CIRCUMSTANCES

"innocence gave me confidence to up against reality:"...

given the 70's nostalgia that runs deep inside my soul, it is quite fitting to post a RUSH song from 1978 on this blog. this is also one of my most loved training songs, particularly motivating during solo road runs, or tempo sets on the treadmill. if you want to see a great live version that really brings life to the 70's-ness of this song, then click here. rumor once had it that neil peart, the drummer and lyricist for RUSH had a home not far from where i grew up, in the niagara peninsula, one of the most beautiful places on earth...where i am sure this song raced through my veins and my mind during teenage bike rides through the wine region, wearing speedos and pretending to be dave scott. growing up in ontario in the 80's we revered RUSH as though they were modern day beethovens, bachs, virtual demi-gods of electric music...i guess they were.

getting on to circumstances, the most obvious of all of them has touched my life recently. death, that is.

it was the death of someone close enough for me to feel the punch but distant enough not to get a bruise. just to have death that close, however, was enough to raise associations to my father's passing, my own illness and how that amplified my awareness of my own mortality, and various other "deaths", both real and metaphorical, that i have experienced.

circumstance giveth and circumstance taketh away...this life was not meant to be easy and one thing is for sure, by the time you are finished you will have lost many things that were of utmost importance to you.

"all the same, we take our chances, laughed at by time, tricked by circumstances". this sums up a whole lot for me about how i view life, and how and why i find myself, one part defiant, one part ridiculous, and somewhat jaded, in the midst of an ironman build, once again. i really can't explain it more than what it is. roll the dice where and how you will. see what happens. you might get on a winning streak for a while. circumstances, ultimately, will conspire against you. some circumstances, however, can be overcome, or adapted to,  and this is what makes fighting worth-while, or even desirable.


speaking of which, another major circumstance to have changed, is that i have a new ride.

i said i never would, but i went ahead and fell in love with a cervelo

my BLUE met with premature death, via a giant pothole and i was thus "forced" to get a new bike. poor me.

obviously i am lucky to be unscathed and safe. unlucky to have  spent a small fortune when i wasn't planning to, and forced to adapt to a new bike so close to an ironman. however, happy to have such  problems. angry that by the time it all came together and i could get off the trainer, to put in some serious time on my new p5,  the cooler weather had started to settle in and i had missed one of the nicest indian summers in recent history...

CIRCUMSTANCE: "the sum of determining factors beyond willful control"

as in ironman, so in life...while circumstances change, your will to stay the course and your ability to roll with the punches must stay the same if apparent progress is to be made. why apparent? because progress is a relative concept, as much to do with perspective as anything else.

"plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose, the more that things change, the more they stay the same"

there are few circumstances that are more difficult or beyond your control than a cancer diagnosis. this is the kind of circumstance that needs to be responded to with hope, resolution, and determination to do everything possible to make deals with circumstance.  it also happens, that i am raising funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society again. so, please, if you can, donate. i am quite close to my modest goal. http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=2125024&langPref=en-CA

"things that i once dreamed of, have become reality...these walls that still surround me, still contain the same old me, just one more who's searching for, the world that ought to be..."