My big goal....is no longer

Update May, 4, 2018

So after announcing my big goal to the world, I now announce that my big goal is no longer.

After driving to Raleigh and back three times, I realize that I simply can't do the big goal. The commute wears me out. I would have to spend a couple nights each trip, but overnights can wear me out just as badly as driving crowded interstate traffic. Plus the logistics of planning would be difficult on me.

At this point the effort involved would not benefit my well-being, and, in fact, would probably be detrimental.

I'm not that disappointed, for a few reasons which maybe I'll expound in another post. And maybe not.

So I'm back to the goal of biking what I can, when I can. I'm going to mainly stick with greenways and rail-trails in the western Piedmont and the Mountains. Occasionally I'll ride greenways farther east, and I am going to finish the Neuse River Trail which is in the Raleigh area.

Below is my blog post from April 29 announcing my big goal.

***

April 29, 2018

On February 15, 2018, while biking the American Tobacco Trail from Herndon to Durham Bulls Stadium, I pedaled passed a sign on a pole. "East Coast Greenway" it read in large print; "Linking Cities ... Florida to Maine ... Greenway.org" in smaller print.

Really? Wow. Could it be? That's like the AT for bikes. I can't hike long distance anymore, but maybe, maybe, maybe I could bike this Greenway in sections. Oh. My. Gosh. Wow...

An image came to mind - Thaddeus Toad when he discovered the "motoh cah." That's exactly how I felt.

Where would I stay along the route?
With my current nerve damage, I can't haul extra weight on my bike. Maybe by the time I'd bike it, hostels would be along the route. That'd be a longtime coming.

How would I get my bike and myself to each starting point and home from the ending point?
Maybe eventually there will be bike rental pick up and drop off points or shuttles to take a body back to their starting point to catch their return flight on a round trip ticket. That's probably a hundred years away.

Since February 15, I've read about the ECG and peruse-studied the map. And, I've come up with a doable goal over the next five to eight years.

Map at greenway.org 

North Carolina contains a 372-mile long "spine route" plus a "complimentary" route. I haven't been able to find the distance of the complimentary route, but it looks longer than the spine route, and I guesstimate it is maybe 425 miles, making a total of 800 miles in NC. The two routes converge at Richmond, VA, in the north, and Wilmington, NC, in the south, making a giant loop.

My big goal?
To bike both North Carolina routes, both directions, which maybe comes to 1600 miles.
I'd like to bike the entire loop including the VA section, but I'll figure that out after I've biked the NC routes.

Since 2015, I've biked 1200 to 1500 miles per year. If I bike 200 of those miles on the ECG, it'd take me eight years to complete the NC routes. Perhaps I can do 400 miles per year, but the drive to and from the ECG is a factor. And the coastal regions would have to include overnight stays.

Another factor is that most of the ECG is on public roads, not on vehicle-free trails. So I need to bike those sections in my "better weeks" between my routine, every 12-week epidurals.

But the goal is doable and not outlandish. I plan to start after I finish the Neuse River Trail and some of its side trails, which I'm also biking in sections. The southern end of the Neuse is part of the ECG.

I shared my goal with Hubby and he's on board to support me along the way and maybe ride some sections with me.

When I shared my goal with him I said, "It seems like a selfish goal. It doesn't help anyone but me. But then, helping myself helps others."

Perhaps that last sentence is just rationalization. But I wouldn't think that of other people if they had such a goal. And thru-hiking the AT is a similar goal. And that's probably just my ego talking; that I think I need a goal to help other people. But I could share my journey with the ECG folks or some other platform; that I'm doing this with widespread nerve damage. And maybe that could inspire others with physical limitations. And that would be helping others.

Later I thought, People travel all the time to enrich their lives. That's all I'm doing - traveling, on my bike, in my own back yard, so to speak.

*~*
Originally posted on 4/27/18 at my cycling blog.
*~*

A sign on a pole

In my previous post I shared that I started a new blog. I'd thought about it for a couple months. I think my goal of biking the Neuse River Trail in Raleigh prompted me to actually take action and start the blog. The Neuse River goal came about as I was researching the East Coast Greenway and its path through North Carolina.

I learned about the East Coast Greenway while biking the American Tobacco Trail in February. I cycled passed a post with a sign attached that read "East Coast Greenway."

After a moment, like a delayed after-thought, my thunker bubbled, East Coast Greenway. East Coast Greenway. What is the East Coast Greenway?

I took a u-ey and cycled back to the pole and read the small print, "Linking Cities ... Florida to Maine ... Greenway.org"

Wow. Wow. Maybe I can't hike the Appalachian Trail, but I can bike. What if? What if....

I'll have to google this later after my ride.

