Today is one of those perfect clear autumn days … I’ve started riding my bicycle again recently, and today I found myself riding slow, caring less about getting my heart rate up than about feeling the warm air against my arms, about seeing the sharp outline of the gray mountains against the blue sky and the few wisps of white cloud.
This is our mild season, and it feels like spring felt when I lived up north–the time when the harshness of the hardest season has broken. In summer, we flinch from the too-bright sun, retreat to the times around dawn and dusk, stay indoors too much. Now, the feel of the air and the color of the sky urge us back outside, telling us its time to emerge after summer’s estavation, back out into the world and all its possibilities.
(Side effects of bicycling: my definition of a good coffee shop now includes things like “can be gotten to along residential streets–or at least non-residential streets with actual bike lanes” and “has a real bike rack.”) (Also, my opinion of the average driver has dropped a few notches.)