Tradition

Can you have a tradition of ignoring tradition? 

Because if you do, how can you honor it without failing to do so?

But this is just the sort of paradox one comes to embrace after so many Thursday nights out on two wheels.  You realize that of all the places you’ve ever been to, there are even more you’ve never been at, in spite of how memories abound no matter where you ride.

I was all ready to abide by past patterns and preview Saturday’s route, but it’s just as much a nod to history to not do so and besides, having ridden the course so often of late, my eyes were hungry for something different, so northward ho, happily.

Momentarily, from the Safeway with an invisible bathroom to a caged-up stop in the middle of a neighborhood, one could almost, at first, forget the charming  bumble through the new South Lake Union mess and Ye Olde Eastlake Path and Toboggan Run. 

But not quite. 

Because when all the blinkies unblink, there you are, on a ballfield, at night, enjoying the National Pastime—of some nation, somewhere, under some God or gods who clearly know what holidays are all about.

And then, you pedal back into the past for an opportunity to wax nostalgic by emulating the beloved tradition of steering around pedestrians on a dark lake path at night, albeit this time with nary a naked roller-blader to be (not) seen.

Later, in a fondly-remembered park shelter complete with burning twigs, I wondered with Lee Williams when thinking gets to be thought of as thinking; if we’re just talking brain activity, then the distinction can only be normative, not descriptive.

That’s why it doesn’t matter how many sights you see; it’s how you see the sights.

Predictably, the moon is full every month; that doesn’t make it any less thrilling when it finally pours forth from the canopy.

Just like your paradoxical Thursday tradition: traditionally untraditional.