Where are all the good men?

I don't know if I should feel bad about this. For a long time I have held the belief that it is far better to be single rather than be with someone for the wrong reasons. One significant "wrong reason" being attaching myself to another person to avoid loneliness.

About the time I was wrapping up my college days, my grandmother began to advise me on responses to meddlers who tried to urge me to get married "before it was too late." She said, "just tell them that your grandmother waited until she found the right man and that she loved him until the day she died." It was about ten years from the time she told me that until she died. And her husband, my grandfather, had died more than ten years prior to her first advice.

True to her word, she did love that man until the day she died. She married her beloved when she was over thirty. And in the first half of the 20th century, that made her... well, an "Old Maid."

Over the last twenty years Grandma's words of wisdom have been in my head, my heart, my actions when small-town-minds have implied, if not outright stated that there must be something wrong with me to be a single woman at my age.

More than that though, it gave me the strength to know that living with myself, living on my own terms were things that I could do with or without a man. That my "significant other" could be more than one other person, that it could be my whole life... my work, my family, my passions and pursuits.

My great grandmother lived most of her life single. She was married just a few years. Had four children and was widowed shortly thereafter. She never remarried. Grandma Mae raised those four children as a single parent. Not only that, she and her daughters survived the Great Depression.

So, coming from a long line of strong women, I knew that I could hold out for a good man, someone capable of loving a strong woman and realize his good fortune. Not sure if such a creature existed, I continued with my life, making choices, pursuing adventures, following passions.

As luck would have it, such creatures do exist. Sometimes right in your own backyard -- figuratively speaking of course!

As of January 1st of this year, I am engaged. The fortunate soul is named Jim.

Jim so happens to be one of those gems who is a good man who tells me on a regular basis how lucky he feels to have me in his life. Not only that, he loves me for who I am. He makes me laugh, reminds me daily that he loves me and has the odd sense to act surprised when I tell him how lucky I am to have him in my life. He is as big a dork as I am -- cheesy jokes, random rants at things over which we have no control, passionate support of our teams...

Many times I had false positives wondering if I had met that "right man" that Grandma always talked about. Everyone always says that when you meet the right person, you'll "just know it." I've "known it" enough times to realize that this hindsight helps in storytelling, but not in affirming one's present path.

Of course it doesn't help that there are enough good men out there can be mistaken for the "Right One" a time or two.

Who knows what it is that leads us where we go... could it be that Grandma was looking over my shoulder and pushing me along surer paths? I don't know. Coming to the recognize Jim as the "Right One" did not dawn on me immediately. It was not love at first sight.

But "love at first sight" has it's drawbacks. Rather than building doubts as we have grown closer, doubts have been diminished, replaced, and disintegrated altogether. As it turns out, Grandma was right. Waiting to find the right man has led me down a happy path. And I forecast a happy future path as well.

Where have all the good men gone?

Nowhere! Just keep your eyes peeled!

As for feeling bad... well, I guess it's just that I don't want to give the impression that I was depressed and lonely while I was single and that the answer to happiness was in finding someone with whom to merge my life. My perspective has not changed. I look at my past and see happiness... the present, still happy... it's just that I'm looking at the future standing next to someone who is looking the same direction and seeing the same things I see.

BIC ride

Today I rode with some friends as part of a Bicyclists of Iowa City ride.

One of my newest friends, Jim -- who, for lack of a better word, I call my boyfriend -- is a new bicyclist and an Iowa Citian... So I hope he might join the BIC club. It's rewarding that he has taken up bicycling as a way to spend more time with me. But what I like more is the idea that he might like biking enough to continue regardless of what the future holds for our relationship.

So we rode from Jim's place in Iowa City to Scott Park and met up with Margo, a longtime friend and fellow cyclist, and some other BIC members. The planned ride was from the east edge of Iowa City to West Branch along the Herbert Hoover Highway then to a teeny-tiny burg called Downey. And surprisingly, it's not as fresh and fluffy as you might think. And another surprise, Tide and Snuggle are not nearby towns. Odd, right?

Anyway, it's been a while. Thought I'd make an appearance.

Keep watching. Something interesting might happen!

Announcing...

OK, if you know me outside the virtual world, in what we old-timers like to call the real world, then you've heard me brag about the fantastic compliments from my teammates. Well, I think I already bragged about it in the virtual world too.

I think I've said this before too... it's my blog, I can write what I want.

So anyway, one of my super cool teammates, Rob, (don't read me wrong, they're all fantabulous rock stars!)... anyway, Rob, has loaned me his precious Penn State baseball cap. It's to be my daily reminder that one of my top goals right now is to purchase a road bike. Believe me, I don't need a daily reminder, but I certainly enjoy it.


Over to the right... that's Rob and me at the end of RAGBRAI 08 getting our picture taken in front of the Mighty Mississippi, with me wearing the PSU road bike hat.

