Regret

I regret that I have not spent much time on my bike seat. I failed to pay closer attention to God's beauty. I did not travel up Bushy Park. I did not bike up to Holly Hill. I did not bike to Awendaw, when the leaves were on the trees. They are gone now. All that is left on a few of them that did flush with vibrancy is dull leaves on the bottom, that have yet to be completely shriveled from the sun and cold. I so very much regret this omission of traveling. I don't know what is happening. Things are changing. Life is getting dull. I've relied so much on green beauty and orange beauty and even brown beauty, that grey, my dreaded grey, the grey soaked into the branches, leaves me with little aesthetic joy. I missed an opportunity that won't be here for another year. I suppose that no matter how much time I spent out with the colors, and no matter how much pleasure I derived from them, I would have still regretted not getting more out of it come winter. Winter is here.

However! I DID go to Edisto Island. I wouldn't leave anyone dangling on just a teaser, well for too long anyway ;)
I went with someone else, which may shock some of you. We, of course, rode on a bus. The ride there was, well, dark. There was a haze in the sky. We got no sleep. In the "morning" (we had to wake up at 5am to catch the bus at six), the haze was gone, turned into a slight rain that sapped all heat from inside our tent. If there was any sleep that night, it was not after that rain, which made it too cold for slumber. It was one of the strangest times I have ever camped, and that is saying something. Think of it. We saw no sunlight the entire time on that island. The entire time, I marveled at how we did not set one foot on a gas pedal to get here. We had nothing but our bikes and a tent. We didn't even bring picture IDs. On the ride back, I marveled at man's unstoppable industry, building those miles of road and bridge, to allow access to something accessible to only few animals and definitely not the primitive human: a sandbar. We entered that sandbar in autumn, during the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and left that sandbar in winter.
Winter is here, and I must renew my joy