Faith

photo by joeball

Sometimes, when faced with what seem like two equally plausible options, you’ve got to trust whatever remnant of naturally-endowed wayfaring ability remains in your consciousness and boldly opt for descent, accepting the possibility that—if you’re wrong—it means slogging all the way back up the canyon in the dark.

At the same time, it’s quite a relief to live in a day and age where satellites and plastic can provide much-needed guidance after you’ve taken the plunge and ended up lost at the far western edge of things when it’s actually the northernmost land mass you’re seeking.

Because it forever remains a miracle to propel oneself through silent overgrown pathways and suddenly happen upon shoreline revelry with numerous human beings, copious amounts of stimulation, and—even though summer’s tenuous grip on evening the makes it a boon rather than a requirement—plenty of fire around which to congregate and bloviate or just bask in the implausible reality of it all.

Some parts of the physical, (and for that matter, immaterial) universe are really only accessible by bicycle; perhaps one could arrive on foot (or by boat) but no one, not even rail-riding hobos would; and certainly, the height of levitation that’s achieved would be unachievable without the assistance of human-powered two-wheeling.

Remarkably, you find you’ve pedaled up to a place where, just around the corner, and only for as long as the rising tide allows, is another whole mystery laid out for your pleasure, complete with tent-shaped driftwood and clattering castanets as smooth rocks wash in and out.

And you realize—given the current arrangement of atoms in our dimension—that none of this, especially all these carbon-based sacks of mostly water arrayed cheerfully about, would be manifest without the invention and manufacture of the velocipede.

So, I guess it’s the least you can do to carry your bike all the way up the steps to get out—given all it’s enabled you to get into.