See that nice hybrid bike that has taken me across the state and more in the last 4 years? It is named Shadowfax. Instead of being redundant again, I'll just point out that the explanation for this bike's name is in a prior post. So let's move on to the main point here... I name my vehicles.

The bike pictured... Shadowfax, so that I could imagine that I'm fast. And we know now how that turned out!!

My car is named Bindi. It's a forest green Subaru Forester with an alligator hanging from the rear view mirror. Not a real one... a ceramic one! If you can't put those that all together, no worries mate! Catch a few key episodes of the Crocodile Hunter, know that I worked as a canoe instructor in Florida briefly... now do the math. Still can't get it? Then you're hopelessly out of the pop culture loop (or at least one that involves the Discovery Channel!) and I can't help you.

Let's not get into the whole history of my vehicle names or the reasoning behind it. It doesn't matter, what matters is that even though I haven't settled on a particular bike, no particular brand. Nothing is yet settled but this one crucial tidbit. I now know the name of my yet to be purchased road bike.

Now, once I reveal the name of the bike, some might accuse me of pandering to my Pennsylvania friends without any thought. Not true. First, the name... drum roll please! My new bike will be dubbed Nittany.

And for the more judgmental in the crowd here's the rationale this time... Nittany is not simply because the hat is a Penn State hat and that is their mascot. There's more to it.

Apparently Nittany derives from a Native American word that means "single mountain." Mount Nittany serves as a Penn State backdrop. I can't say whether I've seen this mountain or not. I have been to PA. But that was a long time ago, back when I was a silly teenager more interested in taking pictures of Porsche's out the window of the tour bus hauling me and the other silly teenagers around on our high school choir trip than in knowing about the geological formations also lurking outside the tour bus.

Anyway, back to Nittany, which not only is it my future bike, it is a mountain which is a symbol of something for a cyclist to conquer. On top of that, one possible meaning of the Native American word is "barrier against the wind." While the good folks who compile the facts at Wikipedia claim that this definition is not likely to be accurate, I don't care. I like the idea of my bike protecting me from the wind.

So there you go. Pandering or not, the new bike will be christened Nittany... now on to the other minor details, saving the dough, doing the research, testing out the choices, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

YAY!

Oh, and stay tuned for the adventures of Linda and the Road Bike Hat!

It's about time...

Well... now that it's a little over a week post-RAGBRAI, I can't really use that event as an excuse anymore for not writing. I have new ones, but I won't put them to use. Yet!

RAGBRAI, the incredible adventure it was lingers with me in the form of sleepiness that lasted pretty much until Sunday... 8 days later, not the Sunday after RAGBRAI! And also in the form of missing my teammates. What a group of fantastic people. I'd mention a few by name, but for now, suffice to say that there are some wonderful men and women out there who make up Team LIVESTRONG. And the word love doesn't encompass all that I feel for them.

Here are some examples...

Once again this year one of our teammates (permission to use his name pending!) rode RAGBRAI with us while going through chemo. His goal was to do about 20 miles a day... a few days during the week. He ended up far exceeding his mileage goals, in fact riding on one of the toughest days of the week, Wednesday, which was a nearly 80-mile day with heavy duty headwinds all the way. In fact, our resident aerodynamics guru and bus-provider Steve Hed said that riding that day was akin to riding a century. So top that off with a chemotherapy chaser! I tell you, I couldn't be more proud of anyone than I was of our cancer-fighting teammate!

I wear ribbons on my jersey each day of RAGBRAI in honor of or in memory of people who have had cancer. Prior to the ride and during the week I try to collect one name for every mile we ride. My goal this year... 472 names and so 472 ribbons. I admitted to the team on the last night of RAGBRAI that there's a little part of me that feels a bit selfish about it, because it makes me more visible to the rest of the team, so that when others Team LIVESTRONG members pass by me in town or on the road, they yell out my name, making me feel like a rock star. Which in turn makes me admire them equally for being so caring, friendly and supportive, knowing that we all have some rock solid common goals... ride our bikes across the state of Iowa in one week and kick cancer's ass in our lifetime. What's not to admire?

Many of those wonderful teammates helped me achieve my goal of 472 ribbons/472 names by adding their loved ones to the list. And when I shared with the team my goal and my enjoyment with their "Linda, Linda, Linda" cheering... there was something I failed to mention. Between RAGBRAI 07 and RAGBRAI 08 a large number of major changes have occurred in my life and in the lives of my family; many not so good... some quite possibly within my control to prevent, others not at all, some long-expected, some sudden events and some of them directly related to cancer. Let me put it this way, when you take an online stress quiz, the top 10 list sounds like my last year and a half. No wait... let me put it this way... if my life was a cheesy country song, people would be sobbing in their beers and patting each other on the shoulders.

