There was nothing at all unusual about my bicycle ride today... everything about it was exceptional, a trip like no other... yet it t was very like every bicycle ride of my life.  On my  ride today, as usual,  I went down the hill from where I live half-way up, and thought as I coasted down to the road below that riding a bicycle downhill is like flying, like being a bird.  Does a bird, I wonder, experience the ecstasy of flight dissipate at the moment it settles on a branch if it’s a sparrow or in pond or river if it’s an egret.  When I get to the bottom of a long hill on my bicycle, I am transformed, metamorphosed. Coming down I am bird... floating mostly but occasionally just to feel the strength and power of muscles, I peddle in a short burst the way I’ve seen hawks floating and circling down, effortlessly flap wings suddenly, not because they have to but because they are reminding themselves that they can power their own flight... no wind or updraft necessary; and when I get to the straightaway at the bottom of a hill I metamorphose from bird to centaur. When I am a centaur I don’t forget that I was a bird and can go back to being one again. 

Some days drift and meander through sameness, and other days gallop in a maze of contradictions. Often I don’t decide which of the three possible ways I will turn when I get to the bottom of our hill until I’ve come to a full stop.  Today, however, even before I flew down, I knew I wanted to go out to the sea... to smell it... to feel the damp coolness of the breeze... to hear breaking surf; so I headed west.  After a couple of miles of galloping along with automobiles zipping past me like wildebeests in the rainy season , I turned onto the path by the river where ducks and crows and smaller birds seemed to know I was coming.  Egrets raised their heads and looked around. Pairs of mallards sauntered.  Swallows swarmed near bridges. I was alone except for them, and it seemed right.