kind, gentle, abundant world

I forgot the mention yesterday my feeling upon returning my velib after the first use. I had a moment of anxiety – thoughts like “I need to remember where I put it” And “is it locked up well enough?” but then I remembered that it wasn’t my bicycle to begin with. It belonged to all its users for the moment they were together. I took a breath living in the present moment without attachment to the material. Then, I forgot which bicycle I rode.

This practice is also rather like trusting that the universe will bring you cardboard boxes when you need them and not hording empty ones in your limited closet space. Or leaving a bad relationship knowing that if that love is meant to be, it will find a way back to you… or that the universe has something better in mind for you. It becomes a fine balance, but I think a good analogy is taking care of the bikeshare bike you use so that its next rider has a wonderful experience, and trusting that the previous rider of your next bikeshare bike will do the same for you. Like Never-Never-Land, that kind, gentle, abundant world only exists if you believe it’s there.

I finally found a bikeshare station near where I am staying just outside Paris. The closest one appears to belong in the land of Brigadoon, but the next one out is not that much further. I figured all this out on the website. J, G and JP had told me where the closest one was supposed to be. When I couldn’t find it, G said something about me not seeing it. J replied: do you think it’s possible that Lilia didn’t do everything she could to find that station?

I had to admit that I hadn’t. That was the day before yesterday. Yesterday, I found another station.

There, I found a bike that was completely not broken at all. I rode it to the center of Paris, I figure about 4 miles, to see Gwen.

I’ll do a full profile on Gwen in another post, but we had a lovely time catching up in his atelier (where he does clothing art/fashion design) and a nearly café.


Later, I met J, G and M at Gare de L’Est where M was returning from Champagne (I rode another velib to get there). Her train was 50 minutes late. The day before, one of them asked me how to you say “charcuterie” in English. I said it is the same word. So, we went to Café Strasbourgeous for choucrute garnie, which was a huge quantity of pork and quite delicious (J got de la mer, which is not a bad idea to try at home). I’ve only had it made at home before, either improvised chez moi or at the real thing made by J’s grandmother in Alsace.