One-day Decompression

Alison Skirtboston

Skirt! Boston editor

Skirt! is evidence that the universe is paying attention: I spent the last six years at mach speed, whether finishing college (Emerson) while writing full time for Boston Globe West (2001-2004) or editing the Boston Parents’ Paper during the day while holding down the steady gig writing for Globe ...

Monday, August, 4, 2008

What do you do with a day off? I generally run around like a crazy woman, trying to do as many errands as possible so I’m not awash in guilt on a weekday evening when it hits me like a truck that I haven’t a) gotten a prescription filled, or b) had the oil changed, or c) filed some incredibly important letter or document or rebate that was time-sensitive and now requires major groveling to submit late.

But on Friday I had a different kind of day off, a relaxing, out-of-touch day off. I had to take the kids to Hartford for something they wanted to do, so I packed my bike and a change of clothes and found the Air Line Rail Trail. Then I started pedaling and let the stress fall by the wayside. Gradually.

This is the sort of thing I was confronted by on my day off: processing beautiful scenery and wildlife (there were ducks near the rocks in the photo) instead of pounding on a keyboard. Tough stuff.

Still, I got to thinking... it seemed to take a very long time for the noise in my head to subside and the repetitive pedaling to churn the stress away. I realized that the monotony of a straight, flat trail through the woods and past wetlands created more of a zen atmosphere than mountain biking usually does. It was so darn low-key, with none of mountain biking’s rock-jumping and white-knuckling that the trees seemed to slowly exfoliate my stress...

It’s probably because I don’t do something every day to prevent that dangerous build-up of stress... I have hours of yoga on the DVR but I’m so stuck in my workday routine that I rarely think of turning it on.