I often ponder the scale of the world, and how I fit into the equation. Have you ever taken a slow walk along a road with one or two storefronts a mile, or driven a car really fast past a densely populated neighborhood? If you have, you have been in a situation where the scale of your transportation did not match the scale of your environment.
We don’t put storefronts on the freeway because you’re supposed to whizz by, not stopping, only exiting the thoroughfare onto a road with lower capactiy, lower speed, and presumably more ammenities. Downtowns typically have nice sidewalks to encourage walking and stopping.
For me, in the Cities, I find the bicycle to be the perfect scale for my surroundings. If I need to, I can zip across town without too much trouble, and when I’m cruising along and I see a beautiful sunrise I can easily stop, take a photo or smell the flowers, and move on. I experience individual people, other bikers, smells, sounds and sights that are invisible to people moving at a different scale. When I catch a whiff of lilacs off the Greenway, I think that car drivers might as well be in a 747 high above and far away considering there’s no way they could share that sensation with me.
I was reading a post called, “Car Free Musings” on Eliz Rocks, and I completely identified with her observations.
I take the bus quite a bit. I ride my bike. I walk. Sometimes it’s a hassle. Most of the time it feels pretty neutral. Other times I come across things that I would have totally missed otherwise.
Last week I was heading to my kettlebells class from work, which requires an express bus, a short ride on the light rail, and a 3/4 mile walk. As I was walking, I passed by a high school track meet in progress. I stopped on the sidewalk, just beyond the last corner of the track, and watched the women’s 400m race. Two girls were neck and neck along the back stretch, and as they rounded that last corner, one of the girls pulled ahead and sprinted to a win.
It was a rainy, chilly day. There were shouts coming from a van parked on the street in front of me and a little girl hanging out the window, watching. I peeked in as I walked by and asked the woman if that was one of her people. She looked at me and beamed with pride as she said “yep, that’s my daughter.”
As I walked away, I found myself struck by the beauty of that moment. The mother’s pride, her obvious adoration for her daughter, the little girl straining her head out the window to watch her sister. Unscripted, genuine, and raw. A glimpse into humanity in its simplest form.
In a car, everything passes by so quickly. I get in the car and then I’m at my destination, and everything in between is just a blur. Sometimes a stressful blur. But when I’m walking, or on my bike, or even on the bus, I experience my surroundings in a different, less hurried way. I connect with people.
Read on, it’s a great post.
A new favorite blog of mine, Bikeyface, illustrated a comic that perfectly describes the difference between “looking” and “seeing.”
But when I bike through an intersection I am not looking for anything. I am seeing everything.
Definitely click over and check out Bikeyface’s post on, “Seeing Things.”