bike zen

today I went on a bike ride.

For an hour and a half.

I wish I could do that more often, but the thing is, I don't usually have that kind of chunk of free time at bikeable times during the week. However, I did want to share one thought I had as I was pushing into the gusts of wind. I was biking up the BIGGEST hill and decided that I wanted to make it all the way up without getting off my bike. (If you saw this hill, you'd understand. Plus it's gravel and I have a road bike.) Then I decided to think of it as inviting rather than challenging. I told myself that the hill wanted me to make it to the top, was beckoning me. I explained to myself that my bike wanted me to make it to the top. The crest of the hill was even pulling me forward, willing me to arrive. The gusts of wind felt like they were against me, but they weren't. They were really for me, but a gust of wind can't just switch from north to south, can it? And I did it! I biked up that hill, quads burning, lungs panting, but feeling good because everything was drawing me upwards.

And afterward, one third of me thought, "what kind of weird nonsense was that?"

But the other two thirds really liked the whole idea. I'm not really a fighter. I don't like the idea of battling against a hill. And c'mon. A human versus a geographical feature? You tell me which one's likely been there longer. Don't even talk about dynamite, you know that's not what I mean. And I don't really like the idea of battling against life. I don't really like the idea of battling. (I've now typed "battling" so many times it doesn't seem real anymore.) Far more compelling is the idea of being invited into something. An adventure, a journey, your LIFE! Invited to climb the hill, invited to deeper relationships with others, invited to time alone.

Oh perspective. Oh biking.