This weekend, I rode my new Louis Garneau and ended up at a dam in the middle of the mountains. It was fabulously beautiful. The lake was about eight klicks around and I took it really slowly, just enjoying the mountain air and the sunlight. Shibata in the spring is, hands down, the most beautiful place I have ever lived. It is really incredible. Yesterday morning I got up at 5:30 and rode into the mist of the mountains, following one road 'til it ended — a river was coming out of the valley. I stopped and stretched my neck back, looking up into the sky with my arms hanging behind me.
Maybe these four or five months will have been some of the best of my life when I look back. I'm so untethered right now. I point my bike at the mountains and go. I will be in Europe next week. I come home to Yoko and Naomi, both so full of joy and encouragement. This will end soon enough, within a year as I start the PhD either here or there and start to think about my thirties in a more serious way. But for now, for today and yesterday, there is nothing in between me and the world.