got home today, I plunged the roses into a vase of water. A lone petal fell onto the counter. I fingered its pale skin, grateful today for the juxtaposition of loss and love. I stood in the kitchen and gave thanks that in my life there is more laughing than crying, more love than loss, more white than black.
Last night I was enjoying the quiet of the wee morning hours. I could hear Terry snoring in the bed as I sifted through a box of things my mom gave me. There was a book of things I wrote in first grade that I can’t wait to share with my class. There were cards from my first few birthdays. I traced your signature on the cards you sent me and I traced Grandpa’s name, too.
Underneath the stack of birthday cards were items my mom brought back from your house, including the postcards you bought on our trip. The backs of the postcards were blank and I sat in our office staring at their stark backs. Tears welled in my eyes because those postcards will always be blank. I sunk to the floor, wishing for your words to trace with my fingers.
I flipped the postcards over and ran my fingers across each glossy image of the places we’d been together. It occurred to me that it was exactly three years ago to the day that you took me on that crazy bus tour for my birthday. We had such a good time, didn’t we? As I studied the postcards, I remembered the day we visited Novi Sad. Do you remember when we stopped on that bridge and I asked you to take a picture of me with the beautiful buildings in the background?
You took this:
I asked if maybe you could take another picture. One that captured the buildings and especially the clock tower in the background.
You lined the camera up carefully and took this:
I laughed and asked if you could possibly take another photo with the buildings in the background and preferably my entire head.
For a third time you lined the camera up really carefully and clicked the button, confident that you’d certainly got a good shot that time. Do you remember how hard we laughed when we saw this?
And then our bus was leaving so we never did get a decent shot of that clock tower. Gramma, you were so good at so many things, but you were an awful photographer. Just awful. And I’m so glad because each time I think of that bridge in Novi Sad, I remember how hard we laughed that day and how relieved you were when I banned you from taking photos for the rest of our trip.
Later that night, we ordered banana splits for dinner in the hotel bar. The bar was closing and you asked the waiter to take our picture. We ate and talked well into the wee hours of the morning.
Thank you for taking me on that trip. And thank you for never sending those postcards to your friends. Three years later they have come back to me, reminding me that the things we saw on our trip paled in comparison to the time we spent together.
Sometimes after a challenging day at work I need to remember that there really is a lot to like in this world, a lot to love even. This was one of those days and so turning the corner into this blissful three day weekend, I’m focusing on the parts of my life I love. It is not a comprehensive list by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I’m going to come back and add more over the weekend. I hope you’ll let me know about all the things you love in the comments section.
I love the smell of Terry just out of the shower, wrapped in steam with stray drips of water still behind his ears.
I love when we’re laying in bed and Terry reaches over and touches my leg, acknowledging I’m there with him.
I love the steady beat of my heart.
I love reading blogs in the morning before work to see how friends in other parts of the world are starting the day.
I love tucking under a blanket with a good book as the rain streams down my windows.
I love riding my bike the long way up to Shasta Dam just because I can.
I love the pink casing on my bike that matches my jersey and my water bottles.
I love going to church and closing my eyes to worship.
I love praying with Terry as we part ways in the morning.
I love when my nephew begs for more tickles and kisses me with crackers in his mouth.
I love when one of my students says “I love writing.”
I love eating summer blackberries from my backyard.
I love writing.
I love writing so much I’m putting it on the list twice.
I love talking to other teachers about how to foster young writers.
I love visiting new places, but I love coming home even more.
I love Abby and her candy drawer.
I love Nick because he believes I’m a better person than I really am.
I love my Gramma because she understands the worst parts of my life and doesn’t judge me for them.
I love green vegetables.
I love when my principal has my back.
I love my grade level team for making me a better teacher.
I love my home.
I love burritos.
I love parasailing over the turquoise Caribbean ocean.
A few days ago my principal asked me to speak to the staff at my school about the National Writing Project conference I attended in Philly. I thought about what to share. At first I thought I’d share the hilarious genius of the poet Billy Collins. Then I thought I’d share about a workshop I attended on writing across subject areas. Both of those sounded just fine to me, except that another idea kept poking at me, whispering into my ear, disrupting my dreams even.
I wanted to talk about something bigger than the conventions of writing and instead address the purpose of writing. To present writing as an expression of feeling, as a call to action, as a response to an experience that changed me.
Oh man, that is not even close to what many people consider in the box of “writing instruction”. Thankfully my principal is an out of the box kind of guy and when I pitched him my idea, he gave me the okay.
I was honored. I was excited. I was terrified. Talking to my colleagues about my experience would mean reading them something I wrote. Like, out loud, at the front of the room and stuff.
Gulp.
After fighting back the urge to hurl, I summoned my bravery from the pit of my rolling stomach. Being a writer means taking the risk to share. At least that’s what I told myself.
The staff meeting was today and I sat listening to my principal talk about copy machines and new phone systems and all the nuts and bolts that make a school run smoothly. I tried to listen attentively, but my stomach was aflutter and my heart was hammering. Then it came time for me to share. I begged for God to have mercy and take me to Heaven right now.
He did not. So I stood up and took a deep breath.
I talked a teensy bit about an upcoming writing series I’m co-facilitating and I talked a smidge about the conference and then I read my piece.
My voice shook. My eyes welled up when I came to the part about being ashamed. I pushed to the finish and waited for an accordion of groans and a slew of pencils flung at my eyes. Instead they clapped. And smiled. And wiped their eyes.
I talked about the discussion Terry and I had about what it means to act in love, to seek out opportunities to show empathy. Then, we wrote about what it means to love, about big and small ways we can show love.
That’s right, we wrote as a staff at a staff meeting. It was a quick write and then I asked for volunteers to share out. And people actually volunteered. What they shared was moving and brought a fresh run of tears pricking my eyelashes.
In a time of standards and testing and budget cuts, it was water to my soul hearing about the heart my colleagues have for each other and our students.
At the end of the meeting, seven colleagues signed up for the writing series I’m co-facilitating. Seven teachers willing to give up time on a Saturday to better themselves as teachers of writing, to better themselves as writers. I have a beautiful opportunity to discuss within my teaching community the importance and power of writing.
Between now and then, I’m going to dig out my brave face and quell my squeamish stomach in hope that come January we will all be reading our writing out loud to each other. And I couldn’t be more excited, more honored or more terrified.
So the thing I love more than love is love that has been worn thin. Love that has broken into shards. Love that has taken on water fast and is listing badly. You might be thinking that’s a bit of a metaphor overload. If so, to you I say count your blessings. Others know with painful precision what I’m talking about. You, dear ones, know that it’s possible to be frayed, shattered, and sinking all at once.
Thank you for putting this little graphic on your page for Valentine’s Day. You sent tons of traffic to my 
Happy Valentine’s Day! Maybe today is your favorite day of the year and you’re surrounded by chocolates and roses. Maybe you’re spending today in your own good company, but you wish you could just pull the covers over your head and stay in bed until February 15th shows its face. No matter what today looks like for you, I hope you find a way to show someone you care about that they’re loved.
