I quite enjoy this blogging thing! It is good to put what I do into words and communicate the excitement of the new whilst conveying the challenges of daily life with MS. There is a problem, though. Nothing major, just something to deal with. It hit me when going back through the posts on the blog, especially when I looked back at posts from 2019. That year had various mountains, expeditions. I was fit, strong. Full of life. Now? Well, I am still very full of life but that life is different. A life more ordinary perhaps, with apologies to Danny Boyle.
2019 to 2022
This is going to be incredibly simplistic. Perhaps childish. I long knew that progressive illness was going to mess things up slowly. That was why I pushed myself hard to do things. I centre on 2019 because that was a year of multiple cycling exploits that also involved quite serious travel. The idea of flying to Milan to climb Gavia and Stelvio with a huge bike case in tow now feels so far away, another existence. I did not have to fret about my walking. I felt indestructible and thought 2020 would be more of the same, a continued fight against MS.
Well, the Corona Pandemic messed all those plans up. There was a long gap before the next big rides and MS used that time well for progression. In 2021, the Amstel Gold Race was stop/start as I had to get off and walk for certain climbs. The following year, Col du Tourmalet was completed but very slowly and with even more stops as my legs kept telling me no, not doing that. The final part was walked. And that was it. Progression.
Now
What has that progression led to now? Inconsistency is the best way to describe it. A good kind of inconsistency. The life I have now is quite nice and I am not going to start waxing lyrical about what has been lost. It is gone and I am grateful for those memorable moments. Grateful that I took full advantage of my fitness. Moments that nothing or no-one can take from me.
The problem is… trying to make something interesting out of activities that feel a little more ordinary. Or passive, that may be a better word. How do I write about these things? I wrote this on what has been a very nice day. Relaxing, painting, drawing, the latter being another new hobby. One I need to write about, possibly. Sitting in the conservatory and watching birds flitting around the garden. The painting is not the best but I am learning. Slow reading as well, a book finished in three weeks. That’s not bad for me. It’s not exactly heart-pounding material to read about, though.
So Why Continue?
So my activities are getting more passive. Why continue blogging about them? Probably a bit dull to read about? Well, probably true. But a blog is basically a selfish activity. You talk about yourself and what you are doing. Some people do it systematically with some kind of mission. I don’t think I do. It is definitely a good exercise for me in the sense that it stretches me cognitively but also in a low risk environment. But, for all that, is it really interesting?
Here is the challenge. It’s easy to talk excitedly about descending a mountain at sixty kilometres an hour. Something that I was actually managing on my last mountains, although I was still terribly slow on descending curvy roads. Some sort of fear of crashing off the side of a road and dying, call me old-fashioned but I like surviving…
The thing is that the thrill is still there. For going up a mountain there are E-Bikes. Still hurts, in a good way. There is also the excitement of discovering and rediscovering so many pastimes.
The Thrill of the Ordinary
Take that slow day I mentioned. Sunday 21st September. The painting is not amazing. But it is an important learning experience. Trying Cubism. Emphasis on trying. Not very well but trying to hold my hand straight for those thin lines was a good exercise even if they did not turn out to be very thin, to be honest. Not a good painting although it was great learning experience and one that I will write more about in another post when the piece is finished. It was also actually quite nice to look back at those adventures of the past. They remain special. It does feel good to say ‘I had MS and I still did those things’. The cycling world championships had begun and I still enjoy watching the sport. To crown it all I cooked pretty nicely. Onion tart! Think I need to buy a new baking tray.
The challenge now is to communicate excitement into the more ‘ordinary’ habits that make up my day. Difficult. Reading a book or tearing the roads of Europe up by bike? Which sounds more captivating? There is no real choice, though. I could write about tearing those roads up but it is the past. The more passive pastimes are now my current life. How to make them interesting to read about is something that I have fretted about before and will continue to fret about. Perhaps it is better to just try. I will remain the worst blogger in the world with no clear mission other than writing about what I enjoy doing. Which is sometimes the point of it all.
Anyway, there are some thrilling plans. Take Suede in Berlin! My life is not that colourless yet!
