Waterloo
It was raining finely, misting. I needed my poncho otherwise in time I would be soaked. I turned east, took the Spur Line Trail down to the crosswalk at Wilhelm, cycled past George Lippert Park and further down the trail. Traffic wasn't so heavy on Wellington this early in the morning, so it wasn't hard to get across. A car stopped for me, unexpectedly. Drivers are developing new relationships with bike paths.
Such an habitual route for me. East again on Breithaupt, a pang of anxiety as I reach what is still an edge, after all these years. No matter. Today I cross Margaret, anxiety increasing, and follow Breithaupt down to St. Leger. I feel real anxiety now, and I'm staying with it. My body is ramping up, but my mind is focused. The plan is to come back west on Wellington, since I haven't been on that stretch going west on a bike in a while. I bike through dirt parking lot and think about my pants getting dirty. No matter. Back up to Margaret, and then east on Louisa. Today is the day I'm going up St. Vincent on the big hill. My stomach tightens, I gear up.
I'm parallel processing a relationship issue with a friend, trying to make sense of why our friendship failed. It's something that happens for me when I'm leaving my zone; thinking about things I don't always ponder in my day to day. I'm trying to feel my feelings, and then I cross that zone line, and suddenly all I want to do is forgive and love. This is my brain in survival mode, though I like this - agoraphobia makes me cut right to the chase of what will make me most happy and peaceful in life, even if in my day to day I tend to brood and escalate. Fear can bring clarity on what is most nourishing, and in this way, it is very useful.
I round the corner, and see the hill ahead. My mind tells me this is a terrible idea, that I will become a sweaty, miserable mess with my soul howling in a sort of quiet, early morning, misty-rained hellscape. I think, I can call Mike, if I need to (I always think this). But my training continues to operate, and I'm steady. I smile at woman walking her dog. There are often people doing the most mundane things alongside my extreme sport.
I need to get off my bike, as expected. It's a bit of climb up the hill. I look down, I look up. When I look down, I ruminate. I accept. I look up, and I'm just a normal person. Been here many times, with the car. Just a normal place. Up and down, but not so much. Mostly just looking around now.
At the top of the hill I turn right (further outside the zone) because now I'm a world adventurer with much less fear. Hill Street has the most charming architecture and a view to the horizon over the factories. I love this tiny street. I bravely continue on rather than turn around, onto Lancaster, past the giant skeleton that lives on the corner all year round. Still weird. On down Lancaster, past an old guy sitting with his work tools on a lawn, probably waiting for his morning ride. He's smoking and pulls back to give me room.
Just prior to this I see a little flag, it reads, "When a cardinal is near, an angel appears". Because I'm moving and I can't quite read the words easily, I get OCD (yeah, I have that now too) and feel compelled to return to look at the flag. But a) I'm committing to not doing that and b) I don't want to go past the old guy again. So I keep going, cross Lancaster on that cute little crosswalk (everything about this little fifties retail area is adorable) and decide to finally take a look at a secret park I've meant to find for about a year, since my friend told me about it.
I though I'd come a block too far, but no, there is an entrance on this side too. I'm really anxious about the cardinal sign. People have told me they consider seeing a cardinal as seeing a passed loved ones spirit. This fills me with anxiety. I persist down the path and stop at the entrance to the park. It's medium sized, misty, with Scots Pine and a blurry background of trees I would just describe as 'green and leafy'. There is an older stone wall to my left and a small playground a little further on.
I can hear the highway. I stand quietly, feeling anxiety and vibes, the vibes of rain in the morning with the sound of cars in the distance, the edge of fall coming in. Balancing the pleasure of feeling lost with the fear of it. A small strawberry plan pushing up on a wall. Dampness. Green. Smell of rain.
After a few minutes of really being there, feeling the anxiety and staying, its time to go. Maybe I go because of anxiety - I am sure I do, because if I didn't have anxiety, I think, I'd keep going and not come back for hours. But, I'm also damp and hot/cold as one is in summer when it rains. Anyway, it's ok.
Back on Lancaster I can't cross due to busier traffic and feel a brush of panic but my calmness kicks in as I cycle towards the lights at Union. Calming down about getting to the lights but still pretty anxious about the cardinal sign, and it mingles with agoraphobia to create a somewhat novel, monstrous hybrid of religious/death/OCD anxiety and fear of travelling. I can see this should be nipped quickly in the bud. I can't go back and check, so I don't. I keep going. Off Union I turn onto a sideroad and a path that goes along the highway. My anxiety is pretty strong. Unusually, for being back relatively in my zone. I borderline delight in it; well, I appreciate it. Feeling so anxious like this in my zone gives me opportunity truly accept it; when I'm leaving my zone I have more uncertainty in general, and it's harder to really say, I am here, since, well, I have more choice about leaving, since I have a safe place to go to. But in my zone, I have safer places, but only on a spectrum of safety, not the more black and white experience of zone exit. Thus, an opportunity to feel fear more deeply and healingly in a safer space. But no so safe that I'm not forced to feel and cope.
This feeling grows as I decide to enter Breithaupt Park. I've had that here before though - those big hills, they take strength and courage, since they are all so high with long paths up! I really do feel uncertain but the training is there for me, so I enter and persevere. It's really beautiful in here, but the highway is loud. It feels more distressing than I've ever experienced it, which is normally, not distressing at all. I'm okay though. Soon I'll be away from it, deeper into the park. The climb is an effort, even on foot, but soon I'm at the top of the hill. I turn north to go the longer way out. So brave! I get lost, or, misdirected, which is frankly exceptional in a location I've been coming to regularly for 20 years, but the woods have grown so much and at this time of year, they are so full, it all looks different. Will I panic? No. I do not! I emerge in a familiar spot and bike down the hill. I say hello to my tree friends, the Black Walnuts at the bottom of the hill. Should I go a bit further north? No, it's time to get home to meet the contractor coming to give a quote on fixing the foundations of our home. I too am building a strong foundation.
London
https://www.reddit.com/r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/ycayxo/timeslip_premonition_or_something_else_russell/
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