18.5.09

no hands


i nearly fell on my arse today. my dorney lake bike route was quite muddy and slippery and i found that my front wheel kept flipping out meaning that the handling was a tad unpredictable.

i found myself quite enjoying this, as i tried to keep the bike on the straight and narrow, or at least on the path....and upright. there was the possibility that i would actually fall off my bike. in fact, if things went really wrong, there was even the possibility that i would end up in the river, unlikely, but possible.

as is my wont, i ended up on a bit of a tangent in my thought processes. i found myself pleasantly surprised that i was, in fact, exhilarated by the quite real and imminent likelihood that i would fall at some point. so that the idea of falling didn't take away the excitement of the ride, but enhanced it. i guess this is fairly obvious, after all it's why we like rollercoasters isn't it? but on a rollercoaster, i'm quite sure i'm not going to actually fall off the side of the track, whereas on my bike, i really wasn't that sure.

as i do my life, i guess i want to be the sort of person who chooses the muddy bike rides over the rollercoasters. don't get me wrong, i love rollercoasters. but they're kind of like neutralised life aren't they? all those signs telling you not to raise your arms or jump out of the car or throw up on the person behind you.

but i suppose that in life, it can be that those signs might just as well be in our heads.

i mean when was the last time you tried to ride your bike with no hands?

how afraid are you to fall?

No comments: