It’s just like riding a bike.
The phrase reverberated through my mind as I biked the short distance from Santa Monica to Venice Beach. Wobbling from side to side, I slowly gained confidence as I tried to remember the simple skills needed to maneuver a bicycle. (It has probably been over twenty years.)
And for a few short yards, all was fine until other people decided to take the same morning stroll. With each additional person on a bicycle, roller blading, walking or biking on the path, my courage waned and I struggled to gain control of the bike.
It’s easy to live life in a silo. Keeping our head down, focused on the turning wheels of our own schedules, routines, and steadfast opinions, we often forget that we share a path with others. A world that is just as much someone else’s as it is for me.
Cyclists would zoom behind me, shouting, “On your right!” Pedestrians crossed before me, stretching their tight-lipped grins, as if to say, “Lady, you better stop.” And here I was, praying that I wouldn’t fall down and skin my knees.
To exist alone would be much easier. My own wants, needs, desires met. If I wobble or struggle, no matter; nobody sees. But the pervading loneliness, the lack of collaboration and innovation, an ability to discover new dreams through exchanges of dialogue, differences and emotion…that loss seems painfully depressing.
God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.”
It may seem easy picking up a bike and remembering how to ride. It’s much harder cycling with others, trying to share the same lane. But even with the seen wobbles and the struggles, the reward in learning how to grow with God’s creations is immeasurable.
Perhaps living with each other, peacefully among divisiveness, will one day, feel just like…riding a bike.
Shabbat Shalom
