It's All About the Belly Button

At some point in every bicycle ride, I experience a moment when I become fully, unabashedly me. Not that I'm not me the rest of the time – who or what could I ever be but me, really? But sometimes the fragments of me head off in many directions at once, or my mind is resolutely elsewhere or I'm just asleep at the switch and could be anyone.

But once I get on my bike and go through the initial battles with inertia – my body being at rest generally protests for the first 15 minutes or so the indignity of being put into motion – I begin to notice how great it is to be out and going.

A sprinkle of rain cooled me this morning and my skin started saying "Thank you" before the rest of me caught up to the fact that I was being rained on. My curmudgeonly mind's initial reaction was to worry that this was a harbinger of the deluge to come. "You'd better go back home while you're still just a few minutes away," it intoned in its concerned, managerial way.

But my skin had already begun to awaken my other senses and anarchy had begun: They were having none of this "go back to the house" nonsense. I could smell the soil and the corn and the weeds in the ditch alongside the road. I could hear the usual summertime cacophony of bird, frog and insect, accompanied by the rhythmic swoosh of my bike tires on the blacktop. The ride was a Mardi Gras of green – the nearly black green of the trees, the mid-level green of the cornfields through which I rode, the chartreuse and neon green of roadside weeds.

All at once, all my parts and pieces pulled themselves together and we became one. One being, in motion, with cicadas setting the cadence. On every bike ride in the past dozen years or so I've reached this point in which I become sensationally aware of this being just about as happy as a human can be. That's a lot of years and a lot of bliss.

Often, it's bliss bought and paid for with much struggle. These days, for instance, I'm getting back into shape after having parked my bike for a very long time. Why I ever let myself do that, I'll never know, but it's literally been years since I considered myself a cyclist. So now, hills I once considered a nice little warm-up are crazy challenging. And as always, just managing my internal conversation ("Give UP!" "What are you thinking?" "You're too old for this!" and "You look like a jerk!") is most of the battle. The body is happy to be working again and ready to be put through its paces. So I head for the hills and struggle. And once I get to the top, the Who-hooo factor sets in and bliss soon follows.

The roads were relatively traffic-free this morning and, without planning, I found myself doing something I've wanted to do since I was 8: I rode hands-free. All the while, in my head, was my mother's voice warning, "Look, Ma! No hands; Look, Ma, no TEETH! Kathryn, don't DO that ..."

When I was a kid, all the boys in the neighborhood would go whizzing past on their bicycles, riding hands-free like a troupe of unicyclists. I always wanted to join them, but the idea of spending the rest of my life with no front teeth made me timid and inept.

But this morning, I got it. In the same way the distinction "balance" happens all of a sudden and you go from training wheels to two wheels, this morning, I let go with both hands and realized that the key is all in the belly button. Focus your attention on the belly and balance takes care of itself. The yogis have been saying that for centuries, but this morning, I got it.

This opens up a whole new world of possibilities. That unicycle I've always wanted, for instance ...

Home Before the Street Lights Came On

Growing up on the edge of a small town where our backyard rolled away right into the countryside and summer was a non-stop opportunity for play, one of the only rules our parents laid down was, "Be home before dark."

Tonight is one of those nights I would have argued what "dark" meant, precisely.

I had gone out on my bike reluctantly. I had promised myself I was going to ride at least an hour tonight and somehow had forgotten to remind myself that this was because I enjoy riding, not because I have to. Finally, at 8 o'clock, I changed into my shorts, threw on a tank top, hopped on my bike and took off.

I made a large loop around my neighborhood, nodding at people sitting out on their porches, noticing the hibiscus in this yard, the hollyhocks in that, and the profusion of coneflowers everywhere I looked. A neighbor said something to me from her porch, but the tree frogs and cicadas were so loud, I couldn't understand a word she said. I circled back toward my house, but changed my mind and took a back road that led to the outskirts of town.

Rounding a corner, I encountered a wall of fragrance that nearly made me run my bike into the curb. I couldn't identify any particular flower at the source of the scent – just a profusion of underbrush and wildflowers and vines winding their way up the enormous cottonwoods near the road. There was just enough humidity in the air to hold the fragrance – not overpowering, but thick in the air as though I could scoop aroma into my palm like stream water.

I came to the end of that lane and made a U-turn, almost running directly into a man on a bicycle similarly distracted by the smells and sounds and summery sweetness. We dodged each other and laughed as we continued in our own directions.

I got back to my neighborhood and made it to within a block of my house before turning around and making another loop in the other direction. And suddenly, it occurred to me: I was dawdling, flat-out, old-fashioned dawdling. I didn't want to stop playing and have to go in the house. I was arguing with myself about how dark it really was and figuring I had at least another 15 minutes before I completely ran out of light.

By this time, the tree frog symphony had reached a crescendo and the lightning bug ballet began winking rhythmically in bushes and flowerbeds beside the street. I couldn't see anyone on the porches, but their laughter and conversation drifted lazily past me in that soupy summer air, and I might have fished out some of their words if I'd cared to.

A car rounded the corner in front of me, going fast and in my lane. I realized I was wearing dark shorts and a black tank top at about the same time the driver looked up, saw me and swerved back into his lane.

OK, OK. I got the message. I can practically hear my father's voice reminding me that, if I can see the lightning bugs, that means it's dark.

Tomorrow, I start earlier, wear a white shirt and see if I can find a snow-cone stand.