Here I am again. The day has only just begun, my coffee is half finished, and I have already spent some time working on One Thing at a Time. Somehow, today’s thoughts are going to be about both cycling and everyday reflection – about yesterday and what we can discover when we actually look back at our days.
🇸🇪 Svenska – läs inlägget på svenska Tre mil, kalla händer och en älg på vägen hem
🇬🇧 English – you are here
It is beginning to feel as though the app is becoming a circle. The different parts are starting to connect and create a clearer picture of the user’s days.
Not to tell anyone what is right or wrong. Nor to decide what makes a day good or bad.
Instead, it is meant to help the person using the app stop for a moment and see:
What have my days actually looked like?
What habits keep returning? What seems to do me good? What takes up a lot of space? Is there anything I could change to make life feel a little gentler?
At least, that is what I am beginning to see in it myself.
Now I am mostly curious about what other people will discover when they start using it. Because perhaps they will see completely different things than I do.
And that is exactly how it should be.
Cycling and everyday reflection – letting yesterday return for a moment
When we are out cycling, we have time to notice things we might otherwise simply have passed by. We stopped at this sheep pasture during our bike ride the day before yesterday.
Yesterday became another evening on the bikes.
Three Swedish mil – 30 kilometres – altogether.
We cycled 15 kilometres to deliver a small present to my son. He was coaching the youngest children at the football field, and there was our little guy, running around in his football boots and everything.
That little boy has a lot of energy in his body, and on the football field he gets to use it through running, playing and moving.
And the football field was full of family.
My son’s little daughter was practising football with her teammates. Alfred was there with his team, and my daughter was there too.
My son with his two children. My daughter with Alfred.
And then there was us, arriving by bike.
There was nothing particularly remarkable about it.
Just an ordinary evening at a football field.
But perhaps those are exactly the moments that become something more when we stop and actually notice them.
Fifteen kilometres home again
Of course, we still had to get home.
And somewhere along the way, we discovered the next thing:
Gloves.
Gloves can be very useful when you are cycling in the evening at this time of year.
The evenings are getting cooler, and after a while our hands were properly cold.
We also started talking about reflective vests. The evenings are getting darker now, and when you cycle along country roads, you need to make sure you can be seen.
These are the things we learn as we go.
We have started cycling longer distances, and with that come new experiences. What do we need to bring with us? What do we need to think about? What works, and what should we do differently next time?
And then came the moose
On the way home, we suddenly found ourselves sharing the road with something considerably larger than us.
A moose.
A really big moose ran along the road in front of us.
It was a reminder that cars, darkness and cold are not the only things we need to be aware of when cycling on country roads.
Nature is there too.
And a moose feels considerably bigger when you meet one from a bicycle than when you are safely inside a car.
We learn while life is happening
When I look back at yesterday, the three miles are not really what feels most important.
It is everything else that surrounded them.
The children at the football field. The movement. The family. The cold hands. The darkness. The moose.
And the thought about reflective vests.
Of course, we want to get home safely. But there is something else too.
Children and grandchildren notice more of what we do than what we say.
If we want them to wear helmets and reflectors and think about how they behave in traffic, then we adults need to do the same.
We are still learning.
I suppose we do that throughout our lives.
Sometimes the lesson is a big one.
Sometimes it is simply:
Bring gloves next time.
And perhaps that is exactly what I am trying to build with One Thing at a Time.
A way of seeing the day as it actually turned out.
Not to judge it.
Simply to notice it.
And perhaps to carry one small thing with us into the next day.
Maybe that is why cycling and everyday reflection fit together so well for me. First, I am right in the middle of what is happening. Afterwards, I can look back and discover things I may not have noticed at the time.
🌿 A question for you
When you look back at yesterday, is there one small thing you discovered that you would like to carry with you into today?
You might also like to read
We Were Only Going for a Short Bike Ride
One Thing at a Time – When Everything Becomes Too Much
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Between the Lines
On the surface, this post is about a bike ride, a football field and a moose.
But between the lines, perhaps it is about something else.
About how much of life consists of things we almost pass by without noticing.
And what happens when we actually stop and see them.
Yesterday has already settled into history. Tomorrow is waiting further ahead. But right now – this is where life happens.
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