MISTRESS APRIL

Spring is often a time of renewing. Up here near the Sierra Mountains of Sequoia National Park where I live, the snows are just beginning to melt at the summit peaks, the fish travel to and fro of the three rivers of the Kaweah, the bears are starting to wake, the birds sing louder and happier, and the neighbor’s calves find their way to my place, usually camping out near my front porch.

The hills are still green with orange poppies sprinkled throughout, and the tourists have yet to arrive for the annual Red Bud Festival and Jazzaffair. It’s a quiet area during the winter months, but now that spring has arrived, people and businesses are beginning to spruce up to look their best.

So, too, am I beginning to see a few changes of my own. For years, Hollywood has been wanting to turn my life story into a feature film, but we could never agree on how I actually lived it. Their version is so much more different than my own. I never knew I went to bed with so many woman and still managed to cycle the Great Wall of China. What a feat of stamina!

I have turned down millions of dollars and multiple offers just to keep the integrity of what my life has been like; that it’s always been my faith that has gotten me through, and if that can’t be dealt with than what more do we have to talk about?

Until recently...

These last couple of weeks, I have had the most delightful and hopeful conversations with a film producer that can see the story my way; the way it happened, and not some cookie cutter, generic monstrosity slapped together just to make a fast buck to feed to a fast food culture.

Let’s give the audience their money’s worth! Let’s take them to a place that they’ll never get to in their lives! Let’s inspire them to go out and turn their own dreams into reality! Let’s give them a Rocky and a Chariots of Fire! Let’s give them the truth...

Thus far, the producer and I are on the same wave length and I am encouraged by that. It takes a bold person of faith to keep up with me. I am not for the faint of heart.

Soon now, I’ll be heading south once again to Los Angeles to meet face to face with this producer to begin further talks. So far, I like what I hear, but the question is, can we continue moving forward in unison, or do I take a walk once again? Time will give the answer.

If we can move ahead toward the next level, and actually seal a deal, my life will change drastically as it did when I went from peon factory worker to an internationally known Cyclist of the Year. My quiet life in the mountains will be a thing of the past. My time will be most precious to me.

Ah! But to inspire others like you who are reading this particular entry... If we could come to terms and make this film, and have you sit in a dark theatre for a couple of hours and be transported and inspired afterwards to finally go out and turn your own dreams into reality, then I will be blessed beyond measure for that is at the core of what I would like to see.

Just as the Lord knows no such thing as time, neither do dreams. Some dreams you can turn into reality in a moment, while other dreams take on a life of their own that seemingly lasts forever. What matters most is if you have the three Ds...desire, determination and drive. Those three Ds will ultimately give you the fourth D...your Dream!

That's ultimately what we live for...our hopes and dreams, not our day to day realities.

Until next month...