The mental strain of the last few days (and weeks, and years) has been slowly nudging my chin down from its usual upright position. All things being equal, these are not new stressors; the unstable march of politics, war, religion and money spans centuries. But people do not.
Privileged or no, it’s OK for any of us . This is not the suffering Olympics, as my wife likes to say, and we all have a right to our feelings. But when those prompt a regular flood of cortisol, I need not just a break from the emotional bleeding, but a refill.
Lately it’s taken the form of bike-riding with my son. Tom found his balance only recently, but he’s been quick to break in his neon-green mountain bike, having grown just tall enough to handle it. I hadn’t ridden in awhile, owing partly to injury and distraction, and partly to the cracked gears on my own mountain bike — as well as the fact that I have only my wife’s dusty cruiser as backup.
It’s handsome but slow and meant only for smooth surfaces, and in general, not even close to my ideal two-wheeled vehicle. (I genuinely like its rainbow streamers, though.) But why should I let perfect be the enemy of good? My son practically begs me to ride every chance he gets, so we’ve developed a new, summer-weekend routine of casually touring some of Denver’s most fetching landscapes.
We live in North Park Hill, along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, which means we can follow its miles-long, east/west bike lane to connect us to citywide.