I am just returning from a fabulous weekend in and around London. It had everything; time with family, time with friends, time with my husband, an anniversary celebration, tourist attractions, many modes of transport, good food, plush drinking establishments, planned things, non-planned things. As I make the journey home, I realise I am both relaxed and bustling from the previous days excitement.
As we sat on the London rush hour bus this morning trying to navigate our way to the train station, my mind wandered as I peered out the crowded window. The sun shone and filtered through the trees looking onto inviting parks. I noticed some bicycles parked outside a large grassy square and one in particular caught my attention. It seemed dreadfully old fashioned with a woven basket on the front. I can’t imagine there were many, if any, gears on the thing.
I began then to drift into a scenario where this bike belonged to me. I imagined getting up on such a sunny morning as this one, throwing my hair back in a bobble and putting on a knee length flowery dress before slipping on some comfy white plimsole style shoes and heading out of my apartment. I would have brought some sandwiches with me to place into the basket when I got to my bike. I imagined no prescribed destination. I would simply get on and start pedalling and see where the mood took me. This would most definitely end up at some fresh food market where I would disembark my bicycle in order to converse with the sellers and fill my basket further with vitamin bursting fruit and veg, picked only hours previous. I would have worked up a bit of an appetite and suddenly remembered my sandwich. I would ride, skirt billowing gently around my knees, to a lush park where I would lye back in the sun and have lunch in my own company. I may even snooze for a bit.
And with a calming smile on my face, I realised it was time to get off the bus. I had clean forgotten about the sweaty commuters, the lack of seats for all the bodies, the spring poking out the base of my chair into my bottom and the slow speed at which the bus had been crawling along at.
For what could have been a semi aggressive, frustrated and lengthy journey ended up in the romance of my imagination. I experienced many of the after effects of a small meditative session.
I realise as I am writing this that I have, in the past, hinted towards using spare time wisely. So, journeys can be used to catch up on all the things you may not have squeezed in at home. However, I really feel there is a time for day dreaming too. So, the next time you’re agitated by a journey you are making for whatever reason, try to drift off into a warming world of old fashioned push bikes!
