The Art of Moving Slowly

 In preparation as a participant in a research study tomorrow morning, I have been restricted from "vigorous exercise" since 9AM Sunday morning.  After consultation with the head of the study, it was decided that riding a bicycle at or under 8MPH, on flat ground I presumed, would be under the vigorous threshold, and I figured it would make for a likely much-needed 48 hour rest period.  12MPH is my reliable comfortable cruising speed on my typical ragtag utility bike, so two thirds of that is, yes, moving quite less than comfortably slowly.

There is much to be said for comfort, and slow as well.  When I was corrupting young minds, err, I mean, completing my practice student teaching, I had a ten minute commute to the Greenfield High School, on foot.  It was a simple stroll with, I think, four turns including the one into the high school, and on quiet neighborhood streets.  I turned this potential for monotony into a challenge: I would notice something new on my repetitive route every day.  It needn't be anything grand, maybe just the identification number on a telephone pole, but instead of simply passing by such a detail, I would make a point to truly notice it.  This is one of the graces of low speed, truly existing in one's environment instead of merely fleeting through it.  I loved that walk.

Last summer, when my neck brace and I were restricted to walking as my only form of independent travel, I walked a lot, and it took at least two bits longer to get places, and while it was not by my choice, there was a grace to moving in that way.  Shortly after I was once again cleared to begin riding a bike, I heard an interview with Annabel Abbs, the author of Wind Swept.  She'd had a surprise fall that temporarily disabled her, and the challenge of once again learning to walk had taught her a new appreciation of this form of movement that most adults get to not think of in its baseness.  As you might imagine, I could relate, empathically.  I read the book, and it was good, and it gave me another insight into how the simple act of walking, moving slowly, can be so much more than simple.

So today, I rode slowly to the market up in Belchertown.  This trip is usually no rush job, but today's was a bit slower and then some.  Since I eschew most electronics from my bikes, I don't have a speedometer, but I figured if I could avoid any elevated breathing while keeping my mouth closed, I was safely under anything that might be considered vigorous.  The same old same old, but much slower, was something different.  I more than just read signs I normal zip past, I also noticed how they hung a little askew from their tree, one nail no longer quite in full service.  That may sound simple, but to notice such is in its own way far more complex that the usual lack of notice at all.  I was truly in the world, part of it, moving slowly.  Art.