One Man's Ash

Yesterday I rode the bike through a burned out forest in North County. The trees were torched in a controlled burn a few weeks back in an effort to rid the forest floor of underbrush and excess needles to help prevent wild fires. The campfire smell in the air still clung to the trees, and the silence was ethereal for exhausted ears near day's end.

Navigating the sugar sand on carbon fiber is always an interesting experience. My quads were on fire, pedaling through the molasses nightmares are made of....desperately trying to move forward in the large chain ring with small progress. I stood on the pedals and leaned over the front of the frame, hoping to gain some kind of momentum and engage more hamstrings. I ended up over the bars in a harrowing halt when the front wheel found the deep end of the sand. For as nasty as shifting sand is to maneuver, it is most forgiving headlong.

The moonscape ground and smokey air gave pause to my workout. I was drawn into the enchanted charred trees, and leaned the bike against a particularly resilient one. Clip clopping in cleats through twigs and dead fronds, I was in awe of the new life springing up all around me. Out of the wreckage, new pines and palm trees, delicate and beautiful, were growing toward the sun. Tiny fresh needles, downy feathery cones, and brilliant baby buds were making their way out of the dead earth, as if they had no memory of the inferno that was days before- no misgivings whatsoever. I reveled in the dichotomy of color in bleakness, hope in desolation, and rebirth in destruction.

I thought about the wreckage and damage in my own world; some of it controlled, some of it wild fire, but like the forgiving needles and forgetful flowers determined to push through the ash, I'm going to hold onto hope. A forest can rehabilitate itself...why can't we? There is opportunity for beauty and new beginnings even out of dust.

I never want to stop growing. It's therapy for me to be out in those woods.