Traffic Flow

Each day I flow through town like water in a stream, around boulders and sticks. The gravity that draws me is work or home. Streetlights are the boulders, railroad tracks and highways are the sticks. As the lights change I am drawn to the left or the right. Rarely do I ride on the same road as the day before.

Cars, bikes and people flow around me. At times elementary school kids will form a crosscurrent across my path. They are a major impediment. They move as a largely impenetrable group, but also as an unpredictable current that will eddy and swirl around unseen objects blocking my path. I am pushed wide of them. They push me off of the sidewalks and into the street without regard to curb, ditch or traffic.

Cars form major and predictable currents. They are easy to flow with. It is the cars that stop at the intersection that I am crossing that form problems, or the cars that don't stop when they are supposed to that are dangerous. They look to the right as I come up on the left. It is easier to flow on the left side with the cars.

Bikes travel across my path, with me, or against me, always moving, many of them slowly. At times the roads narrow giving me only a narrow channel to navigate between hedges, fences and parked cars. Alleys and sidewalks are narrow, closely lined with buildings and shrubs. The current doesn’t stop flowing in the narrow channels, like a creek it gushes even faster.

Back currents come towards me. One bike at a time isn’t a problem, but sometimes bikes carry umbrellas in one hand. Sometimes, most times bikes don’t look where they are going. It is difficult to find the eyes of a bike. They don’t always look straight ahead. Bikes in pairs look at each other. They travel side by side and are unmoving. Even in the narrower alleys they travel abreast of each other. I face forward seeking a less narrow way to guide my bike to pass. Always I look for the person stepping out of their door onto the sidewalk or around a corner and every corner is a blind corner, every house has a door or gate that enters directly onto the sidewalk.

It is ironic that rain actually blocks my flow more than cars, people or bikes. There are more cars. The schools of elementary kids are larger and spread out further with the ribs of their umbrellas. The bikes are fewer, but more unseeing behind their umbrella screens. One hand steers the other holds the umbrella blocking the rain. Any hope of finding the eyes of the bike is lost in the rain.

Each morning the gravity of work draws me to Takasu. Each evening the flow home is irresistible. I ebb and flow around the objects in my path. Each day is a new channel, a different street, but always in the same direction.