Zen for breakfast

Time stops for me every morning. I feel the biting cold wind against my face, filtering through my beard and chilling my skin. The rhythmic pump of my legs approximates my heart beat. If I listen closely I can hear the swift whisper of wind as the wheels below me slice through the air. The cars that drive past me are only on the periphery of my perception; I’m in the zone. This is my time. It takes 45 minutes to ride from home to work every morning. It’s like clockwork, always the same, heedless of whatever is happening in the world or the rest of my life. Bliss. For this time I do not really exist; my body only a vessel; I am moving meditation. Without thinking, without conscious acknowledgment, I swerve around a pot hole, my body responding to visual input without thought. It’s beautiful; even more so since I don’t even know its happening; I’m as surprised as anyone that I swerve. I feel the blood flowing through my veins, pulsing like the background beat to my life’s soundtrack. This is now, this is the present, this is me.