When was the last time you prayed?

This morning I rode my bike to work. It took 45 minutes, and it was lovely. A lovely day. A lovely introduction to spring. A lovely feeling of accomplishment for riding my bike to work, for starting the week riding my bike to work. Course, that could all change tomorrow, but for now, things feel possible and, hell, downright rosy.

It wasn't until the ride back, though, that I really started to see. You know, the kind of seeing that only comes from practice, from a strict discipline of noticing the things around you, of seeing the new, of looking beyond the usual. I had forgotten. I had forgotten what that was like. But my field of vision opened and I was gifted the following. A brick factory boarded and empty, remnants of its industry being taken over by the earth. The sycamores that line the wide streets of this island, the tiniest green leaves shaking in the sun. A shiny black police car, reflecting the brightest, harshest light. The produce district where warehouses brimming with crates and crates are loaded, unloaded, and forklifts move in slow-motion.

Riding over the drawbridge I could see the water beneath the metal slates. There were crevices and cracks over which I rode, there were signs and lights that were disobeyed, there were helmets laid by the wayside, and there were motorists to curse. There were legs to get tired, an ass to get sore, and a face to get sun-kissed. There was grit in my teeth, there was wind between my legs and there was a certain music–traffic, down strokes, the last song in my head–I couldn't ignore.