Christmas and Thanks

I sit here today, Christmas Day, over a huge welling up need to be thankful. I'll try not to be sappy. This is to my true friends. You know who you are. They take their own time to consider things I say or write, and there is often much. They challenge the same with fresh ideas and perspectives. They keep me pointed toward the things they know I love. Sometimes we lose our way to these. They experience these things with me---they make sure I'm there when it counts. I hope I remember often enough to do the same for them. They too need direction occasionally.

I've often said to them at this time in life I may need an attendant (or attendants), preferably wearing white lab coats and carrying clipboards. Sometimes it's that bad. But my friends are much more than that. They help me keep my road bikes and surfboards repaired and ready. They call me when conditions are favorable to us. They invite me to play music together.

They allow me to vent emotion and to not hide out as an enlightened soul work-in-progress, to be a miserable failure in my own eyes, and then turn the mirror my way to remind me the good we all possess. On this day, I thank my friends for meaning so much to me. I hope your Christmas holds you in the arms of love wherever you may be.

This morning I rode 28 miles on a Cannondale framed fixed gear. The onshore wind was east around 18 mph, air temp at 51 degrees. I warmed up circling the monument (Wright Memorial) and took the usual route north along the sound and Kitty Hawk Bay up to Southern Shores where I crossed east over toward the Kitty Hawk Pier. There I took the Beach Road south the 6+ miles to First Street and then home.

The sky pushed down with low clouds and the dampness preceding rain. The white-ish cloud underbellies warned me of the rain moving from the mainland, creeping closer and closer. Would I make it home dry? This is where I start reciting the names of my friends who live along the Beach Road in a chronological order beginning where I am now, who will give me shelter if it gets bad. The ocean water---smell the salt air---is 43 degrees, dropping a full 10 degrees since last week. It now truly is winter. This is the equivalent of our first snow. The cross wind and fixed gear are working me hard now. To counteract this discomfort I thought about my friends.