hooligans

Last night I rode through the streets of Austin in a bike gang of four, hooping and hollaring, swirving around the middle line, stopping for parking lot parties and sock hops. We were up till 4:30am, talking, sharing music, stories and ideas. I got less sleep than I have all week and woke feeling refreshed. And now I'm trying to understand why.

Yesterday's sunshine, yes. The group of 70 year old ladies I saw hoola hooping on the bridge yesterday, yes. Those things pulled me from my inner cloud. But it was something more. It was a freedom, a lightness, a simplicity that I am learning to be *key* to happiness. Simple = this word has hovered around all week. I've meditated on it, brought it to the mat as my intention in yoga and still not understood its importance. Till living it last night, putting duties and responsibilities in the cobweb backmind and just enjoying life's flow.

It feels like I am on an uphill climb, and will be for a few more months. Like on a bike, the sort of uphill where you are using your arms and hands and legs and butt and stomach and breath to move you inch by inch. The kind where you get off and walk sometimes. The kind where you can't flap your arms in the air like a bird in flight because there's too much work to be done. I want so badly to be at the top of that hill, to admire the view and then to try some different activity that feels lighter, or at the very least, be able to bring that sense of lightness into the work now. Every moment in this life is so precious and I don't want to spend another with my head down, too focused on the road in front of my tires that I miss the singing light through trees' branches.

I am ready for something to change.