Past-Present...

Ah, the changing of the seasons.

I write this as it is freezing outside, I'm supposed to be on the bike riding right now... Yeah, just don't have the motivation to get out and freeze.  Not yet at least.  It was like eighty degrees just a few days ago, give me a break, and my body has not acclimated to this brutal temp swing we call Oklahoma weather.  Plus I recently had a birthday and my age is making me old and feeble.  You know how it is...

 Last week I was in Amarillo, TX hanging with the parental units and riding my bike.  They love to chase me in the car and I like to pretend that I am Pro and have a team car.  We both win.  It's always good to go home, it's kind of a marker of life.  Like the marks on a door frame measuring growth.  You can measure yourself of where you are in life by going home and seeing your parents and the old house.  Memories seem to flood back at every turn.  Old pictures hanging on the walls, smells, and faces of the past all bring ones life into focus.  It's like seeing a movie that you have seen before, but not in the right order.  Seasons change as does life, it is cyclical.  Birth, Life, Death, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter.  One follows the other and the circle is unbroken.  We do the best we can with what little time we have, or at least we should.

The seasons are a changing, both literally and figuratively.  I am at a place in my life where winter is right around the corner and I know it is going to be rough, but I am really hoping that the spring will bring new life.  I'm trying to keep a positive outlook.  I really am.  Sometimes it gets tough, but it is like the cold, you just have to acclimate to it and everything will seem better.  And.  When it is better, it is much better.  Time marches on and if you don't watch out, it will leave you in the past.

Seasons change, time continues on.  Palo Duro Canyon is a time capsule of my life.  My Grandmother witness the birth of the Canyon way back when.  I remember the Canyon from as far back as I have memories.  It changes with the seasons, but it is still the same.  The layers of sediment slowly stacked on top one after the other erode away by time.  It too is a never ending cycle.  There are layers that I spent my childhood, youth, and now adulthood, slowly building -yet at the same time washing away.  It is a beautiful but almost horrible thing all wrapped up into one.  The trails in the Canyon have been walked by people long gone, and they will be walked by future generations.  This area is alive with rich history and with the future all contained but open.  It is a living picture of what we call life, a tactile thing that we can touch the past, present and tomorrow all in one instant.

The next time I visit the Canyon I will be the same old me, but with a new-old memories.  I will look at the Canyon walls and remember.  As I drive the road out I will be sad knowing it will be some time before I will be back, but happy with the new imprint that I just made.