Funnily enough, this is pretty much how I feel when cycling.

Certain places, certain times of year, seem to have a resonance that might legitimately be called "magic".

Locations: an old friend called Jon Goss used to have an apartment at Fulton and Masonic streets in San Francisco, with a rooftop that overlooked a typical urban scene: cornershop, pizza restaurant, supermarket car park and just general street life.  Nothing out of the ordinary, really, at least on the surface of things.  But there was something about going up there with a few plastic lawn chairs, a crate of beer and a few friends that just brought something out in everyone.  An openness and togetherness and peacefulness that was unique to the location.  It simply couldn't be replicated elsewhere.  My friend Pat called it a "Power Spot", claiming that the Native Americans believed in them and designated them as sacred places.  I have no idea whether that's true or not, but the concept seemed valid at the time and still does.

In terms of sacred times of year, I've always found jul (or "Yule", to give it its Anglicized name) - the winter solstice - to be a time of magic, when the door of possibility briefly opens and there's that same kind of harmony and opportunity and connection in the air.  It is a potent time of year, when everything seems possible.  The shortest day of the year and the longest night, but after this everything's going to keep on getting better.

In my experience, late spring and late summer/early autumn have always been other such times of magic.  Maybe because, like jul, they represent times of change and with change comes opportunity and new horizons.  Whatever the case, jul seems the most powerful: the time when the cosmic pendulum swings from darkness to light, bringing change and hope for the New Year and maybe even a new era.

I hope that this jul will bring a new hope and new direction to my own life and to yours, too, if you're looking for it.  Here's to better times in 2007 and beyond.

2005 was a year of spectacular highs and lows.  I met someone unique and amazing who, through a special chemistry we had that can be neither replicated nor replaced, fundamentally shook up my life.  And then disappeared out of my life completely.  I lost my heart and then just plain lost heart.  It was the worst time of my life, ever.  But, thanks to the best and most beautiful set of friends that anyone has ever had, I made it through somehow without doing an Ian Curtis.

Still, despite all the hugs and kind words, I didn't really see a worthwhile future or reason to look forward to anything in this life.  I was resigned to just killing time.  Until, strangely, my love of cycling was rekindled.  It sounds ridiculous, perhaps, but it's true nonetheless.

Now I have tangible goals again: places I want to go, races I want to race, events and rides I want to complete.  Not just goals, but dreams to fulfil.

Life is short and there are a lot of kilometres to be covered.

How important is tension to creativity?  I've been asking myself this question over the past day or two.  Feeling a wave of sadness and negativity sweep over me towards the end of last week, some hypnotherapy this week has made me feel noticeably more relaxed and positive.  But in many ways I also feel less creative or, perhaps more accurately, less inclined towards writing, etc.

Is it a fair trade?

Federico Lorca once said: "At the heart of all great art is an essential melancholy."

I would tend to agree.  So is the trade-off worth it?

A happy Ian Curtis would never have written all of those great Joy Division songs and would never have been remembered as a legend.  But he would most probably still be alive today.  Same with Kurt Cobain, Elliot Smith and quite a few others.  Extreme examples, it's true, but relevant nonetheless.

Maybe some people can be highly creative and happy at the same time.  I'm not sure that I'm one of those people.  So, again, is it a fair trade?

The turn of a personal New Year, and I hereby predict that 39 is going to be a year to remember!  A year of progress on all fronts.  A year of new achievements and experiences.  A year to fall in love with life all over again.

Because time is too precious to waste.

It seems logical: when you're cycling, you can occasionally afford to take a brief look behind you to see where you've been or something interesting that you've just passed by the roadside.  But it's best to keep your eyes on the road ahead of you lest in a moment of inattention you miss the next turn or, worse, run into a pothole or wrap yourself around a lampost or ride off the road into a tree or perhaps even veer across into oncoming traffic.

It seems to me that dwelling on the past is like that, too.  We learn from where we've been, or at least most of us try to do so, but it's where we are in the journey and what's in front of us that requires our attention most urgently.

Life is a journey where there is no turning back, however beautiful that last view was or whether the wind is at our back or even if the course is turning us directly into a headwind.  We keep cycling.  We stay focused on the road ahead if we want to reach our destination.

