my ride

I should be riding my bike on weekends.  Walking is my only form of exercise but the need to go places necessitates a faster mode of travel than my own two feet.  A bicycle should allow me to see more of what’s around and people wouldn’t easily notice, but that means carrying a bag and growing a pair of eyes on the back of my head to make sure the bike doesn’t get stolen while my attention is elsewhere.  Or I can take the public transport.

Of course, driving a car has its advantages, like overtaking this chap and parking farther down the road to be able to set up a shot.  He is not stopping for a photograph.

And then there’s Tutay along the country road with his bamboo rod, trying to catch fish in an open drainage.  The water is murky gray and there’s just too many non-organic things floating in it, and probably more at the bottom.  Still, he was able to catch a big one last weekend.

Would I have been lucky to catch these kids releasing homing pigeons by the side of the road?  Probably not, if I were taking public transport or riding a bike.  They were there one moment and gone the next.  I followed them to a small cluster of homes away from the main road.

Interestingly, I was educated on the art of breeding homing pigeons by a bunch of kids.  Chatting with them brings to mind a quote I’ve read somewhere:

“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.” – David Orr.
There are some links on the web attributing this to a Buddhist saying, but irregardless of whose line this is, I fully subscribe to it.

These kids will grow up to be caring people.  I can feel it in my bones.

Tags: b/w, bicycle, bike, black, exercise, healer, homing, lover, peacemaker, people, photography, pigeon, restorer, storyteller, street, successful, transportation, white

• March 4, 2013
• wanderings
• 15 Comments