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| Kew Gardens Toronto at Night |
It’s the beginnings of summer now. It’s still cool at night. In fact, this spring has been exceptionally rainy and cool.
But it was pleasant and warm today. But I can feel it in the air. Rain is coming but I want to enjoy my ride home, so I don’t rush.
There is something about riding at night that I’ve always enjoyed since I started riding. I’m going to try to explain it. So bear with me.
First, it’s cooler at night. I can be fully geared up and not be uncomfortably warm.
Later in the evenings, things are quiet, especially on the week days. People are home and sleeping and everything feels relaxed. I ride along what is normally a bustling busy street, and there are only a few cars around me. I don’t have to be as defensive, as if everyone is out to kill me. These people in their high end cars are only out now because they need to get somewhere. They’re not unhappy, not stuck in traffic. And it seems that they don’t want to tangle with a biker, so they give me space.
Things at night smell different.
During the day, the sun cooks everything. You get this miasma of scent. It’s a muddled, crowded, dusty, smell. It’s not necessarily a bad smell, but things, subtle things, get lost in the mix. The heat of the day releases the smell of human presence and for me, that’s a stressful smell, especially in a large city.
At night, things smell different.
You can’t enjoy this from being in a car. This is why dogs stick their heads out windows. With the heat of the day gone, the strong odors are gone and you can smell nature and it’s pure. The scent of flowers surrounds you. Summer is coming. You can feel it, smell it, taste it.
The ride home takes me past sleepy neighbourhoods of large homes with perfectly manicured lawns where everyone has settled in for the evening. It’s a work night after all. Of course, these gardens have an obligatory lilac bush. And it’s almost June. The lilacs are starting to bloom and their perfume is beginning to fill the air.
I ride past these personal oases, and everything is floral, beautiful, pruned and clipped. And as beautiful as these gardens are they are missing something.
Further along, I’ve left the subdivision and am going down a country side road past vast fields of sod. The heat rises from the fields and I can smell the earth, and the grass. There it is, that missing thing… the fresh earth, unkempt, dirty, innate. There is a mist coming up from the fields. There’s rain in the air, but not yet. There’s steam from the earth releasing it’s heat from the day. Another lone biker passes me going the other direction. I can smell the exhaust. He’s running a bit rich and then the small of exhaust is gone. He, no doubt, is enjoying the evening as I am. Someone else had traversed through here already. I can smell a cigarette. And it’s gone.
The trees on each side of the road are towering here. It feels like a corridor, I can’t look up at the sky here, because the fields and trees attract wildlife so now is not the time to be star gazing. There are lights at the end of the road that make the the end of the trees look like a portal.
I can concentrate on my other senses. Riding is my meditative state. I’m able to listen to music and really hear it for what it is. And if it’s a song I’m super familiar with, it falls to the wayside and my mind starts filling my head with inspirational thoughts, plot bunnies and the occasional “I wonder what’s for dinner?”
The highway smells different. There isn’t so much exhaust right now. The cars running around this time of the night are few and far in between and I don’t feel threatened by them. There is construction, so I get the occasional whiff of asphalt and tar. Not many people are aggressive right now. You don’t need to be. No one is around. There are no crowds. It’s night and it’s calm. I’m alone with my thoughts. The highway passes under my tires like water in a fast flowing river and I’m flying now.
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