About six years ago when I was about to quit my job because I was burnt out and needing to restructure life for the sake of family and sanity, a longing rose up in me. I wanted to walk. It was a hunger. When people asked me what I was going to do next, my answer was: I want to walk. And I did, for five years I established a routine that began the moment I stepped out of my house.

Now I have a new job and another longing has risen up. I want to ride a bike. This hunger grew over time in a similar way to the first. But it is also a practical solution to modern life with one car and a way to replace the walking routine that was wedged out of my re-established work routines. But I recognize it as the same inexplicable longing to move and to do so in the fresh air of God’s good creation. A heart longing, I suspect, always has a gift attached to it.

I Listened

I listened to my body,
‘Get a bike,’ she said.
‘Ride to work, ride for fun.
I need to move and we need
to get the brain from here to there.
Fingers and keystrokes
can work anywhere, it’s true.
So then, why not go through
the flood plain on the bike path
where Crow flies and Wood Duck glides
on the pond where Heron hunts
for breakfast, put an apple
in the basket to eat on the way, 
stop if you want to watch a parade
of goslings, go slow, then fast, 
push that bike up the steep bit,
arrive energized, oxygenated, jazzed…
I promise,’ my body said.

And I listened because
I’ve been longing for Latitude:
me, with some attitude and
a little more freedom.

© 2019 – Laurel Archer

Meet my bike, who I christened ‘Latitude’ – def. Freedom from narrow restrictions; freedom of action, opinion… (or attitude with a capital L). She is ‘Lat’ for short.

Stay tuned, for more from the Cycling Poet…