Happy man

In the locker room, among those suiting up and disrobing, we'd struck up conversation, largely because he is a gregarious guy. We'd talked about his bike ride in from somewhere north of the river and west of Cambridge. I'd learned where he'd come from, the more open west that the reserved east; had heard about his son almost my grandson's age.

He'd told me he was a lawyer, then some weeks later, that he was giving up the law to work in software design. The last week of his notice he was crowing about his liberation. Since then he's been enjoying his new job, and wishing something of the same for his wife, also a lawyer. A tall, smiling fellow, not prudish as so many of the men there are (though not me), he chatted with all kinds of people.

Yesterday, quickly showering and dressing after my run (and actually five minutes late), I ran out of the gym and scurried across the pedestrian way, an extension of Washington St, to my office building. As I did, I looked down toward the Old State House. There in the middle of the way, I saw someone on a bike approaching quickly, though I couldn't make out who. There was nobody else left or right.

The biker, helmeted and in  tight, colorful cycling togs, coming straight toward me, leaned back, took his hands from the steering wheel, and then, for a moment, lifted them up and spread them wide as if in exaltation. There, there, I thought, is a happy man. A moment later, I saw it was you as you swept by, and you called out greeting to me.

What an image fixed on my memory! A beautiful morning (as I had discovered), the triumphant end of a good, hard ride, the masterful sense of physical prowess, the prospects of good day ahead. Yes, yes. enjoy it to the full.