My Own Private Earth Day
I awoke this morning tense. Must have fallen asleep before 9pm the evening before, spent the whole night waking up and trying to go back to sleep. Had a decent day at work and a decent day overall. You know: The Usual.
I thought about cars today. Not really cars, the polluters. Or cars, the metal street hogs. Not even cars, the identity symbol. Instead of all that, I thought about cars, the comfort space.
There's this cozy bubble I know well. Encased each day as I am, delivery driving that big loud van, boxes of this and that going here and there, its easy to look forward to all that control. Heat or a/c, fast or mozying, stereo up, stereo down. New song. Same song. When I'm among all the blank faces on the highway, that sense of control is crucial. And when cruising through the city, there's a mood I can set for myself. The right song, at the right moment, the window rolled down the right amount. Perfect!
And then there's getting to and from work. There's my life on a bicycle, my life outside of work.
There are days when I really have to pedal hard to and from anywhere. Maybe its drizzling, maybe its a beautiful day, maybe I don't notice one way or the other. Maybe I had a great nights sleep and a spot on breakfast. Maybe it was hell all night and an empty cupboard at sunrise. Doesn't seem to matter all that much. Sometimes that 2.24 mile bike ride into work is effortless and sometimes its really hard work.
In the space of an average weekday - the ride to work, the driving all day, and the ride home - its hard to come to any sense of phrasing, any kind of movement. In the space of a day, its hard to parse out any truth at all.
But over the weeks and months I start to really appreciate those effortless days, riding into work. I see some of the same people each day; I exchange hello's with a few of them. And those sluggish days in, however frequent, just dissipate as soon as I get to work. Sometimes its really cold and my hands hurt. Sometimes its pouring rain and I forgot a fresh pair of socks. Sometimes its so beautiful I can barely stand it and I can't ride fast enough and I feel especially alive.
But driving that van everyday is exactly the same. The same battle for a good song, the same battle for a parking space, the same sad faces battling the congestion, the same battle someone is fighting for all that oil. Its a mechanical battle from top to bottom.
By the poetry of the bicycle, the combustion engine feels like a bad joke, running on too long.
And there's this settling kind of comfort found in, well, discomfort. Being alone with where I've taken my life, feeling singled out by the elements or just down on my luck... everyone feels these things. We work to hold them back, to banish them to someplace else, at least as far as the back seat. But comfort is the devil in us all.
So today, my own private earth day, as truly everyday is for each of us, I choose discomfort.
I thought about cars today. Not really cars, the polluters. Or cars, the metal street hogs. Not even cars, the identity symbol. Instead of all that, I thought about cars, the comfort space.
There's this cozy bubble I know well. Encased each day as I am, delivery driving that big loud van, boxes of this and that going here and there, its easy to look forward to all that control. Heat or a/c, fast or mozying, stereo up, stereo down. New song. Same song. When I'm among all the blank faces on the highway, that sense of control is crucial. And when cruising through the city, there's a mood I can set for myself. The right song, at the right moment, the window rolled down the right amount. Perfect!
And then there's getting to and from work. There's my life on a bicycle, my life outside of work.
There are days when I really have to pedal hard to and from anywhere. Maybe its drizzling, maybe its a beautiful day, maybe I don't notice one way or the other. Maybe I had a great nights sleep and a spot on breakfast. Maybe it was hell all night and an empty cupboard at sunrise. Doesn't seem to matter all that much. Sometimes that 2.24 mile bike ride into work is effortless and sometimes its really hard work.
In the space of an average weekday - the ride to work, the driving all day, and the ride home - its hard to come to any sense of phrasing, any kind of movement. In the space of a day, its hard to parse out any truth at all.
But over the weeks and months I start to really appreciate those effortless days, riding into work. I see some of the same people each day; I exchange hello's with a few of them. And those sluggish days in, however frequent, just dissipate as soon as I get to work. Sometimes its really cold and my hands hurt. Sometimes its pouring rain and I forgot a fresh pair of socks. Sometimes its so beautiful I can barely stand it and I can't ride fast enough and I feel especially alive.
But driving that van everyday is exactly the same. The same battle for a good song, the same battle for a parking space, the same sad faces battling the congestion, the same battle someone is fighting for all that oil. Its a mechanical battle from top to bottom.
By the poetry of the bicycle, the combustion engine feels like a bad joke, running on too long.
And there's this settling kind of comfort found in, well, discomfort. Being alone with where I've taken my life, feeling singled out by the elements or just down on my luck... everyone feels these things. We work to hold them back, to banish them to someplace else, at least as far as the back seat. But comfort is the devil in us all.
So today, my own private earth day, as truly everyday is for each of us, I choose discomfort.