Subdued

I’ve heard tell that fish don’t know that they’re in water, and whether that claim is true or not (I kind of doubt it; I’m sure they know when they’re NOT in water, but anyway…) the message is a good one: we obviously come to take for granted that which is all around and pay much less heed to the commonplace, even if—when you stop to reflect—that regular, more or less everyday state of affair is, in the grand scheme of things, pretty fucking remarkable.

Take last night’s bike ride, for instance. Please.

We didn’t cover that many miles; the shenanigans, such as they were, tended towards the tame; nobody really showed up as a problem; and the outside fire around which we stood never really got higher than anyone’s head.

I even saw a lot of yawning going on and heard vague references to recovering from last weekend’s Ben Country Five and pacing oneself for the now ongoing Seattle Beer Week.

Still, upon reflection, isn’t it just over-the-top incredible to live in a place and time where such marvelous mundanities are possible as riding the back way down cobblestones through Pike Market to the water, or congregating under the West Seattle Bridge to load up on faggots left by the Wood Fairy, or arriving at the beach just as the sun slips beneath the horizon although many moments of twilight remain to be savored, or fucking A: getting to be outside, on the edge of the continent more or less, of a warm, soft spring night, having arrived under your own power, with plenty of beer to drink and, in my case, a basket of hand-cut French fries right from the fryer, how about that for the quotidian?

For me, too, it had been a while since I’d pedaled to the sands of Alki, and never so early in the evening, and come to think of it, a fire is pretty unusual.

Every time.