Surge

The midday surge. It is the noon hour on Wednesday at our favorite sports club and our Mr. Synchronicity; Svengali AKA Tripp Doherty is here to take us on the brief 45-minute excursion into the outer atmosphere of our collective conscious. He always brings us in for a safe landing back into the world of normal breathing and slowed heart rates. However the ride is never the same and we like it that way. It’s recess time with Tripper and for this old man he makes me feel more alive than I have felt in many years. 

Young Dana looking more svelte than ever and I were having a confab about this season of influenza, bronchitis, asthma and in the case of her husband Keith, pneumonia. We didn’t have an explanation but it would seem that this season has been one of the best if you are selling prescription or even over the counter cold remedies. She told me David Cooper was flat on his back and as I scan the room there seems to be a dearth of familiar faces because like me they must be battling the upper respiratory infections that have plagued us this winter. I myself have had three different varieties of virus from asthmatic bronchitis; cough, sinus ache and I have gone through enough tissue to be cited for one tree going Timber!

Tripper has another great story brewing, and this one might change his life yet again. 

Skipping Tripper

Not a prospect I was looking forward to especially on Tuesday when he is ubiquitous in Woodbury and Roslyn but I am out for yet another count on some viral infection that has plagued me in various forms since a few days before Christmas. I have never been sicker or healthier at the same time in all my life. You can see the evidence when a spin star like Kristen has been out not once but twice this winter season. So there must be a strong strain of bacteria making the rounds slapping us all around. 

I can’t in good conscience put my body through what I always do when I enter Svengali’s class because sick or not I always get caught up in my own theatrics of kicking my own butt. He just brings that out in me when he urges us on with “better, faster-more”. Not today I am afraid and Tripp please excuse me from your exhortations until I can get around the corner on this alien that seems to be in cohabitation with me. 

Dawn Moon

I can’t even be sure if the moon was full this Friday morning on my way to spin with Svengali, but there it was big and bright nestled amongst a few cumulus clouds lit up by the brilliance of the big dead asteroid ¼ of a million miles away, but it inspired me to write about why we do what we do. And that is get up in the dark and glance over at our spouse or significant only to find them deep in the somnolent state. We think just for a moment maybe we just fall back unconscious as well.  But no we spring out of bed and travel who knows how many miles to land in the saddle in front of our trance inducer, Tripp Doherty or TRIPPER as I like to call him. 

Maybe it’s just me but have you sensed that our inspirer is but a changed man since his flirtation with death climbing Mount (ice) Washington? This is just my opinion and it is purely self-centered that I hope he never does that again. Having said that we do know that his life is about challenging himself regularly and I am all for that but not at the risk of life and limb. Okay I will hush. But you know it’s because most of us have grown to love him, including yours truly.  

Kudos go out to my friend Young Dana and her friend Lauren Beam, who is part of the inspiration in her involvement and dedication to Cycle for Survival. As I look at the pic in the previous post it shakes me right down to the ground. Yesterday she was in the front row and in deep concentration and she is just a marvel of what it is to be young. Youth is not wasted on the young with this woman and I am enamored that she is my friend. I like her husband too and their tiny humans even though I have not met them yet. 

Nuclear Powered

It’s been two days since Cycle for Survival and the letdown that I was expecting hit me today and it took at least a half hour of Tripper to fetch me out of the doldrums I found myself in this morning. But fetch me he did.  He did by just being himself, with his iconic look and the trademark eyes that roll back in his head as he looks for divine intervention.  He simply makes me smile and he does it without words. He truly is a sentient being. 

  Sunday and Monday I was still floating on a high of experiential heaven.  I was recalling the feeling of watching a hundred cyclists and three instructors and realized how the electronic feed into my brain is a world apart from when I am in my pedal stroke and able to channel the high voltage and excitement I feel in the saddle. The class is like a cloak when we ride and when we watch it’s like we are naked and helpless just sitting in the dugout waiting our turn.  But I loved the perspective it gave me because it allowed me to witness human frailty and just how precious that is. Even the most confident of us are awed in a scenario we can’t comprehend. Humans with the indomitable spirit that live with courage and tenaciousness in the face of death are what make life worth living. That might sound a little hokey but it appears apropos.  

Knowing that today I would be headed to the cardiologist for an echo and nuclear stress test, I figured an hour of Svengali would prime my heart pump just perfectly.  I thought I was going to blow my doctor away on that treadmill. After all my vital signs I thought were stellar for a sexagenarian.  However, as I stepped on the treadmill filled with Captain America nuclear fuel coursing through my veins I went into atrial fibrillation right then and there. I looked at my HR, which is normally 57 resting shot up like a rocket 120,130 and then still higher.  I watched my lean cardiologist blink in amazement as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.  And even in a-fib as I was you couldn’t tell by my countenance or more importantly my breathing. As I headed into 150 BPM I felt some tremors from within but I was convinced that the 13 months of spinning choreography had me better prepared for this episode than I was in years past.  I could see his mind whirring and as he scanned his hard drive  he was at a loss for what to recommend. At first blush he said maybe another catheter ablation or maybe the blood thinning coumadin.  I intuitively knew that wasn’t going to be his final prescription and as I was walking out, he just said come back in 5 months. 

