Refresh. Revive. Restore

 A month ago Friday I got on the bike, tentatively at first, not knowing the best way to mount without stretching, hopping or falling.  Trial and error proved that there was no best way but the best thing to do was to get on and stay on and go.  Once up and away I was free.  What started as a spin around the neighborhood turned into a ten mile sojourn.  Sore and sorry I went swimming, just to tread water but wound up swimming laps with a slow triathlon kick and a one foot flip turn.  The next day I rode twenty miles and swam some more.  The following day was 30 miles but no swimming because there was a cloud in the sky and I decided to rest.  Bad call since the swimming is critical in the process.

Swimming, an activity they reluctantly approved for me at PT only after warning me about the danger of getting in and out and flip turning.  Bike riding was also reluctantly approved without warnings of awkward mounts and dismounts.  I even looked on the interweb and they heartily endorsed riding and swimming even during The Covid - as it is now called.  

When talking with a medical professional I am aware that I'm talking to a lawyer and an insurance company that tries to minimize risk and liability.   They therefore give the most conservative advice, to the least common denominator and don't consider the actual patient in front of them.  They don't want to overpromise.

I'm no Jim Thorpe but I'm reasonably athletic or sporty and I recover and heal fairly well.  I've had enough practice.  Although at home in PC I'm near the bottom of the proverbial barrel physically, since everyone else is an Olympian, but here in Arizona they consider me an athlete at the doctors, at PT and on the Pickle-ball courts.  I laughed at this until I looked around one day and see all the old, big people shuffling around, taking it slow and easy.  One mans floor is another man ceiling.

So we left Arizona two weeks late, weeks full of hot record temperatures, and come home two weeks early, full of snow and cold and clouds and bare trees.  We forgot about mud season and soring storms that blow salty snow on the windows and cars.  We hate to be weather snobs, but we are, and the timing is critical.  Spring in the desert, summer and early fall in the mountains, late fall at the beach, early winter in the desert again and full winter in the mountains when you can embrace the cold and the snow.  

Its not hard to do since rentals are cheap, especially out of season, and there is always a friend to rent or watch our home.  The key is to go and stay for a while, a long while.  It cuts down on painful frantic travel and maximizes feelings of 'being there'.  Rent for more than a month and you get to know a place and its people, tempo and rhythms, and there are no rental taxes in most states.  A change is as good as a rest and it is good to go to different places where you don't know every trail and road, river and stream, where exploration is the game and everything is new.  It is refreshing, revival, restoring.