I clicked a picture of the sign with my iPhone.

Simultaneously two women were walking by; one pushed a stroller carrying a young child. The women looked to be Mother and Grandmother.

We exchanged pleasantries. Then I asked, "Do you know anything about this East Coast Greenway?"

"Nothing more than the sign - a route that goes up the East coast from Florida to Maine."

I shared a bit of my enthusiasm about this discovery. We exchanged some chit-chat and said our good-byes. They continued their walk as I continued in pause, mesmerized at the possibility of section-biking this new-to-me East Coast Greenway.

After a couple minutes, I texted the family with the picture I'd taken.

Look what I just found!
East Coast Greenway goes from Florida to Maine.
I feel like Toad.

They knew my exact reference - Toad's "motoh cah" discovery.

We were (and still are) Thaddeus Toad fans.

A bike and its girl...

For a couple months I've been thinking about starting a new blog to chronicle some of my cycling adventures and track some of my miles.
So, I'm giving it a go at a bike and its girl, aka Adventures with Olivia.
We'll see how much and if I follow through.

When starting a blog on Blogger, the blog owner has to choose a web address and a blog title which are two different things.
The web address is hard to change or maybe unchangeable.
The title can be changed as desired.

For my new blog address I typed agirlandherbike into the required, rectangular box on my computer screen.
It replied in text, "Sorry, this blog address is not available."

So, I flipped it around to abikeanditsgirl.
"This blog address is available."
Waa-laa!

I actually like the flipped address name better than the initial one.

Prosetry

On my poetry blog, I posted two poems I wrote last week.

• Easy. Easy. on Friday, 4/05/18
• Earthen Vessels on Saturday, 4/06/18

Sometimes I have a difficult time labeling my pennings as "poems."
Is it a poem, a prose, or jabberwocky?

Jabberwocky brings to mind gibberish which brings to mind speaking in tongues.
Speaking in tongues brings to mind foreign languages.
Even if one doesn't understand the language, it is usually quite beautiful to listen to.
Every Way International believer speaks in tongues.
But not in the same style as in Pentecostal or Charismatic churches.

I think I probably pen more prose than poems.
Or perhaps I pen "prosetry" (long o & pronounced with three syllables, if you like).

Prosetry brings to mind trees and how they pose.
Which brings to mind a piece of miniature art painted on a miniature block that sits on my kitchen windowsill above the kitchen sink.
A spider has taken up residence outside the kitchen window, between it and the storm-window.
I see him daily.
Or maybe he is a her.
Spiders spin poetry, often between twigs and branches and limbs posing on tree trunks.

The Way was structured like a tree.
Root locales were the major Way properties where the research and dictates originated and were used as the main training grounds for The Way Corps.
Trunks were countries.
Limbs were states.
Branches were usually comprised of five to seven Twigs within a Limb.
Twigs were the individual home fellowships usually consisting of three to twenty believers.
Each believer was a Leaf.
And a healthy Twig always bore good fruit; if not, something was amiss.
The Way Tree was a poser, unlike the authentic pose of the authentic Trees of Earth.

This blog post might fall in a category of jabberwocky.

~tree woman on my window sill~

Help-map: March 5, 2018, thru May 15, 2018

I received my 20th epidural on March 5, 2018. The neurologist reduced the steroid dosage again. I haven't fared as well compared to my usual fare. It's been a tough five weeks.

Part of the tough row was due to vertigo that began on February 19 and continued until March 15. Part of the tough hoe has been due to work commitments with my pet-sitting business, even though I downsized again when the vertigo hit.

Today I finally got around to typing my "help-map," the new title I'm trying out for my every-twelve-week rally or goal sheets. Each twelve-week epidural round, I magnet my current "map" to the fridge to help encourage and get me to my next epidural.

This round my next epidural is in ten weeks, instead of twelve. In latter May, Hubby and I are going on a vacation to Florida. So my neurologist agreed to adapt my epidural schedule so I can have relief while on vacation.

I'm excited about our trip to Florida. We have an oceanfront room with a door we can prop open. We plan to rent bikes and ride them, which I'm most excited about. I'm pretty sure I've figured out our bike routes. They will include sections of the East Coast Greenway which stretches from the Florida Keys to Canada. It's far from a completed Greenway, but a bike route connects to Greenway sections all up and down the East Coast.

Typing my help-map today, helped me. It helped reduce my anxiety in regard to my current "can't-dos," but feeling I "should do." I magnetted it to the fridge.

I get my neck shots this Tuesday, 4/10.

Come on relief...

*~*

March 5, 2018, thru May 15, 2018
(Ten weeks due to upcoming FL vacation)

Like when I had to save my limbs,
now, I have to save my physiology.
Nothing else takes priority.

