Ode to the bicycle

Bicycles have been a kind of cosmic chorus of consciousness for me lately. These personal extensions of our imagination and spirit let us speed in the direction we are called to go. The blogisphere mourned when Jen's blissful, shiny-blue girl bike was stolen. And yet her blissful, shiny-blue trajectory continued at lightning speed.

Then I met Laura for a visit with Ross––inventor extraordinare of the sports utility bicycle––in a soul-singing community outside of Grass Valley full of people living outside, doing yoga, and honoring themselves and the planet in creative and life-affirming ways.  Here's a little snapshot of how Ross and team describe what they're up to:

We designed the Xtracycle Sport Utility Bicycle system for people like us. We like being outside and feeling strong. We care about the planet. We believe in being part of the solution and know that sometimes we aren't even close. We abuse products. We hate trying to find a parking place on Friday night. We kayak and surf. We love music. We like to push ourselves. We also like slippers and tea. We love free stuff. We love freedom and wind in the face. We love riding bikes. Sometimes we're too tired to ride. Sometimes we just can't get up the gumption. We love good food with friends. We have kids in our lives, and moms. We have friends who need rides. We always want to laugh more and be happy.

These were free-range people with enough space to breathe, roam, meditate, love; I was hugged with each introduction. I was massaged. I was fed tofu braised in brewer's yeast. We did anusara yoga in a simple, sweaty room before breakfast. I drove to the river with Moxie The Dog in my lap and climbed stones with Shannon, who was so kind she seemed to be on a vibration slightly beyond the human. This is a community transported by the bicycle. My heart ticked: home. My breath expanded. My body softened. I observed myself to be comically neurotic in the mirror of this peaceful stillness.

Upon my return, Tom, Israel and I went to see Chateau Joyeux, where Delphine falls in love with a man she knew as "the bike boy" when they were children. He's in his 70's now, a librarian, and he still rides that same bicycle to work. This man tells a story of when his wife was dying of cancer; he was so exhausted and sad from taking care of her as she declined that he set out one day on a bike ride, and discovered along the way that he intended never to return. Well, that bike had other ideas. It pitched him into walls and through brambles such that he suspected it would kill him if he didn't turn around and head home. When he entered his house all beat up from his many falls, his wife laughed and laughed and laughed. There but for the grace of bicycle we go.

All of this has me thinking about the month when the city of Portland grounded me for speeding under the influence of poetry. I rode my bike for that month, and things became far simpler. I traveled only with what could be carried on my back. I planned my time and my activities strategically. I stayed home. I biked to Genie's to take myself out to a magnificent breakfast. And I learned to ask for help. Dylan drove all of us to doggie rehab. Wendy and Nicole and Sweet Marie came to my house to take me out for adventures.

What I learned during my month without driving is that the bike offers a kind of intimacy with one's own trajectory. You feel the road under you and the wind on your face. Every mile is clocked in your bones. If you're headed uphill, your body knows it. Cars register more accurately as what they are: an arrogance of machinery that allows us to believe that we are have the right to behave badly because we are rushed and we are late and we are somehow outside of and protected from the consequences of being a vulnerable, flawed human traveling alone.