With the first one in the books, I’m running with the theme and brazing up DR2 before getting back to the business of making frames for those waiting. Having taken most of the spring and summer off, it’s a good idea to get some bench time and all it entails before I do anything for reals. Don’t get me wrong. The units I’m presently involved in are real; but if I do stumble on my way back, let me do it without a name attached. These two frames will become stock, or display, or spec bicycles. They’re being assembled so I can comfortably and with clear conscience crawl back through the commercial window.
The reboot has been going very well and, when I allow myself the luxury to self-indulge, I consider the move back the best decision made in 2015. We had our time away, spent enough of it pondering and getting to know ourselves, and we grew. Deb took a few of those years and got her Masters Degree in Writing For Children. Now, she has several books in the works and also is a reviewer for Kirkus. I’m very proud of her.
For myself, living on the pond gave me the much needed space to consider what’s next. I’d felt like most of my fifties was about looking at where I’d been, what I’d accomplished, and deciding what parts of it I wanted to carry in my bags now that those years were already lived. There was a fair amount of curating and pruning, and managing and archiving my past rather than living days in the present. Using the rear view mirror to look through, the quiet time in Franklin County was what I needed to get away from that guy I was, and ready myself to become the one I want to be.
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