One of those days

And the bicycle goes where, exactly?

Yesterday was just one of those days. Tasks taking longer, lung-based cold draining further, nothing going forward as fast as I needed it to. (And also, of course my health insurance company messed up the automatic billing and cancelled my coverage just in time for my first doctor’s visit in two years. Why wouldn’t they?) Large scale worries and small scale misfires just sort of leached the feeling of effectiveness from my abdomen. Not a terrible day, just the kind that feels like a low slow growl.

But then! Then I was headed over to the city for Korean happy hour appetizers with three dearly beloved friends. The fresh air of bicycle motion was already soothing, though the day’s misalignment continued as every single stoplight turned red at my approach.

You can go, as long as you don't enter.

I’ve ridden from my house to BART (the subway) approximately seven quajillion times, and I well know that one stretch is the most dangerous. An American-style street of two busy lanes on the left and slanted parking spaces on the right, bikes are advised to float ten feet off the ground I guess.

After merely two mazillion passes, I’d developed an automatic habit of scanning for reverse lights to make sure none of those parked cars wanted to put a windshield between me and my destination, but the sheer normalcy of the passage, splattered with deeply-felt frustration, helped me not notice that the first parking spot was empty.

I don’t know if the driver signaled, since I was alongside them, but it doesn’t really matter. I should have been aware of the possibility of that right turn, crossing right in front of me, if not on top of me.

As it was, they pulled right, so I pulled right, and we both entered the space together, factory-shaped automobile metal somehow not impacting DNA-made me meat, with a good five inches to spare. Good five inches.

I looked at the driver, who looked back at me, both waiting to see if the other would rage and threaten. I love neither of those, so just sort of went around and back on my way.

See now the Dutch, the Dutch
know how to run a bike lane.

Air moving again, limbs still intact, I felt two tugs for interpretation. One, I could be overwhelmed with the frustration and fear of the moment and the day and the week, pour it all into a Republican-style rage of blame against another. Or, I could take that startling moment as a gentle but clear reminder from the universe to get my perspective in order. Sitting on hold while I stress at a long To Do List? Not that bad.

So on Super Tuesday, I elected to vote against anger and fear, and helped myself to a serving of gratitude and serenity after nearly going through a car window. Enjoyed time with friends, determined to take my own advice not to be in such a g’dang hurry all the time, and am happy to be blogging about it today. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have hold music to listen to. And that’s just fine.

Sign language

Malaysian freeways are not for bikes. Nor ox carts.

So I’m riding down the street yesterday, right-hand lane like I’m supposed to, directly over the big puffy-paint bicyclist symbol that tells reminds cars that bicycles have a right to exist in three dimensions, and this morbidly obese land-yacht of a Caddy behind me starts honking at me. I know, right? Like I’m supposed to fly, or something. Plus, I’m already going as fast as the car in front of me, just call me Lance Armstrong Greg Lemond, but the peak fuel bugger behind me honks again. I would think it was that old urban legend about the car behind flashing his lights every time the murderer in the back seat rises up, except as fancy as my beautifully battered bicycle is, it ain’t got no backseat. But so I point right down at the symbols as I ride over each one. Bicycle lane, buddy. But no, he keeps tooting at me the whole way home. Toot toot you mother pheasant plucker. Some people.

That's one dangerously rugged floor you got there, Hong Kong

The only thing I can think is that the individual in question had at least one of four afflictions. One: terrible vision, couldn’t see the signs, in which case they shouldn’t be driving a car anyway. Two: couldn’t see the road over that urban Serengeti of a hood, in which case no one should be driving that car. Three: they’re lazy, stupid, and hate cyclists. Four: just don’t see signs anymore.

Signs can be informative. If only I knew which one
was being proscribed, on a train in Myanmar.

That fourth one I can kinda understand. We urbanites, especially in litigious and don’t-expect-people-to-use-their-thinky-parts societies, live in a forest of printed instructions, a melee of designations, a clusterfudge of prohibitions, demarcations, and condemnations. If one were to stop and read every sign, they wouldn’t have the literary bandwidth left to read more than tweets. (I may just have solved a mystery that’s been driving me cynically insane.)

But sometimes, one really should read the signs. For example when threatening the corporal well-being of someone who is doing nothing wrong, nor inconveniencing you in any way whatsoever. Or, when the signs are just plain awesome.

Wait, what don't you want me to do, tuktuk driver in Sri Lanka?
The hoodie mafia flashing....gang signs?...is extra credit.

Lumps of love, transmitted by wire.

My headphones endorsed the errand by playing the perfect cycling songs as I pedaled downtown to the bank, Toots Thielemans’ “Bossa Nova” gliding right on into Johnny Cash’s “Hey Porter”. We had account data scribbled on an envelope in my pocket, five hundred of your dollars lurking around the ether somewhere reachable, and the perfect cure for a morning of mental mud washing the blech off my spirit.

A venomous dose of intimidation, and a steaming and stanking dollop of why-bother, were little piles of self doubt scat on my shoulders when I started, but they dried in the sunlight, weakened in the rushing air, and were scoured away by the wash of your generosity. I had money to pass on.

I have yet to master bicycling photography, and banks just
ain't pretty, so here's a couple more from the community
center where Alvaro volunteers.

