"A signature always reveals a man's character - and sometimes even his name." - Evan Esar

The High Winds of Hurricane Sandy

Oh, the humanity.

The alternator is wired up and seems to be working. I had some trouble with a radiator hose but as of an hour ago it seems to be done leaking. So Louise is back on the road. 

We've been learning about the OT tabernacle in our adult class at Pathway. They made scale models  out of card stock - cut, colored and taped together the various pieces of that structure - and we discussed the rich symbolism of that unique travelling worship center. 

As we near the end of that study I'm working ahead on the next one, a look at the Book of Acts. I taught that class while at the college and got as much or more out of it as any of the students. 

This morning I counted and then charted the names of the two key characters in that historical book, the Apostles Peter and Paul. I knew what I'd find in general terms but it was interesting to see it visualized using Numbers, the Mac spreadsheet program. It was my first time using it to produce graphs and charts and I found it, like other Mac programs, very intuitive and easy to use. 

My bike ride went well this morning. I wasn't out of our neighborhood before I could tell it was going to be a quick ride; I felt energized. (The opposite happens, too! and more often.) I did the first leg, the 6-mile stretch up the hill, about 2 mph faster than normal. When I turned the corner at the top I knew I was on pace for something close to a PR so I decided to hammer it the rest of the way.

Shortly after that, at about the 8 mile mark, I realized my intensity was creating bad form. My hands were gripping the bars tightly and my shoulders were tense. The key is to keep your upper body relaxed and use all the energy on the leg muscles, and the trick to get back to that state is to open your hands and quit gripping the bars. Just let the palms of your hands rest on them. It helps to wiggle your fingers to loosen and relax them, and doing so has the same effect on arms and shoulders. So every mile or so I'd wiggle my fingers to keep my hands and upper body loose. 

That made me think about Rudyard Kipling's poem, "If." (My brain goes crazy places sometimes, especially while I'm riding.) 

In that famous poem Kipling extols the virtue of equanimity, the even temperament unfazed by circumstances. And by his description I am not "a Man, my son." I don't think I'm a "Nervous Nelly," to use my grandmother's expression, but sometimes, whether on a bike ride or dealing with issues, I can get tense. Ask Pam. 

I long ago decided to accept that part of my personality. I wish I was more like some people I know, including some family members who seem unfazed by what goes on around them. But that's not the way God put me together. The upside is that I'm a doer, a get-'er-done person almost always in action. The downside: that energy sometimes turns unproductively inward and I get tight. 

While I was wiggling my fingers to keep my upper body relaxed I thought about things I do to keep my spirit relaxed when I get tense. Music works for me, especially classical music. Mozart, Saint-Saens, Mendelssohn... And physical exercise or working with my hands. One of the things I liked about riding a motorcycle on mountain roads was the complete focus it requires. No room for anything else in your head, including whatever is stressing you out. 

Prayer. Rambling, completely honest stream of consciousness conversation with God. 

The problem is that too often I forget to wiggle my fingers. I get to pressing so hard that the tension builds until it's seriously counterproductive. At the time it seems like I'm giving it everything I've got, pedaling as hard as I can. Instead I need to work where I can work and keep everything else, and everywhere else, nice and relaxed, calm. 

I realize this seems like exactly the kind of navel gazing that makes blogs so inane. But as you should have figured out a long time ago I don't write for you. I write for me. If you're here that's your problem. I write to write, not to be read. 

That said, where on the scale of Kipling-to-Nervous Nelly do you fall? 

What do you do to "relax your fingers" when the tension builds?