Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Obsessions - The Bike

Obsessions can be helpful. Obsessions can be fun. Obsessions... can be Healfy!
 It all started here:

Burning Man, circa 2008.
Bikes are the best way to get around a dry lake bed. So I hopped on one, and rode it all week long. (Burning man is another obsession entirely. One post at a time, Kelly.)

So then I came home, and didn't want to stop. It felt good. It made getting somewhere fun. It lit up my brain, demanding I be present, listening and seeing the world around me as a pedaled. That's not a feeling you get on a car drive. 

I pulled my little sister's old mountain bike out of the garage, studied some online maps (google maps shows bike routes), and started riding my bike to work with a friend. The bike was too small, the route inefficient. Four hot miles. But I didn't care. It felt good.

5 years later... I'm still obsessed. I call my bike my happiness machine. I've gone through 3 more models (two outgrown, one stolen) and have been riding this one, "Arrow" for about a year.


  

 Our twice weekly commute starts in the residential area of southeast LA. 4 miles, 20 minutes. I take big gulps of the morning air and pedal through the curves. I howl back at the dogs that bark at me, and delight in feeling the faster pumping of my heart, the twinge in my legs.


I roll into the subway station and catch my breath. Yes, LA has a subway. It's nice. I sit back in my seat and close my eyes for a bit, or enjoy the sunny scenery.


I've got a 20 minute subway ride, so I get to do some reading, too. My kindle holds hundreds of books with hardly any weight. I pick whatever I'm in the mood for.


This morning it was: The Primal Connection. 
But sometimes it's Cyberpunk. Or fantasy. Or memoirs. Or books about dogs and the brain. As my body rests my mind gets engaged.

Then I ride from the station to the building I work in. It takes about 10 more minutes. I get a sense of what's going on in LA today. The mood people are in. If there's a farmer's market or a film shoot. I see where I am.   

The ride home is darker, faster, and a little more uphill. By the time the day is done, I've been on a bike for about an hour, burning off 400 to 500 calories and flooding my brain will all sorts of endorphins and other delightful chemicals.

So here, I confess my first Healfy Obsession. I love my bike, and think about it all the time. Like a junkie, I'l always lookling for excuses to get my fix. (We must need something at the grocery store. I want to eat lunch at that new place in Pasadena. I can't find my car keys.)  
I challenge you to find your obsession too. It feels good and it's fun, and those are the main criteria.
Get crazy about something you love. 

Pedaling and grinning hard,
-Kelly

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