Two Hours of Sanity

Last week was a bit crap. I was on 'after hours' support, which basically means I'm on call 24/7 for the week. And people do call at any time of the night. Plus, you do your usual 8 hour shift, which usually balloons out to 10 or 12 hours. Good thing they pay extra for the 'after hours' work.

Wednesday was one of those long 12 hour shifts. I finished at 19:30, sun down was 20:30 I was feeling rather tired. I hadn't eaten much all day, just grabbed a few biscuits between resolving issues. I'd also missed breakfast and forgot my lunch on the kitchen counter. I needed to take my laptop home as well, to deal with calls at night. It's not a super heavy laptop, but it's not light either.

Wednesday was also the day I had set aside to ride my bike back home. It would take about 2 hours, and I only had 1 hour of daylight left. Also, if it's going to take 2 hours, there's a good chance I'd get a call for help in that time. Fortunately, we work as a team and help each other out, cos it really sucks and knowing you can rely on your workmates is good. I could pass the problem onto them, but it was my turn to catch the crap at night, not theirs.

So I set off, knowing I have to hurry so I can get back onto the job sooner, and also because night was falling fast. I grabbed a muesli bar from the sweets tray, ate half of it and set off. That nagging feeling that the phone is going to ring at any second gnawing at the back of my head. I could take the train instead, but at this time of night it takes 2 hours as well. Decided riding home is a better use of my time.

First part of my ride home (or last part if going to the office) is the least fun part. Trucks whizzing past my elbow is not fun. I sometimes wish I had a video camera to record how close they pass by. It's insane.

At some point though, I stopped worrying about the phone, and started to enjoy the ride, and I remembered why I liked biking so much. It's my escape from the people, lets me clear my mind and think. And in the middle of a long week, after a long day, it was really needed.

I think I stopped caring about calls when I got stopped at a level crossing because one of those 1km long freight trains was passing through. In the car, they usually annoy me because they take ages to pass. Today, I just watched it go past, munching on what was left of the muesli bar.

Soon after that, I get to the start of the dedicated bike path. It goes through the light industrial area, lots of warehouses and factories and undeveloped land. Not many people, not very well lit, and my bike light is not really meant to light your path. It's just meant to alert drivers to your presence. But I need it on, some light is better than no light.

It was nice watching the sky change colors. Hues went from bright orange to a very rich dark blue. The moon came out early. It was just a thin crescent, very bright for the time of night. It's beautiful, and I think of Liyana and how much she'd like this, so I try to take a photo with my dreaded phone. It came out ok, my phone camera is not exactly designed for night photography..

I'm enjoying watching day turn to night, and seeing the stars start to make themselves visible, like someone pricking holes in a black sheet held up to a light. I don't have the equipment to record this, so I take mental photos.

Now I'm suddenly becoming creative again. There's a tunnel coming up and I know I'll get some nice photos from inside.

After this tunnel, I continue my ride. Besides watching the sky, I also have to watch for the rabbits running across the trail. Especially the little baby rabbits, they don't always run in a very clever manner, getting very close to being squashed a few times. Feral cats are also out, usually all you see are their eyes as the light catches it. They're vewy vewy quiet cos they hunting wabbits.

I'm also a little worried about snakes slithering about. We get warned about them, and one time also rode over a huge lizard. I thought it was a crack in the road until it moved. That was in daylight. The road is covered in cracks and in the dark, I can't tell if it's a live crack or a dead crack.

Birds worry me too, other people have lost bits of ear to the birds. It's like the birds are imitating an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

I get home at almost 10pm, and feel very awake. Which was good because not too long after I get home, the calls start coming in again. I'm being sucked back into the crap, but at least I escaped it for a few hours.

It seems I don't just need to be by myself and away from people to ground me and relax. I need to be in a natural environment too, preferably with some wild animals. It's not so easy to do find that in Melbourne. In Cape Town, I'd go every other weekend to the mountains. Tokai Forest to be exact. In that forest, you could really escape. You could sit for over an hour in a single spot, look out over the rest of the mountain range and not see or hear another human at all. The whole time you were there, usually 3 hours for myself, it was possible not to see another human soul. In the spring and summer months, you'd cross paths with troupes of baboons with curious baby baboons. Might sound cute but with 20 or so adult baboons ready to protect the baby, it wasn't exactly safe.

I found my escape from the rat race in Melbourne now. I just need to use it more often.