Putting that into practice is damn hard work.  Especially for me, someone for whom the past deeply resonates.  But it's better than ending up in a ditch while the rest of the peloton races by.

Okay, I'm getting quasi-philosophical here.  Sue me if you don't like it! :-)

I have a unique knack for screwing up the things that matter most to me.  For getting into an ideal position to realize my potential and fulfil my greatest dreams, only to crash and burn spectacularly at the key moment.  Or to be in the right place at the wrong time, or the wrong place at the right time, or just the wrong place at the wrong time.  Whichever.  The result is always the same.  Heartache, heartbreak, despair, pain and tears before bedtime.  "Take a left, a sharp left, then another left.  Meet me on the corner, we'll start again."

But when I cycle, all the demons that are fuelled by my lost opportunities for happiness are redirected, driving my legs forward just one more revolution of the pedals.

When I am cycling, I can lose myself, destroy myself, change myself, find myself and finally, somehow, redeem myself.  All in the surroundings of the great outdoors.

That is why I, Steven Bradley Olson, must be a cyclist.

We are in some kind of hybrid version of Northern California and the North East of England. Gillian, my wife with whom in real, wide awake life I am involved in a long, drawn-out amicable divorce and who is still one of my best friends, is with me in a cluttered shop that sells newspapers, magazines, sweets, camera batteries, etc. Like one you'd find at a British motorway services station but less well-organized. It is in some kind of indoor shopping mall.

We have just been to a Newcastle Eagles basketball game (in real life, we have been season ticket holders for years), but the game is at a gymnasium rather than at the MetroRadio Arena. It was a pre-season game against a team from New Zealand, but we just saw a little bit of it and didn't stay to watch until the end.

The Eagles' owner, Paul Blake (who in real life is a friend and really does own the team), owns the shop and is behind the counter at the front where people pay for their purchases. He is busy discussing something with another customer or maybe a supplier. Gillian and I queue up to buy a magazine that she wants (probably She or Shape or Runners World). Paul recognizes me and greets me with a smile and a handshake and says that he'll talk to me after he deals with the guy he's currently helping.

I start looking through the sweets in the aisle closest to the queue at the front of the shop and notice a vending machine, blue in colour, similar to but larger than a cigarette machine, that sells goods on a random basis (i.e., so that you don't know exactly what you'll get when you put your money in). It is at the side of the shop near the front entrance. Gillian likes the look of it and gives me a pound coin to try our luck.

As I go back towards the machine to put our money in, the Eagles coach, Fab Flournoy and captain TJ Walker (both of whom I'm acquainted with in real life), enter the shop. They are dressed in blue denim jeans jackets and are carrying their black sports bags over their shoulders. The game has finished and the Eagles have lost. Fab recognizes me and greets me. He extends his hand forward in a fist to knock it together with mine in greeting, but I've extended my hand forward to shake his hand instead. After the awkward handshake that results, I try again and move my fist towards his. I get it right this time.

Fab is happy despite the loss because he is pleased with the team's effort. TJ doesn't say anything but acknowledges me with a nod as he heads directly to an office at the back of the shop. Fab soon follows and I put the pound coin into the vending machine. It spits out a copy of the Readers Digest Calorie Counters Guidebook. This is a disappointment as I know that Gillian already has it at home (in real life, she doesn't, but it's the sort of thing she might very well pick up if she saw it in the shops). I take it from the machine and go to join her in the queue.

There is some kind of transition in the dream.

Gillian and I are in Marin County, California. But it is a hybrid of Marin and Newcastle. We are in the Larkspur/Kentfield area as I work at College of Marin although it is actually my real-life job at Northumbria University and all of my co-workers from Northumbria are there.

It is a rainy day. We park our car - some kind of newish model luxury car like a BMW or Cadillac or Jaguar - in the carpark and go into the main building. We go to the basement where there is some kind of small radio studio, dark and cluttered with a lot of light brown chipboard fixtures. Everything is being hastily packed up into boxes to be moved out.

