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Watching the Summer Tide Drive Home

Unaccustomed as we are to wasting time and money at coffee shops, Coffee Girl and I were sitting in the cool September shade outside a coffee shop in Gunnison, CO. We had just finished a satisfying mountain bike ride up steep sagebrush hills.

Just think: it was Labor Day weekend, and we didn't run into a single person out there. Not even any "Texas wheelchairs!" Great views and land, and pretty good dirt roads. But it wasn't a "brand name" location. (And if you don't learn anything else from this blog, Grasshopper...)

Looking at the stream of gigantic vehicles drive by (mostly from Crested Butte), I was at a loss for the right word to describe my feelings. Earlier in life, when I was a hothead, I might have looked at this tidal flow with disdain. A few years later, I would have rolled my eyes. But what about now?

'Perspicacity' comes to mind. Normally that word seems right for high altitude, when looking down towards all the little scurrying ants in the city. But here I was looking over horizontally. It seems that a retiree is separated from the tide of humanity in ways more important than a certain number of feet of altitude.

What word would you use to describe that profound separation? Again, I don't know. But I do feel the sweetness of nostalgia when recalling when I too was a piece of metropolitan flotsam, trapped in this Tide. It seemed like half of southeastern Michigan drove 'up north' to lakes and cabins, on holidays. It was so tense, with most of that traffic on one interstate. And it was a long drive too!

It was an important step in my life when I finally said, "To heck with going up north. I will stay in the metropolis where traffic is light, and go on a long solitary bicycle ride. And I'll save money, too, and be one click of the ratchet wrench closer to escaping this hellhole." It worked. It was wonderful.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Grateful.

Chris
Suzanne said…
"I too was a piece of metropolitan flotsam, trapped in this Tide." Nice descriptive.
Thanks, Suzanne. How should we describe someone who dropped out long ago? As "sediment." (grin)