The Glad Bird of Happiness

I once took an online poetry workshop and one guest speaker was from the countryside of West Ireland. He greeted us on Zoom, walked out his front door and gestured to the landscape. “Welcome to my home that I love with all my heart!”

 

Outside his door was a moor of sorts and it was clear that it was quite cold there and damp and misty, with heavy overcast skies and a fierce wind blowing. It took a vast poetic leap of imagination for me to consider someone loving that.  I know that I wouldn’t. 

 

My home this morning was waking up in a small Italian town on the Adriatic Coast and mounting my trusty bike on the 11^th and last day of this marvelous bike trip in Slovenia. And what a day it was! At 9am, all was fresh and young enough to sing out the day’s promise and the 72 degree temperature with blue sky and no wind just perfect. No huddling against cold or seeking relief from heat, the inside and outside in perfect accord. The body could wholly relax, the skin’s pores fully open and the soul’s pores as well. 

 

Without an ounce of effort, I felt the glad bird of happiness land on my shoulder and sing its sweet song in my ear. The blue sea to my right, the green hills to my left, the slight breeze stirred up by my Turbo-charged electric bicycle and that sense of freedom I evoked back in the first ride I took. I could be 12 or 22 or 52 or 72 years old and it didn’t matter, the fiction of aging dissolved and all of time brought into this present moment. Whatever would have been burdening me at each of those ages was blown off behind me. 

 

The ride shifted to highways and industrial towns, given relief by car-free bike paths. We cheered as we re-entered Slovenia and made our way yet again to the coast, with a side-trip to the Salt Pans. Got into Piran around 3:00 pm, bid farewell to our bicycles and paneers, checked into the hotel and jumped into the Adriatic Sea. Now time to go off exploring on this, our last night with all five of us together. How sweet it has been.