Simple Pleasures

Sometimes the simplest pleasures in life bring the greatest joy. The feeling here is that a lot of people, ourselves included, lose that connection from time to time under the daily avalanche of information and responsibilities of making a living. We may not forget the mechanics of how to ride a bicycle, but the “visceral memory” of that sublime thrill of balancing upright while in motion atrophies without a little refresher. There is also that wonderful juxtaposition of tranquility, freedom, and adventure in the experience of wandering somewhere with no real objective, and breaking away from a known destination to wander to parts “over there”. There are many ways to get the same sensations, but for us the bicycle ride remains our common form of simple enjoyment. We dedicated ourselves this summer to spending more time doing this together not just as a way of achieving personal enjoyment and fitness, but to get that same sense of shared fun kids get, laughing and rolling through the woods or along a winding path together with friends.

We shared those childhood joys last weekend doing just what we pleased in our various explorations by bicycle along the coast. Although we drove to starting points that happened to be well known to us, and travelled familiar routes initially, it was the fact we did it by two-wheeler rather than four, and broke off in various directions not seen before that made the whole experience exhilarating. The icing on top of three days of riding was in those rest periods that afforded us time to sit quietly and enjoy each other’s company with few spoken words, and simply soak up the sunshine, breeze and sounds of the ocean.