oh my:)

Maybe this is weird: I adore my commute. I love it. A large part of it is probably due to the simple fact that it's a bike ride--who can keep from being happy when they're out in nature on their bike, after all--but it is very often the best part of my day.

Not to say that there aren't days where the wind is against me in both directions, where I'm tired and wet and cold and I just want to be home. But every time I come home and pass some more herons, or when the lone bald eagle flies past me, soaring above the river, or when there are deer off in the oaks bottom meadows, or the osprey are feeding in their nest--all right in the middle of Portland, I think of how fricken awesome it is that I get to see it all, every day.

I turned off the trafficky part of my route this afternoon and all of a sudden all I could hear was the raindrops pounding on my jacket, my helmet, the ground around me; I could smell lilacs and feel the rain drip cool off my eyelashes; there was green green green everywhere, and I felt alive, alert, so happy I could explode. The path was mostly empty--unusual, now that it's spring, but the driving rain probably scared people off--and it felt like just me in this wide, beautiful, wakening world.

I am such a lucky stasia.