Franciscan Media: Biking Down Davidson through Waves

Anyone who knows me also know how much I love to bike around the city. I fell in love with city living several years ago and have not looked back. I love hopping on my bike and going to my favorite coffeeshop or brewery to write and to work. I love exploring the different trails and streets and discovering the most efficient routes. I love not using my car. When I’m on my bike, I feel like myself again. I get out of the loops in my head and the heaviness of my heart, which can sometimes occupy my days or nights, and back into my body. I return to my senses, beyond my thinking, which we westerners are quite good at, and am reminded that I am much more than my mind. As I listen to those city sounds—the howling train and the thumping cars and the music flowing out into the street from the bars—and as I smell those city smells—all the restaurants I cannot afford and the farm-like stenches from breweries that remind me of my rural home and even the piss beneath the bridge—and as I see all those stories walking on the sidewalk and waiting at the bus stop and clanking glasses for friendship’s sake in the pub window, I feel human once more, my senses guiding me out of the mental and emotional labyrinth within and back into a world that I share with my brothers and sisters. On my bike, I get back into my body and into the present. You kind of have to be present. You’re on a bike in the city. You’ll get flattened by a bus if you remain in the labyrinth.

This blog was first published on Franciscan Spirit. You can read the rest of the blog entry HERE.