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Welcome back to The Bend!
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The Bend follows a simple rhythm each week. The Eddy Line opens with a one-line thought or
observation, something short enough to remember but worth thinking
about. What the Current Pulled Toward dives a
little deeper into where the previous week’s energy went, whether that’s
a project, a partnership, or a personal lesson learned. Signal Fire highlights a person, place, or initiative
that deserves some attention. And One Thought Worth
Sitting With closes things out with a brief reflection or quote
that will hopefully help guide you through whatever you may be dealing
with.
It’s part journal, part field note, and hopefully
something that makes you pause for a moment before diving back into the
current.
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“Resilience isn’t just getting back up, it’s making
the conscious
decision to ride again after the
wreck.“
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What the Current Pulled Toward
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This week, the current
pulled toward resilience, the kind you actually earn. Not the glossy,
motivational poster version, but the kind that comes from skinned knees,
a shaky breath, and just pushing through.
My son’s spent the last couple of years floating between
things, trying to figure out where he fits after he lost interest in the
usual team sports. After riding recreationally for years, this season he
landed on competitive mountain biking. First race? He held his own.
Second race? He wrecked and didn’t finish, earning a DNF next to his
name. That meant he had to start way at the back of the field for the
third race. But instead of sulking, he got in line, found his pace, and
started passing people. Ten riders, to be exact. He crossed the finish
line looking stronger than he did at the start of the season.
Watching him deal with the mess of disappointment
and then get back up made something click for me: resilience isn’t just
about finishing. It’s about getting yourself to the start line again
after you wipe out.
That same lesson
popped up at home, too. This week my wife and I marked our seventh
wedding anniversary. Leading up to it (it was yesterday, by the way), I
kept thinking about how much quiet resilience lives inside love. It’s in
the honest conversations when things feels uncertain. It’s in the
reminders that everything is a season (see last issue) in the middle of
rough patches. It’s in the choice to keep picking each other when life
feels heavy. I’m so grateful for my wife: for her steadiness, her
patience, and the way she continually helps me to find my
footing.
Watching my son race and
thinking about our marriage, I kept coming back to this: the people we
love are the ones who really show us what strength looks
like.
-
Mike.
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As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Roanoke Star Cycling (RSC)
is a youth mountain-bike organization serving young people ages 7 to 18,
with a mission to teach teamwork, goal-setting, and healthy lifestyles
in a fun, supportive environment.
Over the past year,
I had the privilege of working with RSC as interim executive director.
They were one of my very first clients and I was brought on to determine
the feasibility of the position in the long term and then lay the
foundation for moving forward (board organization, standard operating
procedures, sponsorship packages, etc.). We collectively determined that
the position was feasible and I assisted in the hiring of and transition
to the permanent Executive Director, Susan Herndon‑Powell. Under
her leadership, I have no doubt that the team will continue to expand
its reach through recreational squads, competitive cross-country, and
gravity racing programs, as well as outreach programs like the “Rising
Stars” initiative that simply puts more kids on
bikes.
What
sticks with me is the simple truth behind the activity: riders show up,
take risks, get muddy, lose sometimes, and then keep riding. That kind
of grit does more than build athletes, it builds
individuals who understand what it means to fall and get up, to persist,
and to grow. The same resilience we encourage
in youth is exactly the resilience our communities and our own work
need.
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One Thought Worth Sitting With
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This week’s theme: Resilience.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who
points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could
have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in
the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives
valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is
no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to
do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who
spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the
triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least
fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those
cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
- Theodore Roosevelt
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