The lessons that come

Wrapped in skin

Who walk alongside for a while

Glimmers of laughter

Sparkles of smiles

Wisdom dropped like tea leaves

Percolated through a filter of life experience

Thoughts meandering

Emerging as something new

Different points of view

Threads pulled

into a tapestry by fate

Some will last a lifetime

echoing on

Embedded in memory

Resonating

For years to come

*

I’ve just spent ten days in close company with fifty strangers, brought together by the universe to ride alongside me on the Postie Bike Challenge.

This morning, as I pack for my flight home from Canberra, it strikes me: I truly will never see any of them again. Some had already become part of my daily rhythm—like sunshine on cold fingers, their absence stings. Only this morning, the ache sits in my chest rather than my hands.

Humans are both the best and the hardest part of a life well lived. Though I am mostly solitary, I have loved drifting into the orbit of a tribe these past days.

The week has been full of lessons. Some practical—navigating mechanics, climate, terrain. Others more subtle—learning to balance my own needs with the expectations of others, riding in formation, finding my place in the group.

I usually avoid group culture, having spent too much time in boarding schools, and then as an adult, in clubs and on committees. So this was an intense refresher in community—and at times, I didn’t get it right.

Books can only carry you part of the way in this life and as vital as they are, they have limits. The real curriculum is written in people—their joys, flaws, and contradictions. Those lessons arrive raw and unfiltered, but they carve wisdom far deeper than anything on a page.

No doubt, the knowledge will continue to bubble up in small epiphanies for the next few weeks.

And I’m looking forward to that.