Marek walks through the door and asks if I was ready.
"Are we running?" I ask, taking a breathe, thinking about whether I wanted to run or not.
"What about the bikes?" he suggests "We can test out that puncture I repaired."
A much better idea! The sun was shining, the lunch break had only just started, we could head to the fields just beyond the cemetery and get a good hour's exercise in.
***
As we cycled out of the trees into the fields, I took it all in and felt my body relax and smile. It's just so astounding, ten minutes from home in what feels like the middle of a capital city, and we're surrounded by corn.
"It's no good" I said. "I have to take a photo." I tend to take a picture at every available opportunity and in my never-ending attempts to be more present and appreciate the moment I've been trying to limit the number of photos I take. Not at all successfully.
Just after I put my phone back, a wasp buzzed around the handlebars. I waved it away and swore at it when it refused to give up, flying towards my face and needing a good swat before it flew off. I cycled away and we carried on, across the fields.
The fields ended and we turned into residential roads. Up and down and around, and Marek remembered the new bicycle route that has recently been constructed with tunnels and connecting lanes... we turned onto it and marveled that we were on a network of cycle paths between cities now. A little further and we recognised the route and continued on our big circle, eventually bringing us back to the corn fields and the direct path home. Somewhere along the route I realised I only had one earring and cursed myself for leaving dangly earrings on for a bike ride.
I caught myself, breathed, told myself it was not a big deal, and reminded myself about self-compassion and talking to myself the way I'd talk to a good friend. That reminded me of some of the more woo people I've been looking into recently, people who are more comfortable with magical thinking than I am. I remembered a woman talking about the power of positive thinking and manifesting. If I was her I guess I'd imagine me finding my earring over and over until it was so real that it happened. I laughed at myself but tried to think when I might have lost it. It could have been over the bumpy bits of the path, something that would have distracted me from the feeling of it falling from my ear. The wasp! I remember swatting the wasp away and thought that could have knocked the earring out.
As we got closer to the place I took that first photo, I slowed right down and scanned the edge of the path. It's a bright yellow triangle, should be quite visible. I found myself imagining what it would look like poking out of the grass, imagining the feeling of surprise and triumph when I saw it. I couldn't see it anywhere.
Marek, slightly ahead of me, stops his bike and points behind him, on the opposite side of the lane to where I'm looking.
"Isn't that your earring?" It is.
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