We have a physics test in less than two days, and I have barely studied.
Tonight I came into the lounge and immediately heard the clamoring – someone expressed their desire for a luscious chocolate cake. I heard someone else agree heartily; a third person chimed in, and then a fourth person came into the lounge and put money on the table. Then, something inside of me that I wasn’t even aware of rolled out onto my tongue and poured out: I’d go get it, I heard myself saying. And it was done. A part of me was surprised that I so suddenly acquiesced to an invisible but very present desire; and another part of me was alarmed that I so rapidly and impulsively agreed.
Now, to be honest, physics is not my strong suit. I went to the review session earlier today and realized during it that I wasn’t able to complete all the problems. On the other hand, I have also been hiding in my room for nearly a week trying to keep up with physiology and organic chemistry – including the various quizzes and exams, a presentation, a paper, a lab report, and manage my work and assignments at an internship at a local nonprofit. So I think a part of me needed to get away; and I think that even though I couldn’t consciously identify the reasons behind my desire to go off on a quasi-delivery bike ride, I moved with it.
During the bike ride, I felt it: the energy flowing through me, the muscles in my legs flexing, the evenness of my breaths, the rhythm building in my blood. It hit me then. A part of me, although I wasn’t conscious of it, needed a sort of physical release, a night bike ride with the cool air flickering past my ears, the quivering of the handlebars on my hot palms, listening to cicadas above me radiate the energy of the settling evening. I realized that even though the conscious part of me identified the need to address my commitments, another part of me needed just as much visceral movement, somatic journeying. Although that part of me stayed unidentified and unfulfilled until it arose at once, unbidden, it was just as legitimate and deserving of gratification as my other needs. Just by moving intuitively, by letting that part express itself in a single but fruitful impulse, I shifted effortlessly through that energy and was thereby able to come to a place where I could sit still and focus later on the necessary but (possibly) meaningful: writing this, understanding the endocrine system, and more importantly, understand the forces that govern physics.