Tag: Bikes

A Spring Bike Ride: Discovering a Doe’s Beauty

The son & I went on a spring bike ride. Spring time beauty in the Bay Area has been extolled about plenty in my writing. So, regular readers already know the beautiful frame of mind in which we were when we started back. The headwind that had been pushing us back on the way to the bay, was working in our favor on the way back, and we decided to take a rather more meandering path. Through meadows – with little ponds on the way.

After a while, the son stopped, around a curve in the hillside, and signaled to me to slow down. I tutted. I had taken advantage of a downhill and zipped up hill with enough momentum to keep going. Now wasn’t the time to take a break. Besides, we had just stopped to admire the white of the gulls and egrets against the clouds less than two minutes prior.

“Why are …”

He turned around and placed a finger on his lips. I rolled my eyes and got off my bike to peer around the hillside at whatever he had stopped for. Couldn’t he see how his mother was looking after that hill?

We had been admiring the spring beauty all around us the whole way. Fresh greens were blooming on trees and shrubs. Thistles and wildflowers were everywhere. The wild mustard flowers were being enjoyed by hordes of singing blackbirds. We’d seen a congregation of egrets, a colony of gulls, and clouds of blackbirds. In fact, the last time I stopped to take a picture, I remember the son warning me about making it back on time.

Then I saw her. It was the most beautiful doe – she was young, skittish, and trying to get at some spring leaves standing there on the bike path. She had a look of utmost contentment on her face. Fresh greens must be especially tasty now. The leaves are sprouting everywhere, and the salad options must be wonderful to them. We watched her for a bit and then she took off up the hill. She met up with her mother, and nestled against her for a bit before bounding off again, her mother in hot pursuit.

She gave us a few stunning poses. We were, as ever, completely enamored.

Sometimes, gifts don’t announce themselves.

We biked back quieter than before. Sunset time means the song birds pipe up with extra vigor, and we were glad. We burst into the home, startling the husband like a deer in the headlights, rattling on about the sights he had missed.

This is the best thing about nature, isn’t it? You never know what you’ll see, but somehow it always manages to be just the thing you needed to see. 

Creation Myths: Nature’s Narrative

The Power of Belief

The world was swirling in activity, news, festivities, events. The world felt turbulent, swift, and equal parts joyous and worrisome.

The Navarathri festival meant that all versions of the festival were being celebrated – there were Durga pujos, Garba and Dandia dance events, golu, bommala koluvu. All in all, it was a week wrapped in the surreal – creation myths, war legends, female power. Most old cultures have versions of these – and if it takes festivities to remember the good old good-vs-evil arcs, and the figurines of goddesses to remind us of the righteous power women hold within themselves, so be it.

In some ways, it was a welcome distraction from the doom-and-gloom of news cycles. It was as if we could build a dichotomy of spirit within us.

Serene Solitude

Come Sunday evening I craved for some solitude, and nature too, to round out the craving for peace. So, off I went with my bicycle, into the cycling trail nearby. It was tough going – all that festive food sloshing inside of me. Made me feel heavier and more sluggish than usual. But the trail is magic – it seems to lead, with each pedal stroke, to a place of peace.

It was nearing dusk, and the birds had started their journeys home. I stopped every now and then to take pictures of beautiful sights that took my fancy. Deer and goats grazing, a hare (I couldn’t get a picture) running so quickly it startled me, pelicans lifting their incredible frames into the air with grace and ease (They did not eat puliodare over the week-end, but even so), kestrels soaring, squirrels daring themselves to see if they can make it across the bike path (I swear these little rascals wait till the last minute to scuttle across – a thrilling game for them for sure, but enough to scare rice-sodden slower-than-normal reflexes bike riders), the small birds (finches, blackbirds, wrens – all making a racket as they prepared for downtime). It had been a particularly hot week too, and I could see the relief of the cooling temperatures in my fellow beings.

The AT-CG Creation Dance

It was as I stopped to gulp some cool water – deep and slow, that I noticed the deer gazing at me. I have written about the gaze of a deer before. I shall write again. All the poets and writers when they write about unending universes in eyes, this is what they mean. It is possible to gaze deep into those big, round eyes. The goats eyes have a different quality to them – their pupils being rectangular appeals to the human mind differently altogether from a round, large pupil shape. Could that be social conditioning too?