Graham, one of the caretakers from Northumbria is there. He tells me that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is shutting the place down because it has "lost the case." I don't know what "the case" is because I have been away from work for so long and thus out of touch (in real-life, I have been off work for several months with a fractured leg and I seem to have been off for a similar amount of time in the dream, although I am walking and even running with no apparent problems or concerns).

I find it difficult to believe that the entire college is being closed down because of a lawsuit that has been lost in court. "Who were its lawyers?" I wonder to myself. We go back up some stairs to the main entrance foyer. Everything is brand new but workmen are dismantling it and taking it all away. Gillian goes off somewhere else and I go to try to see Jen, my boss in both the dream and in real life, in another part of the college.

Before I get to Jen's office, I run into Bill, the technical support manager, in the corridor outside of the main admin office. This is similar to the corridor outside the old main admin office in Ellison Building at Northumbria before its location moved to Pandon Building. Bill tells me that the college is shutting down because of the result of the lawsuit and that everyone is losing their jobs effective from the following week. "It's on again," he says, as if I had any idea that the closedown was on in the first place. I take it he means that there has already been some kind of appeal after an initial decision and that we have lost that as well. How could this all happen because of something a college radio DJ said on air? What did they actually say to libel someone that badly?

I leave the building and head back to the car. Other College of Marin employees are also leaving, many for the last time from the looks of things, carrying boxes full of their personal belongings. I am still amazed that this can really be happening. I think that Broadstock Office Furniture, one of our major suppliers in both the dream and in real life, is going to be totally screwed because of the amount of money still outstanding on our account with them. And how can I pay my own debts now?

I get back to the car and wait for Gillian, who is still inside the main building dealing with something else. I decide to start backing the car out of its space. I back halfway out and spot Gillian coming out of the main doors about forty yards away, just as a heavy downpour begins. She runs for the car and I get out to let her into the driver's seat.

I awake and the dream ends.

It's 5:42 a.m. Do you know where your joie de vivre is?

Peter Gabriel said it best: "Digging in the dirt to find the places we got hurt."  Welcome to my nightmare, gentle readers.  All of this really happened as retold below.

It is the autumn of 1980.  Jimmy Carter is in his final months as occupant of the White House.  Leonid Brezhnev is in the Kremlin.  There is a war in Afghanistan.  I have recently turned 13 years old.

I am a shy young teenager with almost no confidence or self-belief.  My dad, probably unconsciously, has always followed the negative reinforcement school of raising children.  My sister, two years younger, has either escaped the worst of it or is made of harder stuff than me.  At 11 years old, she is much more confident and forthright in almost all social situations.

We are Lutherans.  Along with many of the other local families of Scandinavian or Germanic origin and ancestry, we attend the local Lutheran Church every Sunday and on the occasional weeknight, too, in our small city located not very far north of San Francisco.  There are people from other backgrounds, too, who have somehow found their way into the Lutheran tradition by routes other than family bloodlines.

Most of the girls there who are my age or thereabouts are very, very beautiful.  I have recently hit puberty and, although even as a younger child I've always liked girls, I now like them even more although I am painfully shy about expressing it.  One in particular, Bobbie, has specifically caught my eye.  She is not the usual blonde, Scandinavian-American girl typical of the church's youth membership, but dark haired with light brown skin, with perhaps a slightly Polynesian appearance.  For a 13 year old, she already has well-developed and attractive feminine curves.  My heart beats a little bit faster when she is nearby.

I have been around Bobbie all of the summer just past as, fortuitously, she has ended up on the same girls' softball team as my sister.  I go to every game religiously during the summer vacation, as if I'm some kind of season ticket holder.  It is not primarily because I am interested in the day-to-day results of the team as they strive for a playoff spot.

As previously mentioned, I am not a confident person.  Any real self-belief has been drilled out of me by a combination of my dad's negativity and hectoring and a succession of sadistic bullies amongst my peers at school.  It is a huge, laboured and painful undertaking to work up the courage to ask Bobbie out.  Ultimately, I fudge it and end up getting my sister to do the hard bit by acting as an intermediary.  To my suprise, Bobbie says yes to my invitation to go ice skating, one of my favourite things as I have recently become a hockey player.  I am nervous but excited.  This is a dream that I have dreamed all summer long, coming true at last.