But I'm not complaining. Somehow despite everything, in 2007 I could still say what I say pretty much every year of my life, "this was the best year of my life!"

As soon as I joined Team LIVESTRONG in 2007 I could feel my life changing. Not in obvious surface ways... I still have the same car, the same house and for a while had the same job. It was more of a fundamental shift. Opening myself to new feelings, new friends, new perspectives. Believing in things I didn't realize I had stopped believing. Being bolder, more authentic.

And somehow all this came from joining a team of strangers (we weren't strangers for very long!), riding together across Iowa during the infamous ride fondly known as a Spring Break/Summer Camp for the 40-something (plus?) crowd. Just like life though, RAGBRAI is what you make of it. It may be a moving party of bikes and beer, but you can get so much more out of it.

I think I lost my point a while back. Regardless... I'm back in the saddle (writing... not riding!) with some stories to tell. Happy Trails!

Peace & Love to all my Super Friends!

Heaven and hell

Out riding my bike along a new, less familiar route than my usual cycling haunts I pondered one of my recurring thoughts about Iowa in general.

While I hate to compare the beauty of a particular area of Iowa to say that one is more picturesque than another, there are some of the hillier areas that will give you a broader view of the landscape. And for some reason or other, human nature causes us to be more impressed by the sweeping vistas than of the smaller-scale pastoral views right in front of us.

It takes a concentrated effort, although not a tremendous amount of strength to see the beauty in the everyday... if only because it becomes a background to our daily scurrying about our very important business. And too often our daily business or busy-ness becomes an exercise in passing by unsmelled roses. Because I see my usual bike route more often than others, it can sometimes seem boring or uninteresting. But if I pretend to be new to the area and unfamiliar with the rolling to flat hills, straight country roads, weathered barns, fields of who-knows-what-yet... corn, beans, alfalfa... I can see the plainness exude a mercurial beauty unlike the scenery presented by a mountain view or an ocean-scape.

Iowa's beauty, hidden in that plainness suprises me each time seasons change. And sometimes again in between when the shadow of a cloud on a bright day reveals the shape of a hillside or a turn around a bend reveals a road curving around the next hill as if caressing the land.

And so it was as I biked my way along some new-to-me county roads a couple of weeks ago exploring my newly assigned territory of scenic byways. Pedaling along at an easy pace, I lallygagged and pondered up a hill... into the wind.

Out of nowhere Cujo began chasing me up that hill! This giant beast had a head the size of a horse... or at least a horse's head... and jaws large enough to crack my skull like a walnut... including the helmet. With no time to wonder if I had it in me to outrun the lathered hound, UPHILL, INTO THE WIND, I kicked into high gear.

Pedaling my heart out, I checked once: the creature was breathing fire onto my rear tire.

Kicking it up another notch, I spun for my life.

Adrenalin and knees pumping, I checked again: still the hell-hound held my pace.

Sure my heart would burst, I pedaled harder.

Checking one last time before I died in the slobbering jowls I glimpsed the monster far enough behind me that I could relent a little.

At the top of the hill I turned back one last time and saw a fiery hole close around the great fiend as he disappeared from whence he came.

A mile or so and a couple of big hills further down the road the adrenalin finally wore off and I began to shake. Soon I nearly forgot my brush with death.

But other than my accidental discovery of the beast guarding the gates of hell, it was a beautiful bike ride in the heavenly scenic hills of Iowa.

Absentee juggling act

It has been a while and my sole lame excuse is that I've been busy figuring out how to balance two new jobs with my former established routine. But that's the last complaint you're going to hear about my new job for a while. The one job is soon to be come a former job as I just couldn't deal with having my weekends filled with working and tornado watches and warnings, leaving no time for RAGBRAI training... so now I'm down to the one new job that I love.

What is it?

Well, I'm now working as a Scenic Byway Project Coordinator for a couple of neat little routes not far from my home, namely the Grant Wood Scenic Byway and the Delaware Crossing Scenic Byway. So far I've been exploring the byways and "identifying key stakeholders." That's my new favorite phrase for going out and talking to people about their towns and what their dreams are for the community.

A while ago I published my personal mission -- and in the process of one of my numerous blog makeovers, I have since deleted it, so here it is again:

With focused determination, unbridled curiosity and decided happiness I embrace activities that fuel my passion to inspire, support anad encourage collaboration, openness, active & creative thought, laughter and connectedness, leading me to achieve extraordinary goals and to help others achieve the same.

I point this out because the place I work now has the following mission:

The Mission of the Limestone Bluffs RC&D is to serve as a catalyst by uniquely assisting people, communities, and businesses to enhance the value of existing and future resources.

Could we be more perfectly matched? Like tunes in an iPod, methinks!

Check out my byway... see the unofficial bird of Iowa.
It's a dream come true... and I didn't even know it was my dream!