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I like all ways of moving, and like the bicycle the best. It’s not only because it’s cheap and it’s righteous. The bike keeps me alert, and makes the most ordinary excursion something more.

 Such are my thoughts this Arizona evening as I head out for a half-mile ride to the local store for a six-pack. It’s February, and by Tucson standards the temperature is an absolutely arctic 45 degrees. I snug a bandana round my neck, pull on gloves, and shove off. In the east, above the dark mass of the Rincon Mountains, the nearly full-moon is blinkered by fast-moving clouds. The wind is up and at my back, whisking me down Forgeus Avenue with hardly a turn of the pedals. I ride no-hands, the spinning wheels maintaining the bike’s trajectory until I lean into the corner at Edison Street. Without touching the handlebars, the machine responds.

 The clerk at the Circle K laughs at my get-up. “I’m from upstate New York. You don’t know cold.”

 He’s right. But I know this: a whiff of moisture is aloft from the south. The moon vanishes for good. It occurs to me that for most of the history of humanity, people were very much alert to the immediate world of sounds and smells and sights. Some were relaxing, and some were alarming: the snap of a twig in the night, the sturdy scent of creosote after a desert downpour, the flash of lightning before the prairie bursts into flame. The world was roiling with cues you really could not afford to ignore.

 I’ve no fears besides being blown off my bike on the way home, so I’m free to enjoy the imminence of heavy weather. I like cars, a lot, but sometimes I want to be more than a brain controlling a machine. Tonight I’m the complete animal, and what a feeling it is.