I shot this inside the St. Paul Pass Tunnel on the Route of the Hiawatha. I was scanning for other shots when I ran across this and it fit my mood, my mode of thought in a way that caught me by surprise.
Here’s the thing: I do some of my best thinking on the bike. I suspect that’s true for most cyclists. How often have I had a vexing issue I couldn’t sort out that became clear, or at least clearer, after heading out for a ride? It’s a question with no answer because my brain doesn’t run like YouTube. I’m not sure I’d want it to, fallible memory included.
On those best rides, I seem to enter a kind of tunnel, perception-wise. The world shrinks down to what I need to view ahead of me. On a mountain bike ride, I couldn’t tell you what was more than my armspan off the trail. Tree trunks, sure, but beyond that? No clue. I see the road or the trail clearly, but as if my vision had been run through a PhotoShop blurring effect, the only details I can make out are relevant to my path.
In the tunnel I’ve realized what I’ve gotten wrong in relationships, what I’ve gotten right in relationships, how to approach my boys with kindness and compassion while addressing teen boy stuff. The solutions a ride provides are truly endless, but the thornier the problem, the more extravagant my feelings about finding a solution on a ride.
Here’s the part I didn’t figure out until recently: The more existential the problem, the more my response tracks with relief. Feeling the weight of anxiety lift will ever convey comfort. The less existential the problem, the more exuberant I feel upon arriving at an answer as I ride. My non-scientific and highly intuitive take is that the less consequential the problem, the more likely it is to be crowded out of my thinking by something that matters in the near term. To keep a creative problem near enough my conscious thinking that I can drift into subconscious problem-solving mode ranks among the greater challenges I encounter in my creative life. It’s easy to crowd art with necessity.
And finding art on a ride ranks among cycling’s greatest gifts.