I’d like
to put in a big shout-out for junk-kilometres on the bicycle, where you don't count how far you are going, don't go
fast and have no aim. It was “that guy’s” biography where it was mostly
about the bicycle, that he alleged he wouldn’t jump on the bike unless it was
for a ride over a certain amount of miles and part of his specific training
plan. I’m guessing heart rate monitors, threshold effort and interval sprints,
blah, blah, blah. Shoot me
now.
Yesterday
was really getting me down with missing someone very much and somewhere between
little and no interest in being at work. I didn’t have a plan, didn’t want to go
home and thought I’d drop in to see the
guys at Commuter Cycles who always help me out.
Turned
off the Footscray
Road path and headed up the Moonee Ponds Creek trail
stuck behind someone who had ridden through the red light to get in front and
then ride slow. You have to negotiate a few tight and blind corners in the first
few kilometres so I was happy just to sit behind this joker and his
unpredictable cycling.
There are
the days when you feel good and strong on the bicycle and the mind is a bit
sharp and focussed. Those are the days you engage in Commuter Racing, you see
the pumped up rooster on the carbon fibre Fibonacci frame with matching kit and
just know you are stronger than him. It was the opposite of that, just letting
things happen, no effort as I pushed up past where I would have turned off to
Brunswick . It
wasn’t a conscious choice to keep riding, more of an awakening when I realised
that I had missed the path to Commuter Cycles and the weather was nice and
nothing at home for me.
Lots of
options on how to get home from where I was but too much mental effort would
have been involved in considering any of them so I just kept on cycling. No
point cycling any faster at this stage even though I had long ago lost contact
with any other cyclists out there. Bigger worry is running into any of the puppy
dogs that are not on a lead and I was quite admiring how happy all of the dogs
were yesterday enjoying their time out in the parks after being home alone all
day.
Made it
out to the Western Ring
Road and again there are a few ways I could have
cycled but there was one path there that I had never taken, leading further out
of town. Yeah, why not take the one I have never been on? It ended up not doing
much other than looping around for a few kilometres and before I knew it the sun
had gone down and I was on the banks of the mighty Maribyrnong River on the
wrong side of Brimbank Park stopping to try and take photos of what turned out
to be the most amazing bright moon I can recall seeing for quite some
time.
The cycle
home from there was grand, the weather was cool without being brisk enough to
warrant stopping and putting the thermals on. I did wonder if it would be more
pleasant to just turn all my lights off and cycle along to the light of the moon but you only need
one idiot and you end up being on the front page of the Herald Sun as
Australia ’s most irresponsible
cyclist.
I
do not know where in the process and for me it is a process, I evolve from that
feeling of empty, soulless and bereft of inspiration to feeling a bit like I can
be a part of society for a while. I
do know that it is usually when the mind starts composing again. It doesn’t
really matter what it is, sometimes stories, sometimes poems or songs, sometimes
lyrics of popular tunes playing in your mind to my own arrangement, because I
don’t know all the words so why not just join up the various good words from
multiple songs. Then there is the contemplation, the wondering,
the solving of the worlds problems.
Maybe something, somewhere, somehow
the linkage between the physical, the
importance of creativity and the soul. Then I am reminded that is only me. I need the physical to be
creative. I have written good words in the past, words I have liked and could
read again and consider myself clever for having written. Did I really write
that? Was I ever that clever? That must have been an accident. I must have been
that monkey within the infinite universe of monkeys that randomly hit the right
keys to compose Shakespeare's Hamlet. Then I remember the day I quoted Hamlet
back at someone only because I could
and they thought I was clever but really
just bad stuff from school, nearly the anti-clever. Compounded by my memories
of the other times when I have not had the words, when thing didn't
connect.
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