Bike Riding

I hadn't been out on my bike for a couple of weeks, but I used my recovered hour this morning to go out for a ride. The first few pedals felt terrific; the power of my legs going to the wheels and propelling me forward. That was great, but I realized as I continued that there was more to my enjoyment than that.

The great thing about bike riding is that it's full of sensation. The feeling of the fast air on my skin, the smell of an autumn morning, the sounds of everything from birds and squirrels to cars and lawnmowers, and sights of the length and contour of the road and everything it passes through make it a rich experience. I realized as I rode along, that all the comforts of home mean the absence of those senses. Don't get me wrong, I think that homes have many good points, facilitating survival being perhaps the handiest. But if you're in a properly heated, quiet, relatively odorless place, it maybe dulls your senses just a bit (thank goodness I don't have to work in such a place). You don't really notice it until you get a jolt like I did this morning. I also noticed that somebody's running for Sheriff of Narberth. Does he get to wear a silver star?

The one thing that always bothered me about living and working in the suburbs is that it's possible to get through your entire day almost completely isolated from your environment. This is why I couldn't wait to move out of LA, which was much worse because everything there is designed not only so that you don't have to step out into anything, but so that you can avoid all but the most necessary human contact as well. Where I live, at least I can and do walk to the supermarket or the drug store, or ride a bike to almost anything important. But you have to make the effort. There's nothing about suburban life that naturally tends toward that. When I lived in Manhattan, I walked 2 miles to and from work, and it was never boring. Even when I lived on Old City I could walk to my office in Liberty Place and that wasn't boring either.

Whenever we travel, I always like to get out and find the supermarket and the post office and all the regular life stuff. It helps me feel that I am where I am, and not just floating through. It puts everything in context. I find that comforting.