Bicycle speeds

When I sat to write tonight, a song popped into my head. The song is "Time is" by It's a Beautiful Day. The phrase "time is, time is" refrains somewhat shrilly throughout the song creating a sense of urgency and incompleteness. I've been go, go, going for days now and that's how I feel. Everything I need to do is urgent and everything feels incomplete. This isn't true. I am prepared for work tomorrow, there is nothing urgent to do and I have completed everything that I need to do.

The sense of urgency is fueled by me. I have been busy and the busier I become, the harder it is to stop. It's almost as if I am riding a bicycle down a hill, gaining speed and if I push hard on the brakes, I will catapult over the handlebars. A sharp stop and I'm down. By writing, I'm trying to gradually slow the bike and coast down the hill.

The bicycle analogy works at several levels. I don't want to go through life at a single speed. Three speeds aren't enough. I need at least twelve and maybe more. The gradations of the hills and valleys of life call for a variety of ways to pedal. And today, was a day in which I started pedalling hard in a low gear, gained momentum and moved fast. I shifted up in the afternoon, adjusted my cadence and tried to pedal leisurely. Late afternoon, and I climbed another hill and now in the evening, I'm decelerating again. I could calculate my average speed but the average would mask all the variation in a typical, ordinary, beautiful day.