Presence

Everyone is living and breathing in real time but not many people live in the moment for much longer than a couple minutes. Enjoying your time right now in this instant is important because you will never experience that moment again. There is no redoing decisions of any matter if they’re in the past. No matter how much we want to go back to a specific moment and do something differently you simply can’t. People should see this as the biggest incentive to be present at all times, be aware of your surroundings and be ready to react in a way that keeps you safe. Quick and frequent decision making can often times result in injury, especially when you’re on the cycle. There are a couple instances in specific where if only the rider made a slightly different decision they would have came out unscaved. I’m just glad the homie alive. Little banged up but he’ll live. My first thought was anger, what just happened had ruined our trip and I knew that the moment it happened. I think that fact settled in for the rest of the group once we got back to the house but I knew how it was about to be from the moment it happened. The ride back was quiet, everyone still a little shocked. I saw him run the light thinking what is he doing? I knew it wasn’t a go and yet he still barrelled on through the intersection, reading the traffic completely wrong. It only took two more milliseconds for the beamer to t-bone him in the middle of the street for everyone else to bare witness. At first I carried on about a block past that street. I was processing, then headed back to investigate. Heading back over to the scene was the scariest part, he could be dead for all I knew. The car was humming through that light and he got hit with the full blow. I’ve been hit off my bike before but never anything like that. Once I got over there I was relieved to find out all his senses were working and he was on his feet. We made sure everything was alright with both sides of the party and just like that went on our way. Easy come easy go has been an interesting theme that seems to be present throughout life. At least it is so far for me and most people I know. Just as easily as something can be acquired it can be stripped from you as if it was never there. Thats what happened to that beautiful Bianchi super pista. My friend had just bought it and had it to sport around not even a month before he completely totaled it at an intersection around city hall. I felt bad for him. I would have been devastated had that happened to me. The bike was a piecing race-red with the bianchi blue lettering and had polished tubes that merged together seamlessly, even a nice shiny sugino 75 crank. All that destroyed by a little slip up. I wasn’t with him when this happened but hearing that news was horrible. It sounds extreme but it really did feel like hearing news of someone’s death. My heart sank. At the time I was riding fixed but my mount was nothing near the value of that ride so loss of that image was painful to see someone else go through. A learning experience nonetheless. Conveying that riding a bike is dangerous is not the point of this essay but instead showing how riding a bike through and urban area is much like the path your life takes you down. There are plenty of unexpected obstacles and unwanted pressure but you just keep going. Of course there is so much that can go wrong, that fact will always be present. What’s more important than that however is that you always have the ability to avoid whatever went wrong. The only thing is you can’t go back and try it again; you have to be conscious enough to realize what’s about to go wrong in order to prevent it.