So this morning I left for work about 15 minutes later than I usually do when I go to the office, and that led to some pretty lovely things:)
First of all, I was in time to see the bike bus action in our neighborhood! This is a super sweet thing where groups of kiddos bike to school together on a designated route, with different routes for different directions going to different schools. Think many kiddos of various ages but mostly small on bikes, several adults on bikes, one person with a speaker playing some tunes (at least, that was the case today), and lots of extra psyche-up energy this morning since it was misting and you’ve gotta bring the internal energy when the external world is dreary. As I biked, I saw lots of other kids at various intersections waiting, just like they would for a school bus except that they were on their bikes and they were waiting to join the ever-growing bike train.
It made me so happy. I love the energy so much and I love that bike buses exist in this world and basically everything about it makes me smile.
So that was magic number one.
Magic number two was a very random encounter! Later on as I was biking up to the Hawthorne Bridge, a guy went by really fast like he was passing me, but then slowed down to ride by my side like we knew each other — and he did kinda look familiar, but I had no idea why. Guess what! It turns out that we used to commute the same way on the Springwater Corridor, over 6 years ago. He was like, “well, I recognized your Soma [the bike I ride], and then when I passed you your face looked familiar too.” So that was the most random thing ever, and I loved that very much too.
So I got to work with a giant smile, with two very magical bike commute things. I love riding my bike to work <3
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(I also love riding to work cuz I love this kind of thing:)
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Side note: I’m so thankful for these very loose-knit relationships wrought of being in the same place in the world at the same time, another friendly face that you know really nothing about but you sort of rely on seeing and maybe waving to or even talking to semi-regularly. I used to have that a lot, both when I worked in Milwaukie and when I worked in Greshman, since my commute was so very regular and on a path that was the obvious best option for lots of folks, so I saw the same people over and over. Now my ride goes all over the place, isn’t always at the same time, and I don’t go to my office every day anymore either so I don’t have this as much in my life. So it was extra fun to run into it again:)