Stop

“The further away I get

The sharper are the lines

You need some distance

To help you redefine”

From “Stop” by Mega City Four

Maybe I’m undertaking far too much navel gazing this first week of January but holidays and space away from the normal routine always bring me perspective.  I’ve been thinking about the changes I sought to bring into my life 12 months ago.  As is normal for me, I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions per se at the start of 2008, but during the year I did resolve to do some things differently.

During my first surf of 2008, I discovered that I’d lost a bit of my fitness.  From the summer onwards I decided to get up earlier and go out for a run, typically doing 2 miles every second morning and doing weights every alternate morning.  I’ve always been a morning person and parenthood has shattered any illusion of needing 7 or 8 hours sleep to function.  I also recognised that I wasn’t being disciplined in reading my bible, so I would use the time in the mornings before my wife and daughter awoke to spend some time reading that in silence and without distraction.  It was all well meaning, but when combined with a long ongoing period of my daughter awakening any time between 3 and 4 am and sleep being totally disrupted between then and 7am, I exited 2008 totally whacked.  The reality is that I have ringing in my ears in the evening thinking I can hear our daughter calling for us.  Maybe that’s a side effect of listening to too many loud Sonic Youth records.  We often collapse into bed with no idea of how much or little real sleep we will get.  I took comfort in Karl’s words on Sunday about “parenting being the most difficult thing in the world”, although it is also equally one of the best things.

A combination of everyday conversations with friends, conviction about my reliance upon my car from an environmental stance, a stand-up comedy DVD by Rob Newman, my desire to keep fit and to gain more sleep and a recent sermon on “Green Issues and Justice” have led to something else I have resolved to do differently in 2009 without getting all guilt-driven about it.  The below shows some more navel gazing (neither of which are mine!)

Hoping cycling can also reach the parts that most turkey, mince pies and associated grazing reach, I could have asked Santa for a shiny new bike, but the collision of a couple of Karl’s recent sermons and a great article in Surfers’ Path re-directed my thinking to the “re-use” part of the reduce, reuse, recycle equation.   So: reduce CO2 ommissions whilst increasing the amount of sleep I am getting and staying fit; re-use my 14 year old bike and ask Santa for panniers, new lights and a hi-viz jacket it was instead; and just cycle.

Week one – 4 days on the bike versus one in the car.  Which journey did I dislike most?  – The one in car.  Even a heated car cabin and Ida on the iPod couldn’t compete with the exhilaration of the bike ride in on a frosty morning.  Seeing snow fall later in the day with the realisation that the home journey would also be done in shorts only made me smile…Oh yeah, and I made it into work quicker than a colleague who drove in from further along our street and there was great joy in overtaking his car on several occasions.  It’s amazing how much pleasure the simple things bring…