Sunday Morning

Sunday morning.  The last weekend of April.  Trees budding.  Birds chirping.  Tranquil earth breathing.  Après tea.  Just me and my bike on the crowded multi-use trial.  So many people antsy to get out after such a long winter made all the more painful due to this Covid pandemic.  Crisscrossing other trail users I begin noticing their demeanor and stride.  Some, unsettled and pressing.  All business.  Driven.  Others, at peace, lingering, happily puttering.  What are their inner voices saying in this moment?  Is the tone angry or loving?  What are their stories?  Why are they here right now?  A guy on a gravel bike wearing baggy gym shorts suddenly overtakes me from behind.  He seems to be trying really hard.  Mashing the pedals, upper body bobbing, breathing heavily, profusely sweating.  So much urgency in his pace.  Tormented almost.  My initial instinct is to step it up and pass him again but I don’t.  I stay in my lane.  Refocusing on my meditative spin cycle.  Maybe heaven and hell are not places or things.  Maybe they’re not beyond death, but rather states of being here on earth.  It almost seems like each and every person that I encounter on the trail fits into one of these categories.  Either in their own purgatory, running away from something, past traumas that they have not yet processed.  Or completely in the moment, wholly accepting the here and now, relishing in the day’s gift.  I’ve certainly visited both extremes in my life.  To hell and back.  Interspersed amongst brief glimpses of heaven.  I ride out to the pavilion, through Mill Creek park, working my way around the city.  Noticing the reflection of this world on the glassy water.  There it is.  Another glimpse of heaven.  So subtle.  So easily overlooked.  Sacred and trivial at the same time.  I ride for over 3 hours.  Easy.  Like Sunday morning.