I have to say it again. Most of you know Mary McCann. Perfect physiology in Spartan like shape.  She is one of the nicest people I know. Never takes anything for granted and is smiling all the time. I am so happy to think of her as my friend. 

Our Hero Always Brings Us Higher

Organization like a well oiled machine with frills. There’s nothing spared here and in a way it seems enigmatic that a charitable organization would be as lavish as it feels right now.  However the generosity of all the participants motivates you beyond what you might think you could normally contribute to a cause that everyone is touched by in some way, and that’s a good thing, a real good thing.  

I saw The Evil Woman arrive in her silver down jacket and the three other master motivators are here, Tripp, (Svengali) Damian (Young Atlas) and Cathy Munster-Stone (The Heart of Stone).  Even the charismatic Pam Polestino (Double P) lends her grace and charm to the upcoming proceedings, which will build into many crescendos.  

Setting the stage now is the emcee. He is doing his housekeeping speech leaving no stones unturned. One of my teams is the Tumor Busters lead by Young Dana with her own visceral love for this event. Tripp happened by resplendent in his disheveled iconic hairdo. It never really matters what he says because with this man it’s all in the unspoken dialogue of the heart and soul. 

I just walked through an energy field I have not felt since maybe The Boston Marathon. It filled my senses from every pore in my body and it quite literally left me shaking and I had to write about it right this second. I thought for a moment that I could see the sparks flying.  It is so palpable. When Homo sapiens focus the 6th percentile of their brains. (We only use 5%) The earth shifts so discernibly.  

Kristen has center stage and why not she is the architect of Equinox spin and I suspect beyond the borders of the physical plane. Young Atlas to her left and Svengali on her starboard side.  It’s almost here Cycle For Survival and how could anyone calculate this response having never had this experience before.  Kristen just took in a breath and her sentient side gave her countenance the look of an expectant beautiful teen, the one we used to fawn over in HS.  She just said how excited she was and I never hear her voice crack but it did just now, how wondrous.  She speaks the name of a rider, as is her trademark. God when she does that it’s so powerful and I know I steal some B-12 whenever she does it.  I will, I can I want to. Carries the full glass of human emotion and Maslow would open his eyes right now.  She has them standing in #3 and it just got really cranked. The drug is spin and this “high” has no “crash”.  

I just reached into the air simulating an antennae and those damn lacrimal  glands just tried to fill my ocular cavity with tears but I resisted because  there’s time enough left in the hours ahead. Breathing centers the emotion and it’s an aphrodisiac. 

It started again, she’s ramping up the whole room with the motivational choreography: Release Me. The building is shaking what a feeling, my mom must hear us in heaven right here, right now. Together like one! Love your life another mantra that is cycling through us right now.  

Double P, Pam Polestino just asked me if I was riding. I thought she said was I writing? I guess the onomatopoeia just told me I don’t do one with out the other. Kristen near the end of her segment and Svengali, Tripper is next which promises to elevate the room with his own brand of kinetic spinography.

And he did not disappoint. The trance inducer did just that. Milton Erickson the father of hypnosis was smiling from 6 feet under. What is it that motivates us when the setting is just like this?  We begin to remember that we are all connected in ways that are not just psychobabble because when we focus power together nuclear missiles shrink like dead violets. 

As they announced what was raised I had the number 4 in mind as in 400,000 but I was a digit off. It was 4.1 Million Dollars! You could have knocked us all over with a feather when that number was spoken and to top it off visually the huge ceremonially check was raised just like they do at sporting events. 

Touching the Sky

Back in Svengali’s class and as is my wont I can bellow at the top of my lungs because it’s recess. When I am in class with The Evil Woman I keep my mouth closed for the most part but when it’s playtime I get to act out and enjoy the freewheeling energy ride that is Tripp Doherty.  

I am still trying to take in Tripp’s Mount Washington climb. Maybe in the spring or in the summer sun I might be able to fathom it as being an extraordinary challenge but in the dead of winter with temperature, wind and ice in the equation, it boggles the mind. I tried not to think of what may have gone wrong and all I can say now is that I am happy that he is back with us alive, safe and well. Tripp has had some life changing events; this one will perhaps be a hallmark in the saga he continues to write, but who knows what new adventure he might seek in the weeks and years to come.  

Tripper was truly touching the sky as he could almost do at the summit. We too can touch the sky even at sea level because the mind is the switchboard that takes us on the journeys we long for. 

All we have to do is dream them and with a little persistence and consistency they arrive nascent in our lives.