Magic

In the clear light of dawn, it doesn’t seem so funny, but the night before, standing around a fire at the beach that you’ve reached on two wheels, talking about the eating habits of aquatic rodents, the concept “beaver diet” is hilarious, affording many moments of laughter and an assurance that it represents the organizing principle for not just the written word, but arguably, the well-lived life, which just goes to show you how magical is the power of the bicycle in that it can transform the mundane and silly into the highly amusing and profound, even if the ride itself isn’t all that remarkable, but merely an old-time favorite consisting of familiar pathways and typically commonplace destinations.

On another of this season’s cool summer evenings, a small contingent (for July) of cyclists set out from Westlake Center and relatively quickly—without a single mechanical (in sharp contrast to the previous week) made it to water’s edge where, in spite of the drizzle, spirits were festive and the fire steady, if small.

I watched sand-wrestling and wandered around to other groups overhearing conversations, all of which, under the conditions, seemed as fascinating as they were spirited, whether or not that attitude carries through until morning.

The lesson I take, if there is one, might be that it doesn’t have to be everything all the time; simple pleasures can provide plenty of pleasure as long as they’re arrived at under your own power and no one gets hit by a car (or those that do, in other settings, prior to the shenanigans, are all accounted for and resting comfortably.)

In the end, it turned out for me to be one of those nights where most of the riding is riding home and most of that, thanks to all that led up to it, was the kind that’s remarkably painless, which just goes to illustrate once again, in another way, how magically transformative is even the most commonplace pedaling.