Completeness

I was trying to articulate one of the conceptions of happiness that the philosopher Robert Nozick describes, “those particular moments you thought and felt, blissfully, that there was nothing else you wanted, your life was good,” when Christine marched in, gazing at the setting sun off Alki (which moments before had treated viewers to the never-before-seen sight of two identical flattened disks of burning magenta, one on the horizon and one, just below, on the water) and with arms upraised, announced “This is fantastic!” thereby nailing Nozick’s point way better than I could ever have.

And even though she stepped in some dogshit as she did so, nothing, really, could undermine such complete two-wheeled joy last night, not even the crazy lady in a minivan who accused Lee of assault for brushing her car when she angrily tried to drive through us while we gently—and legally—took up the whole goddamn rode for an entire quarter mile to get through the construction zone before crossing—in the bike lane—the low-level West Seattle Bridge.

Not even the dude in the pickup who got all bent out of shape because he apparently had to take his foot of the gas for two seconds to let a bike pass in front of him, but who clearly wasn’t mad enough to cross the street to take on three dozen cyclists, one of whom claimed to have a family that would kill him should he get tough.

Not even the cop who pulled up and seemed all ready to get serious with us for being slow to extinguish our little beach fire and because, apparently, he’d gotten a report that a gang of bikers was on the high-level bridge, riding through traffic and beating on cars.

But I think he must have been feeling it, too, though, that sense of completeness, because all it took was one respectful question, and whatever desire he had to make a fuss disappeared completely.