Still

Thursday is still Thursday. 

Spring is still spring, especially when it’s nearly record-breakingly warm, and you can ride your bike in shirtsleeves all the way along the Lake, all afternoon long.

The flowering cherry trees, the magnolia bushes and their friends the camellia, the early azaleas and ambitious rhododendron, the forsythia and hydrangea are still bursting with color just like they do every year around this time.

We’re still here; we still drink beer, may as well get used to it!

Like this year, April 9^th was Thursday in 2009; Point83 rode to Jack Block Park.  

Daniel Featherhead flew alongside as we pedaled down the Alki trail and he somehow managed to levitate from the Superfund site beneath the park platform right back next to where we stood gazing at the Seattle skyline, which still included the viaduct back on those days.

That night was all about the visuals: the sun breaking through the clouds as we waited and argued in the liquor store parking lot in SODO; the loveliness of the Duwamish water even though the waters themselves aren’t so pristine; the sight of the Angry Hippy breaking into a confused but happy smile after getting stoned; and the unusual view afforded by standing around in an industrial wasteland by the side of a deserted highway while someone fixed a flat—stuff you would never see otherwise than being out and about on two wheels.

Last night, I mostly eschewed the virtual experience having had, like many of us, I would bet, my fill of the Brady Bunch faces-on-the-screen thing in my professional capacities all these many recent weeks.

It still was nice to see a few friendlies, though, and inspired me to drink up and take a quick spin around the neighborhood.

I mostly noticed what wasn’t there, which is funny to think about if you think about it.

These days, we’re seeing lots of what we don’t see; still glad to see it, though.

Normal

A bit of normality helps.

The usual Thursday: before the way home from Bothell along the Burke, you eat a pot cookie.  By the time you get to Matthews Beach, the riding is smoother, the colors are brighter, and you have all kinds of great ideas for everything, few of which stand up to the cold, cruel light of dawn, but sure are fun to think about at the time.

So, it was satisfying and heartening to experience that familiar end-of-the-school week experience —even though the part where you were at school was simply a matter of feeling like a cat burglar or maybe James Bond as you key-carded yourself into the totally empty building on the completely deserted campus to slide into your darkened office for a few books and things—and honestly, look forward to what constitutes the Thursday night ride these days: getting drunk in front of a virtual pastiche of faces of friends and acquaintances; it ain’t enough to be sure, but it’s better than nothing, and oddly, nothing is better than something that isn’t possible at the present time, oddly enough.

When the apocalypse hits, if it hasn’t already, you may as well ride your bike around; you’ll notice that the converted rails-to-trail trail is crowded with more people than you’ve ever seen before.  Apparently, when the gym is closed, people decide that running is the best option, although what they’re running from is invisible; could it be the virus?

Also, day-drinking parents seem to have simultaneously come to the conclusion that the family bike ride is a good idea.  More power to them! 

And to all those little kids discovering the joys of two-wheeling, one of which is the opportunity to pedal way ahead of their tipsy mom and slalom back and forth on the tarmac, yay!

Someday, all this will be over and we’ll be able to hug each other around a fire. 

Until then, embrace the abnormal as normal.