What it feels like to ride...

My friend Tim, who I met outside an REI store in Mountain View, CA a few months ago, sent me an e-mail saying 'make sure you file the memory of what it feels like to ride, it's the most valuable part of the trip.'
Tim had actually ridden across the country the previous summer along the same route. Funny how you encounter people, how paths cross and people are introduced into your life. Coincidence? Or are we all connected in a way that we cannot describe or comprehend...
Again, someone needs to figure out this string theory jazz. I think it's important. But then someone told me that string theory cannot account for gravity, and gravity sure does seem to exist. The pencil drops to the floor. I do not float into the sky.

Anyway, Tim is a wise man, and I will try to remember what it feels like to ride. It is a freeing feeling. Yesterday I rode down Route 61, which follows the northern part of Lake Superior. Did you know that Lake Superior holds 10% of the world's fresh water? I did not know that. No wonder it's Superior... albeit a haughty appellation. Who died and made you King of the Lakes?

But it was scenic nonetheless. Perfect weather, slight breeze at my back, trees passing, birds chirping, sunlight shimmering on water - it was a good day. When you ride, the trees pass. Watching trees pass might be my favorite part. You can zone out - almost going cross eyed - not focusing on anything in particular. When you do this the passing trees become a blur of sorts. But it's a focused blur, if that makes sense. Things are in motion! It feels so good to be in motion. The turning of the wheel. The process of the pedal.
I enjoy the simplicity of the wheel. So simple even a caveman can do it! It is simple yet efficient. It's the circle thing again. There is no beginning and no end.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
It is how I would like this trip to be. It is not about the destination, even though I do have one. It is the journey that is important. Movement and motion. Movement can be purposeful, in fact it should be purposeful. You should move with purpose, be conscious of your movement. Feel it. Feel your feet on the ground. Your place in this world, on this Earth.

I remember one time at Mount Irenaeus (a Franciscan retreat place in western NY founded by my doppleganging good friend and brother Father Dan) a guy named Cyprian Consiglio posed the question 'what does God sound like?' as we listened to different types of music -- that has always stuck with me. I don't think of God as sound. But maybe I should.

There is a song by Damien Rice called Eskimo. There is a part in this song, after a beautiful note with him singing the word KNOW, when a woman starts singing opera. It gives me the chills, every single time. It is what God sounds like to me.

I happened to look up the lyrics one day, and this is what I found out about the opera part:

(Next section is in Finnish - sung by Doreen Curran)

kosketa minua - touch me
älä käsilläsi - not with your hands
vaan niin että tunnen sinut - but the way I can feel you

kosketa minua - touch me
älä käsilläsi - not with your hands
mutta sielussasi - but within your soul

No wonder I get the chills!

Life is holy and good.

One last thing, in remembering what it feels like to ride, you must remember the birds. Birds of all kinds, colors, shapes and sizes. I continue to be amazed - and maybe it's because i'm traveling at 14 mph that I notice these things - but I continue to be amazed by birds, and their flight.

Oh what it must feel like to be a bird on the wind! Nobody can be that free.

But these birds, these simple little birds, they must be mathematical geniuses! The math that is involved in their movements, their precise movements. The physics of their flight is spellbinding. Their little brains must always be calculating how many flaps of the wings it will take to propel them 30 feet, raise them 4.3 inches, then dive left and land on a branch. Instantly stopping. Which all happens in 1.17 seconds. How do they do that? And then you have to factor in the wind?!?
All birds are geniuses, I am sure of it. Simple, happy little geniuses.