2016 Gratitude: Ben Weaver

In this series of posts, some of our sponsored riders share some of things they are grateful for from 2016. -Kid

2016 Gratitude: Ben Weaver

2016 was full of many rides, incredible people, water, learning, challenges, grace, and partnership. I am humbled and grateful for it all. Here are some words collected in looking back.

Singing by the fire. The lake opens to the river, the river runs to the ocean. Glacial erratics. Bedrock at the surface. Now my bones are showing. Followed the watershed back to Homer. Green and black Mukluk. Bathing in waterfalls. Sleeping in a patch of woods next to the Sterling Highway. Starting a fire with the pizza box. The conversation was about how the shape of the stones resembled the shape of the boulders which resembled the shape of the mountain we sat gazing up at. Down on all fours filling our hats with blueberries. Congruence and sounds from the trail.

Singing by the lake. Snow blocking the sun. Nobby treads among fox tracks, squirrel, moose, deer, otter and a spotted woodpecker feather. At morning ravens circling the tent, staked out with driftwood, snow tumbling from red pine boughs. Hanging glaciers in the civil twilight. It all runs together. Water does not segregate. Woodsmoke. The year cannot be divided into highlights. The threads are woven together revealing only one continuous path forward. Alongside two oceans, under windmills, atop canals, beside moraines, sloughs, salmon boats, subsistence netters and at times within the river itself. The laughter of friends spreading across the surface of the water. Playing like dogs in the sun. Huddled like birds in the rain. Gravel and blue sky, stars in the night, like old nails in barn wood. Home is where you lite the fire.

Singing by the river. Mud in my teeth. Frog belly moon hurdling the constellations. Over Marrakesh. Amsterdam. Pedaling for the imagination, not the clock. Endless color. Gathering roots in the forest. My bowl facing open to the sky in gratitude. The harvest depends on what you plant. An athlete is an artist. Riding the edges of puddles. Perhaps the greatest risk is to postpone writing down your dream in the exact moment that it wakes you from sleep, hoping that it will return to you later in the day. Chances are pretty good it wont return. That said, go now. Already, another year has passed.