TL;DR Some weeks I can't fix anything. I show up anyway. And if I’m lucky, I find one place where the only option is to be completely present. That's grace. This week held more than I knew how to carry. The bike helped.

On Grace 

TSN: 26.21 | 24 May 2026 

Hiya

Saturday morning. South Pasadena. Duarte. Azusa. Sierra Madre. And back… 

Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three miles per hour, and the only thing that exists is the rider in front of me. The only thing I focus on is the few inches between our wheels

That’s not an exaggeration. 

‘Bout two hours, just over thirty-seven miles, and for that entire time, my attention is not optional. I give it completely, or I pay for it. There’s something I find deeply settling about that. The legs know what the mind sometimes forgets. 

Be here. Just here. 

I trust the riders around me. 

Until I don’t. I watch them, read their moves, assess them over miles. When someone in front of me does something that doesn’t feel right, I ease back or move up the line. It’s not distrust, exactly. It’s judgment. 

And within that judgment, when the trust holds, I can give myself over to the pace completely. 

This week asked a lot of the people I love most. 

Jodi’s mom passed away. A family friend, gone. My mom is showing signs of sadness I recognize but can’t reach. My sister is carrying more than her share, and doing it quietly, alone the way she always has. 

It is hard to watch. Harder to accept. 

My first move is always to fix things. Find a better process. Set up a system. Start again with the information available. 

But, I keep learning that grief doesn’t work that way, and somewhere in the middle of this week, I had to sit with that. 

Not comfortably. Just honestly. 

What I could do was show up. Be present for Jodi. Check in on Felice. Sit with my mom and not need the conversation to go anywhere useful. 

That’s harder than it sounds for someone wired the way I am. Showing up without an agenda might be its own kind of offering. Maybe that’s what grace looks like when I can’t fix everything. 

I also got to spend time on base this week with a small group of leaders doing real work together. Six people, one room, ideas that surprised even them. I gave myself fully to that, and it gave something back. 

And then Saturday morning. 

My bike. My legs. Two hours where the only available choice was to be completely here, trusting the wheels I’d already decided to trust. 

Grace isn’t something I manufactured this week. 

It’s something I noticed. In small moments of staying. In one very fast morning on my bike. 

That felt like enough. 

Until next week, 

JW