Rainbows & Syd
Last night, as some small thunderstorms moved through Salt Lake, an astonishing rainbow appeared over my neighborhood. It was horizon to horizon, an arc of incomprehensible beauty, so clear you could even see distortional ribs of color bands invisible to the naked eye. There has been no photoshopping of these pics at all, you are viewing true pixels directly from the digital camera, click on them for bigger versions.
Syd Barrett, a founding member of Pink Floyd, passed away today. I wonder if this is some celestial special effects unit sending up a psychedelic memorial to him. Syd’s is a complicated story, too long and out of place to be told here.
Last week Jess and I had a wonderful trip to Idaho to ride the 75 mile long Trail of the Coeur D’Alenes, and I have a half-written post with lots of photography included to publish about that, including a really bad pun involving tiramisu and local wildlife, as well as some tattoos, thoughts about hot tubs, and images of a heaven for inline skaters…
But since I got back to Salt Lake my brain has been felt fairly numbed and useless, and that makes me angry. I feel the motions of work, of training hard in the summer heat, of striving towards the goals that matter to me (the fall world cup qualifier is only 14 weeks away!!), but there is no underlying drive of purpose there. Some people can be content with a fully air-conditioned, TV-buffered existence. I am not, but there needs to be driving purpose when one steps away from the easy paths. Why am I doing hard hill sprint repeats on a hot July day? Why do I go to the gym over and over? Why does writing matter? And why am I so pissed off when the writing is just not happening?
Then I stumble across reads like the astonishingly well written Searchblog, and don’t feel so bereft of purpose, in fact, it seems that physical effort is a wonderful way to wring some answers out of right here, right now. Maybe this is why there is such a popularity of really hard solo sports in America today.
Filed under: from the coffee shop
Here’s some motivation from a recently retired speedskater: After it’s all over and some time has passed, you won’t remember the pain of the hard workouts. However, you will remember all that you’ve accomplished through your hard work, and all the good times you had along the way.
Even though I failed to reach my goals in speedskating, I don’t regret any of the pain and effort I put into it.
“Some people can be content with a fully air-conditioned, TV-buffered existence. I am not”
Pink Floyd is pretty appropriate here, eh? Sometimes I manage to live with that monster first note of Time ringing at the back of my brain, and those times are rich like no others.
Hard physical work - i like it better when tiredness (or hunger) makes me stupid than when it makes me anxious (= a bit crazy, one little step down the obsessive-compulsive highway.) Lately I’ve been just accepting the craziness because it’s worth pushing myself to do what I want to do, as much as I can get away with. I couldn’t work hard to train for something in the future, but I can wear myself out for something that’s absorbing and delightful now. The down side of that is that the moment I have to stop, it’s over; at least when you’re doing it for a future hope, the hope is ALWAYS there.
All of these things are way better than just sitting, though, eh?
Those are beautiful pictures of the rainbow.
Well, coming from someone who is not a writer and likes training in hot weather…
I don’t think you have to write all the time. You wouldn’t race well every day or expect to be in the same mood every day. I don’t think you have to feel creative or inspired all the time either.
As for training, I have a different perspective because I like what most other people don’t like… But even when there is no purpose, I still feel like it matters, whether it is just to keep me healthy or if someone tells me two years later that they were inspired by something I did (which does matter when bad things happen in the world). And when all else fails and I have to justify it to someone else…if I weren’t doing it, I would just be wasting time, and it’s not very useful to waste time either, especially when the sun is out.
Its nearly six years since the day my family and I moved out to Utah so we could train at the Oval (we were among the first skaters at open training when the rink opened). Our early experiences there involved driving around looking for an apartment, and on one of those days we were treated to a rainbow much like the one you have pictures of. Its been about three years since I was last in Salt Lake, but this reminiscing sure makes me itch to go back and visit!
Beautiful photos you took there.
anyone know where syd is buried? ive looked and looked and got all different answers. anyone know?
thankss.