2024 Coffeeneuring Challenge #9: Autumn Leaves

The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold

Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall

— Joseph Kosma 

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I slept poorly last night, and decided not to try and meet up this morning with the Coffee Outside PDX gang at the south end of the Esplanade. Instead, I slept in.

It was a good choice. I awoke at 9 feeling better rested, enjoyed coffee with Sweetie, and slowly warmed up to the day. Around eleven, the sun broke through the clouds. Sweetie told me it wouldn’t rain until around three, and that perhaps I might like to grab a short ride around the neighborhood. “Plus,” she said, “we have no chocolate in the house.”

My partner is so wise.

I dressed, grabbed the Peugeot and headed up Dekum. I stopped for coffee and a baked item at Woodlawn Coffee, and got them to go. Then, I nodded around the neighborhood and enjoyed the colorful leaves, in the trees and on the ground and a few on their way down. I stopped at a mom-n-pop store to grab some chocolate for Sweetie, and then made my meandering way to the pocket park on 10th. The weather was dry, and clouds were moving in, but I figured I had some time to enjoy my own private Coffee Outside before riding home.

On the way home, while I admired the many colors of fall, I began humming the song, “Autumn Leaves” and it became an earworm.

I probably managed a little more than two miles, and a quietly lovely mood that will make the day nicer.

Happy riding.

2024 Coffeeneuring Challenge #8: Open and Shut

I’ve been struggling with my emotions, my body, the shortening days and the weather.

I’m on a new medication this week, and it will take time to kick in. I hope it will help lessen some of the darkness on my hardest days.

 Have also come to some new understandings abut my health journey. 

And chief among them is that I am exhausted. Wiped. Out of spoons in mind, body and spirit. The losses of the last five years have opened me up to a lot of stuff and I have very little energy these days.

No wonder I haven't felt like riding my bike. It’s all piled on and I am only just beginning to sort it all out.

But still, the sun broke through the clouds this afternoon, and I knew that if I didn’t try to take advantage of that, I’d feel worse later on. So I forced myself out of bed, got dressed, and went for a Coffeeneuring ride.

It was tough going for the first mile or so. My legs felt like jelly, my knees creaked and it felt like a slog. But I knew there was a coffee place not far away where I could do the Coffeeneuring thing, so I kept pedaling.

When I got to Kiss Coffee, it was around 2:15. They had closed at 2.

Disappointed, but feeling a little better about riding, I pedaled on.

The breeze had picked up, leaves were being blown from branches and the sky was a constant swirl of clouds with patches of blue sky in between.

I rode up to Killingsworth, where I knew of at least a couple of coffee stops.

One had been converted into a restaurant and bar that wouldn’t open until at least 4.  

I rode across the street and down half a block to Extracto, which had closed at 2.

Annoyed, I decided to make a loop back to Ainsworth and MLK where I knew there’d be a Starbucks. It wasn’t ideal but it was there, and by now I was determined to have a cup of hot chocolate.

Along the way, I felt the wind pick up, and kept an eye on the sky to the southwest. If it started raining before I got to Starbucks I might get a bit wet, as I had only grabbed a rain shell but nothing else.

I made it, and the sun had come out again.

After sipping my hot chocolate and enjoying a slice of lemon pound cake, I watched the sky, read the Willamette Week and felt myself calm a little.

Living with my body has been hard. It doesn’t do all the things I used to be able to ask it to do, and bumping up hard against those moments has been painful.

But today I could ride my bike, and get home while it was still dry and partly sunny outside. With the unintended loop, I probably rode around four miles.

With all the worry and fear around the election, I may hunker down and stay in this weekend. It’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow and Sunday so I’ll probably just take hot showers and little naps and watch some old noir on cable to take my mind off my fear. And if I absolutely need to step outside, I can always try to rake some leaves off the sidewalk so no one slips on them.

Will do any more Coffeeneuring rides? I don’t know. It will depend on my health and my mood each day, perhaps each hour, and the weather. And I am slowly learning to live with that. It’s a process.

Happy riding.