The Moment You Leave Your Door

I spent most of today catching my breath. I slept in. I made a pot of delectable black coffee. I read the last three days worth of newspaper. I made a list of what to do this weekend. Taxes. Done. Flexible spending account. Done. Deposit for new double-paned windows. Done. Two week of laundry. Done. Two months of recycling. Done. Clean the fridge of decay. Done. Get 21st century Internet service. Done. Relax on couch, drink more coffee, and finish Memoirs of a Geisha movie from last night. Done.

All day the sky had been dropping fierce amounts of rain and tossing the trees outside my window with harsh winds. Recently, a pair of crows have taken residence in one of the trees and built themselves a nest. I must have blinked while they were building it, because the mama sits in the nest all day and the dad stays no more than a few branches away looking after her. Once in a while he will fly out to get her some bugs and peck her on the cheek, but then he's back to his post. I worried a little as the wind punched at their tree and wailed at their little black bodies, but I remembered the pair that resided a few trees down two years ago and how they did just fine in the springtime storms. If there is one thing evolution has taught them over the years, it's how to build stormproof nests. Soon I will see three or four little heads peeking over the brim of the nest, eyes still shut with newness, beaks held wide open as they strain for the sound of mom and dad coming with their meals. And then one Saturday morning as I sit down with a cup of black coffee and a newspaper I will look over at my neighbors and see that they are gone. An empty nest with only the ghosts of springtime.

A few days of rest have brought my energy back so I was eager to take Rosemary out on a few errands. I wasn't off to set any speed records so, enjoying my day of rest, I made a glass of my favorite new drink - blackberry brandy, lime concentrate, and whatever juice is in the fridge. Mmmmmmm tasty. Sipping my drink, I checked the local weather radar and saw a break in the weather. Finally with a reason to get out of my jammies, I donned the typical winter gear and Rosemary and I set forth to invade Ballard.

With one pedal stroke I knew it was good to get out of the house despite the early evening hour. The wet, fresh, cold air. The blue-gray storm clouds streaming from the south. The air was alive. The world awaits the moment you leave your door. One of the most fortunate things we encounter as bike commuters is the ability to go slow enough to not pass up the sky. In a car, it would be like taking a scooter through the halls of the Louvre. As I rode over the Ballard Bridge I looked to the west and saw the sky overtaken by the bottomless maw of an ice blue crevasse. A blue like this doesn't happen every day. I could imagine laying on my belly peering over the edge of a crevasse on Rainier, the same dark icy blue staring back up at me from the center of the Earth. I smiled at the sky's presence and felt sorry for the drivers zooming over the bridge en masse at 45 mph, not once glancing out of the comfort of their car to see what lingers overhead. They miss moments like this every time they shut their car door and start the ignition. They seal out out the paintings of a god.

Down to the Ballard Market to return some rotten cheese (ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww), then down to Fred Meyer for an outdoor thermometer. Rosemary and I hadn't gone two blocks when the sky opened up again and began pelting up with.....rain? Hail? I don't know what it was, but it hurt my face and pinged against Rosemary's pink steel. I tried to laugh, but I couldn't see, despite being seduced by the beams of sun that were trying to emerge in between fat bulges of gunmetal blue sky. We raced the few blocks to the megastoreopolis and I parked my girl under the protection of the roof overhang. I looked back to where the storm was coming from, and sure enough, to the west was a league of golden, sun streaked clouds, while abutting them to the southwest was a plague of darkness. I smiled at the fortune of seeing such a dramatic moment in the day, when just an hour ago I was content in my home. The world awaits the moment you leave your door.

Street art on the Ballard Bridge

When I came back outside the store, a fellow rode up and parked his old Peugeot next to Rosemary. He was dressed in a big purple seed company jacket and a generic baseball hat. Jeans and tennis shoes. His bike had seen years of use. Even half of the front chainring guard was missing. He asked about my chopped handlebars and whether I have enough hand positions and if they're comfortable enough. I answered, “Of course.” Then he noticed that I only have one brake. I explained. Then the oddest thing happened: without prompting, he told me the story of when he rode 850 km around the Burgundy region of France to attend the 60th anniversary of D-Day. His eyes were shining and he smiled so much as he told me of the people he met and camping in fields. He flew over with a bike box from Recycled Cycles and unpacked it the airport and off he rode. The trains were a great way to get around, sometimes having a whole traincar for bikes, but other times you have to make a reservation. He told me of the food he ate, and how it was all so wonderful that he didn't lose a pound. "But be careful!" he told me. "The stores close at 8 p.m. so make sure you have all the food you want until the next day!" He laughed at how hungry he'd been some nights, and I laughed thinking about how I eat everything in sight when my metabolism finally kicks in. "Just be prepared when you go," he finished. "My name is William," he told me. I shook his hand and he left to do his shopping. I was left dumbfounded because my friend and I have been flirting with the idea of riding our bikes around France. Two girls, two bikes, lots of wine and lots of cheese. And chocolate. I don't know how William knew.

No one in cars meets people like William on the sidewalk of Fred Meyer. No one bothers to stop and strike up a conversation at a red light or pumping gas. They'd rather race and scream and blow their horns and bring terror into our lives. I gotta go I gotta go I gotta go! You're in my way!! I gotta go! But quietly crossing paths with other souls makes us alive. We're all human and we do need each other. Sometimes we need to stop and realize how lucky we are to be here. Every raindrop, every ride home in the dark, every bad dream, every frustration at work. Every odd duck that we meet on the street that reminds us of that dream. They all have their purpose in crossing our path. It's all precious. Just stop and savor it all.