More Bits and Pieces

Update: Occasionally I get feedback on my posts—I love it! Regarding my July 10 posting on Spirit Guides, my friend Nancy down near Los Gatos writes, “I loved reading this! Did you know that scientists have found that when cats & dogs look at you intently like that and then consciously blink, they are acknowledging a connection to you? It's like the animal kingdom's way of saying "Namaste."

This morning’s bits and pieces, those moments I try to capture before they’re gone in a flash (see July 3 posting), is about my bicycle. I got it from my grandparents when I was seven, and through many seasons of cousins learning to ride on it, several paint jobs (thanks brother Bill), and years of retirement in my folks potting shed in Colorado, we were reunited a few years ago. We are inseparable now, as we were in my childhood.


I pedal my antique Schwinn through midday autumn. The scent of burnt wood from fireplaces wraps its invisible tendrils of smoke around currents of air. Against a backdrop of cloudless blue hang orange, gold, green and crimson leaves that glitter hypnotically as the sun teases the shadow branches. An updraft of breeze at my back hurls a tornado of colorful leaves that spin crazily about my head, around my body, through the spokes of my bicycle wheels. Clickety, clickety, clickety—like the playing cards fastened with clothespins from a childhood over five decades ago. I laugh aloud. A crow cocks its head from a telephone wire at this old lady on her bicycle. Caw, it chortles.