From there, things don't go quite the way I had envisioned.

The public ice rink is located in another city, about 45 minutes' drive north of us.  This will require transport.  Transport will require the assistance of one or both of my parents.

My parents are not normal at the best of times, but they are outdoing themselves with this one.  They neither understand nor appreciate what a big deal this is to me, how personal it is.  My shyness and overall lack of self-confidence is, even at this age, already combined with an inner passion and intensity to love and be loved, accepted and understood.  My parents are not malicious, but my dad's laughter and my mom's barely-disguised giggles and their combined inability to keep a straight face when we are discussing arrangements for my "big date" are soon casting a shadow of humiliation over this rite of passage that is so important to me.

The big evening itself soon comes around.  Things go from bad to unbelievably bad, humiliating to excruciatingly humiliating.  I had envisioned our date as one in which Bobbie and I would be discreetly chauffered to the ice rink and back by either my mom or my dad in the family car, with a trip to the pizza parlour beforehand for what at the time would have passed for a romantic meal for a pair of 13 year olds.  What actually happened was traumatic and embarrassing to the point of scarring my already delicate psyche for years to come.

My date somehow became a family night out.

Come the big evening, both of my parents and my sister end up in our huge, bottle green Buick Skylark as we drive across town to pick up Bobbie from her parents' house.  I am already nervous going into the date but now I am hotwired like nobody's business.  This is going very, very badly before we've even collected my erstwhile date.

We get to Bobbie's house.  She is smiling and bubbly and full of laughter, as she usually is, and is dressed in her nicest top and jeans.  I am a collection of exposed nerve endings.  My sister immediately strikes up a conversation with her, which is maintained with contributions from my parents and only the occasional interjection from me for the length of the journey north.  For the most part, I maintain a nervous silence.  The "date" with Bobbie is no longer mine but my entire family's.

Nevertheless, the conversation goes on mixed with a soundtrack provided by KFRC on the car radio.  I specifically remember the disco tones of Diana Ross' Upside Down and Sister Sledge's We Are Family coming on during the journey.  Disco was in its final days in the autumn of 1980, with new wave approaching just over the horizon.

We stop to eat at Shakey's pizza parlour and then pile back into the car and drive to the ice rink.  Unlike the others, as a hockey player I have my own ice skates.  Bobbie and my sister hire rental skates and my parents pay for our tickets for the public session.  It is a Friday night and the ice rink is busy with teenage session skaters mostly hugging the barriers and the odd figure skater occupying the expanse of space in the middle.

I don't remember a lot about the actual ice skating, except that my parents sat in the grandstands watching my sister, Bobbie and I skate around in circles and that we had a trip to the rink cafe for mugs of hot chocolate somewhere around halfway through the public session.  My sister seemed to do most of the socializing with my erstwhile date, although at some point, with the transition to the traditional dark purple and blue lighting, I remember Bobbie and I taking part in one of the "couples skate" interludes, holding hands as we slowly made our way around the outside edges of the rink, the safety barriers always within easy reach.

I also don't remember much of anything about the trip home afterwards, except feeling that the night was an overall, and very personal, disaster and that my humiliation was complete when we reached Bobbie's parents' house again and my dad prompted me (unnecessarily) to be a gentleman and walk her to her door.  There was, of course, no goodnight kiss.  Neither was there ever any second date.

My parents saw nothing wrong with anything that had happened.  In fact, they thought the whole thing was "cute".

The horror complete, it was imperative to avoid such a soul-destroying catastrophe ever happening again.  Although there were one or two opportunities to acquire a girlfriend in the years to come, on those somewhat infrequent occasions when they arose throughout my high school years I declined to take them.

Indeed, it would be almost nine years until my next date, which took place a safe 5000 miles away from my famliy, in Scotland when I was on an exchange year at Edinburgh University.  That one went a lot better, but somewhere in my soul I was - and remain to the present day - tortured by the feelings of humiliation that were created and low self-esteem that were reinforced by that fateful first attempt at forging a romantic connection with another human being.

To this day, I am still a bundle of nerves and dark forboding whenever it comes to romantic relationships.  And no wonder that should be the case!  God help me.  God help us all.