Bicycle Tires

Monday evening, I made it home in time to take Chance for his evening bike ride before the sun set. This was fantastic. First of all, it's rare that I get home that early anymore...it's usually 10:30-11 at night before I arrive to my furball thanks to my pursuit of another higher degree. Second, it was a nice warm evening, mid 70s with a breeze blowing. There are two fountains in the large lake in our neighborhood, and they were both lit up, with a nice red sunset behind them. What a sight. And, where else in the US would I be out in mid-November with flip flops on and light yoga pants without being chilled or cold or playing tough like I'm not cold? Nowhere but south Florida.

I enjoy my bike rides with Chance. While the same route gets boring from time to time, I still can enjoy and smile and breathe in a deep breath of forest air (and CO from the nearby interstate). the path we ride on is blacktop pavement, but not the smooth kind--it's more like the kind that looks like rocks that are melting together.

So, near the end of our ride, I was coasting (as by 2 miles of running a 108 pound furball, he's finally tired and slows down). I put my legs down straight, you know where they are parallel to the pavement but not touching it. I looked down, and what I saw were my toes sticking out of my flip flops, and the wheels of the bike turning round and round, going over these pebbles like lightspeed. From the perspective of an insect, these pebbles are life size, and the wheels are even larger--larger than life, and regardless of what pebble the tires hit, they keep on rolling, slowing down and speeding up with the rises and falls in the terrain.

Then the wheels in my head started to turn. I think that's why I love my animals so much. They force me to get out in nature, to stop and just be, to forget the daily stress--the person who pissed you off at work, the looming deadline, the bills you have to pay, the household chores you need to do, your nagging spouse, or your loneliness...my animals have always made me see the world through their eyes, or at least slow down and just smell like they do. It's these bike rides, walks, trips to the beach, that my worries go away, and my creative mind and philosophic mind awakens.

As the tires turned and I watched as my feet flew over the pebbles that flew by so fast, they looked as if they were melting together, like the days that run together when you are busy. And I thought: I wake up every Monday and wish for Friday, so I can just slow down and enjoy the great outdoors, wake up when I want, take Chancey out before the world wakes, and come home to a nice cup of coffee on the lanai and enjoy the silence. I am the big wheel, and the days that I have to overcome are just pebbles. They seem big when my tire hits one, but after it rolls over the rock, it's just another rock. And it's behind me, and my tires keep plodding on to get me to the end destination--which is and has always been HOME.

Home is where you make it. I've said this a lot. I was always told that and never realized it until I left home. I love my home. It's where I long to be--there with my family. Well, if I'm the bicycle, and today is a pebble, let me see if I can get my bike home...and enjoy some smells along the way. Smells, well, I guess those are your daily encounters, some are good, and some just plain old stink. But like smells, they pass.