Back on the Bike

Two weeks ago, I attempted to take the train to work, but after sitting on it for half an hour with no information available to the train crew about when we might leave the station, I got off, biked back home, got my car, and drove to work.  Arriving four hours after I'd first left the house to walk The Offspring to school.

Continued cold weather (it freezes the switches), and then high winds... I drove every day for two weeks.  I didn't think too much about the privilege involved with that, until last weekend when I was out on my bike and caught up with a bike messenger and realized he'd been out in every kind of weather.

I'll admit, the first couple of days of driving I enjoyed sitting in my own private, warm, mobile cocoon, with a soundtrack of my choice and a cupholder.  But it got old fast.

This morning it was a comparatively balmy 32 degrees, and sunny, and the East River bike path had a dusting of snow that gave a little extra sparkle to the morning light, and I thoroughly enjoyed my ride once again.

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At the start of the year, I decided to try not to get all worked up about people who drove or walked or biked into my path, but just let it go. 

I pretty quickly realized that that meant I also wasn't going to post on Facebook about the frustrations, because polishing the incidents in my mind, rolling them around and trying to extract little 15-word nuggets that would be at once pithy and humorous and profound, doesn't help much with letting go.

I've been enjoying my rides much more since then.  I notice, sometimes, how cool it can be that gazillions of people manage to navigate this fair city in cooperation, rolling up against one another like so many river-bottom stones, polishing one another just a tritch and then continuing on their way.