It made me think about our genetic makeup, evolution, and all the creation myths. I could understand why every ancient culture and civilization had creation myths. I wonder whether whales have their version of creation myths in their repertoire. If they do, I’d love to hear it.

I stood there warmed by the deer’s gaze, the bird sound, and the gentle breeze around me. How was it possible that all these marvelous creatures I had seen today were variants of adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine?

We need a nice simple beautiful creation story with AT-CG that can round out the beautiful repertoire we have the world over. A goddess seated on a lotus from the AT-CG DNA, a multi-headed god whose genetic composition had mutated differently and went on to use that mutation to create a whole planet of marvelous creatures.

Full of beautiful images of nature, man-made images of golu decor, and a head refreshed, I pedaled back to the house. The pink skies were turning purple and grey, and it would soon turn dark. Another phenomenon that gave rise to so many legends till we understood Earth, and our miniscule place in the Universe.

I heaved a grateful sigh, breathing in the fresh air, and taking a gulp of fresh water before heading inside.

Omafeit – Amsterdam Fietsen (Bikes)

After that hectic trip to Europe, we came back happy and content with all the marvelous experiences we had the opportunity to take in, and also intensely happy to be back to our suburban heaven in California. It was a beautiful rainy day when we landed and the day after, an even more beautiful sunny day. So, off the son & I went on a bike ride through the beautiful trails by the swollen creek that we can now call a river. It was as we were happily talking to each other and biking that we took to discussing the bikes of Amsterdam. The beautiful, haphazard bikes by the canal.

bikes

There are images, and there are special ones. The ones that you have no time to take, but remain imprinted on your brain. The whizzing fleeting ones that sear themselves in some cozy part of the brain, associating with some feeling or aroma or words. The mystical ones.

“Remember that man with his kid on his shoulders riding the bike?”

“Oh- and that lady who had a cabin baggage sized suitcase hanging from her handlebar as she biked off to catch her train or plane!”

“Oh – that grandpa with his suit and lovely grand-daughter sitting in a basket seat in the front dressed like a princess tootling off for a Christmas service or lunch somewhere!”

biking_amsterdam

While walking by the canal in Amsterdam on Christmas Eve can be an experience in itself, it doesn’t quite prepare you for the chaotic beauty that is Amsterdam. I’ve heard folks talk about Amsterdam not being like other European cities. I’ve seen pictures of bikes by the canal on social media. But I was truly taken aback by the sheer joy and the haphazard manner in which the bikes were strewn against the canal as folks went about their business. There was a hustle and bustle, a gaiety, a chaotic joy to the whole atmosphere that was wholly unique to Amsterdam. It seemed like everything was possible with a bike. What an empowering sensation that must be! 

We were besotted by the warmth and quirks of the locals, and fellow gawkers such as ourselves alike.

The markets! The open air market near LinderGracht was a charm. Nowhere had I seen such a jolly throng of folks.About the only orderly thing is the statue of Dutch writer and educator Theo Thijssen, teaching one of his pupils.  The son & I chuckled as we made our way on a cold morning walk the next day and saw a bike propped against the statue as if the student was in a rush to get to his master, and had to get there on bike and dash it by the statue.

bike_market

This was Christmas morning, and many folks seemed to be making their way to church or for a meal with friends and family on their bikes, and we wished them all a merry Christmas as they biked past. The fact that they all waved back, returned the greeting or said something clever and witty tickled us to no end.

“You know I understand now what my colleagues meant when they said they missed the biking of Amsterdam when they moved to the US!”, said the husband as he watched a father and son whiz past us to somewhere. The baby sat safe and content in the front basket, while the father biked him to where he needed to be, while the wind whipped their faces with holiday cheer. “This is a whole different level of mobility and swift action.” 

A dozen geese squawking overhead flicked me back from Christmas time in Amsterdam to a cold January day in California in a jiffy. Who said we haven’t invented time travel and wormholes?

“Isn’t it so much easier to bike here on the trail though?” said the son as another biker courteously informed us that he was approaching us on the left, and sped past us with a wave of his hand as moved out of his way.

I agreed. 

ca_bike

While it was enchanting to watch all these bikers wiggle their way through the crowds, it takes a certain debonair attitude I think to be able to bike suavely in Amsterdam, and for that they had our admiration. We amateurs were safer on a biking trail for now.