With self-care I am caring for others.
I am committed to self-care and emotional wellness.
I do not have to explain to anyone my lack of commitment to activities/tasks outside of self-care.
Even if I weren't sick, there is no need to explain.
I have done nothing wrong by being sick.
I do not need to apologize, though I'm sure I will.

Weather is always changing.
"It's wind man. It blows all over the place."

May I be present.
May I have ease of well being.
May I be peaceful.
May I embrace 10,000 sorrows and 10,000 joys.


To work toward as I'm able around Wee Walk & AIC & self-care:
Stretches: 2-1/2ish hours/week
Bike: 3 days/week
Nutrition: 7 days
Create home haven: 4 to 6 hours/week

Countdown:
Week 1: Completed M, 3/12/18
Week 2: Completed M, 3/19/18
Week 3: Completed M, 3/26/18
Week 4: Completed M, 4/02/18 (BONIVA on Sa, 4/07/18)

Week 5: Completed M, 4/09/18 (neck shots Tu, 4/10/18)
Week 6: Completed Tu, 4/17/18
Week 7: Completed Tu, 4/24/18
Week 8: Completed Tu, 5/01/18

Week 9: Completed Tu, 5/08/18 (BONIVA on Sa, 5/12/18)
Week 10: Completed Tu, 5/15/18 (Epidural #21)


Carol W, CEO ~cyclist. explorer. overcomer.

Cloak-and-dagger

3/26/18

As I ponder the harm Knapp inflicted upon my psyche, an image appears in my mind.

I stand on a man-made path of dirt and rock in a wide open tunnel on a ledge hewn out from the wall of a dark, mammoth, stone mountain.
I am alone.
The only light is from the burning torch which I carry in my left hand.

On my right, the mountain wall ascends until it disappears converging somewhere above me.
On my left, a stacked-rock wall reaches to my thigh.
Beyond the thigh-high wall, an abyss descends to a bottom I cannot see.

Suddenly the mental image changes to outside the mountain, where I am not.

The exterior is a huge, jagged rock.
There is no vegetation; no life.
Smoke ascends from the mountain-top.
The atmosphere is foreboding, like a storm that never manifests; it only threatens.
The sky is dismal with dark clouds, not quite night, but not twilight either.
The time of day never changes, nor the weather, except for occasional lightning.

It is a dark land.

It's Mordor, my thoughts respond.
I'm not a Tolkien aficionado; my knowledge of Middle Earth is limited.
But I recall that Mordor is a land of darkness.

And that is where I found myself - deep inside a gigantic, dark mountain in a dark land.
A dark land of self-doubt, of anti-trust.

Self-doubt was one of the main reasons I hired Knapp in 2008.
At the time, I felt I was listening to my inner GPS.
I thought I was following my intuition.

And that is one big reason I was so deeply wounded.
Had I misunderstood?
Or worse, Was my intuition, which I deeply felt I had followed, not to be trusted in any manner?

How can I ever trust my self again?
Has my soul betrayed me again like it did with The Way?

That was the most destructive wound from Knapp's daggers.
A piercing and bleeding out of an already-wounded soul.
A murder of trust in, what and who should be, my closest ally.

And then, as I pondered this recently, the possibility hit me.
What if I did hear my intuition correctly?
What if I hadn't hired Knapp?
Would someone else have reported him?
Would his attacks have devastated them to the point that they would have been silenced?
Would he have wounded more clients than just myself and at least one other that I know of?
Would I have learned more succinctly the nature of evil, that what appeared as goodness with the best of intentions was in reality, a cloak?
Would I have questioned as much as I have that possible nature?

Seems I would have learned that lesson about evil from my 28 years in The Way, before hiring Knapp.
And I did learn, among other things, about deception and the cloak.
But with Knapp, with Knapp, I experienced the dagger.
With Knapp I was led down a yellow brick road but instead of landing in an Emerald City and uncloaking a wizard behind a curtain that eventually led to home, I found myself alone - standing inside a huge tunnel hewn from the belly of a mammoth, fiery mountain - baffled and confused.

Ultimately, I was not lost in the dark tunnel in the mountain of doom.
I have found my way out.
I had a torch for light, a flicker of intuitive guidance.
The murder was not complete.

But if I believe that I fell in with Knapp because I would be the one to report him, would I not have to believe in some sore of divine providence?
That poses a problem for me.
I'll need to find another interpretation.

A friend, who also experienced therapist abuse, calls it sanctuary abuse.
An apt description.

The body is designed to heal itself and it does a damn good job when given the proper environment.
What about the soul?

~*~*

I saw a Mary Oliver quote this morning.
It rolled across my Twitter-feed after I wrote the above.