Millcreek Canyon Solo ; More Narcissus

I experienced another "first" yesterday in cycling:  I cycled up to the top of Millcreek Canyon by myself.  Mark had a work meeting, and it was supposed to be 104 degrees here by afternoon, so I decided to go ahead and go for a ride by myself in the morning.

The mouth of Millcreek is only about 1.5 miles from our house, but it is pretty much all uphill to get there.  I had wondered whether it would help me to warm up a bit by riding south for awhile on Wasatch Boulevard, then double back to the canyon - so I tried that yesterday, adding about 1.7 miles to the normal ride.

I'm wasn't sure if it helped.  My legs are still sore from that ride last Friday up to Big Mountain, or so it seemed.  There were several times when I wondered whether I could make it to the top.  That's why I've written that each confrontation with a canyon or other mountain ride forces me to deal with the question:  Who will win - the mountain or me?

I kept on going, and I eventually did reach the top.  (Yay me!!)  It was a beautiful morning and the temperature was very pleasant for the entire ride.

I was surprised when I got home and looked at my Garmin stats.  I compared yesterday's ride to our last ride up Millcreek, and even with the additional 1.7 miles, I was still a good two minutes faster this time.  In addition, my average moving speed was a little over 1 mph faster than last time.  So, even though it seemed to be as I was on the way up that I was going slower than last time, I was actually faster.  This made me feel really good. :)

In Pau, a few weeks before I came home from my mission in November of 1985

Meanwhile, continuing from where I left off in my last post, I quote more from passages of Hesse's novel, Narcissus and Goldmund, that I had copied into my journal in December of 1985:

"When a man tries to realize himself through the gifts with which nature has endowed him [explained Narcissus], he does the best and only meaningful thing he can do ... Whereas we are transitory, we are becoming, we are potentials; there is no perfection for us, no complete being.  But wherever we go, from potential to deed, from possibility to realization, we participate in true being, become by a degree more similar to the perfect and divine.  That is what it means to realize oneself ..."

These words spoke to me on several levels as I prepared to move on with my life after my mission.  For one thing, they spoke of me finally being able to go to law school after I had equivocated for years about going.  In so doing, I felt like I would be "realizing myself."

They also spoke to me about my desire to be alive.  "I'm glad to be young!" I wrote.  "I'm glad to feel closer to the beat of life, to be younger, but yet older and wiser."  

I cannot read these words now without sighing.  The optimism of youth ...