Byzantine bank protocols were navigated with an easy smile nourished by the kindness of the 13 of you who had donated to help rebuild Alvaro's home, to find the best way to send every cent. No one takes cash anymore, but it turns out the best way is still to physically walk a money order down the block.

Colleagues from my Venezuela delegation and others, family, friends, and names I didn't recognize arrived in my inbox over the last week, all stepping up to help put a roof back over a family. The bank teller may have been bored, but I wasn’t.

(The sense of wellbeing y’all gave me endured, kicking the doors off the hinges of the Oakland Parking Citations Assistance Center, and I was the happiest person ever to wait in line to pay an exorbitant parking ticket. Confused the bejeebus out of the clerk.)

Stub of the most satisfying money order in history tucked into my notebook, I grinned my way around the jetstreams of Oakland, the morning’s sick inefficacy forgotten, feeling the flow, reflecting the rhythm. And no one seemed to mind a good mood, especially the woman who honked and waved while her laughter escaped the cracked window when my stoplight dance included a little traffic direction. (John Legend’s “Stereo” just wanted me to tell the turn lane when it was their turn).

Three of five delegates, dancers, musicians, and a magician

My feet were still drumming the earth when I arrived home just now, and what did I find? Two more donors, another lump of love to send Alvaro’s way. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to go back and do it again tomorrow.

(If you’d like to add to that errand, the fundraising page is still alive and dancing:  http://www.gofundme.com/AHomeForAlvaro)

(And since Tuesday’s blog pushed ahead of this one, I can update that to FIVE more donors, almost doubling our amount raised, bringing us within $50 of halfway. I’m going to need to charge my ipod for this…)

(Mis)judgments in the Andes

The street dogs were humping outside the five star boutique hotel in Cuzco. I'd run out the door of my own funky hostel without brushing my teeth, but luckily the numerous (and bored) staff seemed not sure what to make of a grungy gringo, and perhaps swayed by my prodigious use of the formal Spanish verb forms, agreed to let me use their fancypants bathroom while Abi waited for the Argentinians across the street.

Abi would be my guide for the next four days while we drove, bicycled, walked, and occasionally soared on our way to Machu Picchu; the three Argentinian girls would be my primary companions. They seemed terribly young, and so very.....what.....Argentinian? It seemed unlikely I would develop a traveler-crush on any of them, and I wondered for a moment what it was about them that faintly repulsed me.

Just enough space remained in the familiar white minivan of tourism, and we squeezed in among the Brazilians. They were young and male, wrapped in new alpaca sweaters and a precise lazyness. Plenty of hair gel. They reminded me of a futbol team. The eight of them bantered in Portuguese with the closed ease of a well-established clique, and I wondered if it was going to be a lonely four days.

They spoke Spanish while hitting on the Argentinas, so I had hope for better conversations to come, but I sat back within myself as we climbed through Andean towns where Inca heritage squinted in sun-leather faces, choclo grew in precise rows, and piglets followed sows through the overgrown shoulders of the new highway.

Bob Marley wanted to know is this love is this love is this love that I'm feeling? Akon tried (and failed) to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful, and an interlude of Mexican maracas preceded Argentine bliss when a countryman told them he was borracho y loco.

The Argentinas stepped aside for cigarettes at the bathroom break (is there any less attractive behavior than smoking a cigarette?) releasing most of the monkey tension from the Brasileiros, so it was time to test their cliqueishness. “So, you guys are all Brazilians?” I asked in Spanish. Feeble, but it's a seed.

“Si” one said, and they went back to Portuguese. Lonely days it is. I tried once more when we stopped to change a tire, with an identical lack of success, so wandered off to take a picture. I had just enough time to reach the nearby house and request a photo of this little girl before the van roared up beside me, Argentine pop spilling out the windows and Abi shouting “Hey! Boludo! Vamonos!”

My co-passengers might not be ideal, but Abi was clearly a force of nature, and I had Peru to keep me company. Cuzco has something special, but as we moved away from the city the houses were painted with the dignity of space, while the Andes casually asserted their divine presence through the foggy windows. Happy backpacker.

We had just passed Abra Malaga, a pass among the clouds at 4316 meters (14,160 ft) above sea level, when the Brazilian buzz escalated. Below us, figures bicycled down the winding road that marked the edge of a sheer cliff like eyeliner.

Then it was me moving through mist, effortless acceleration as the dubious equipment bowed to gravity, wishing for lower gears while I tasted rain through a grin that wouldn't stop for miles.

My favorite moment was coming around a blind corner to find myself face-to-grill with a semi truck. There's no friggin way they'd let you do this in the US, poor lawyer-ridden bastards that we are. I don't think I even signed a waiver.

Dinner that night was chicken, rice, and French fries, with conversation and a growing awareness of who these people I'd inaccurately snap-judged in Cuzco actually were. The food was good, but the conversations were better.

I went to sleep that night as rain pounded on the roof, thinking this trek might be pretty good after all. And the best was yet to come...

Reunited with one of my great loves

I was reunited with one of the great loves of my life this afternoon. My parents dropped her off yesterday, and her curves, lines, and quirks are as familiar to me, as nostalgic to behold, as the arrival (and departure) gates at San Francisco International Airport. I couldn't keep my hands off her, and this morning I woke with the question of where to take her for breakfast.

I had, however, forgotten about the rack she has now. Gotta get used to that. It totally changes how she looks.

This afternoon we went to the grocery store, an errand I remember with particular fondness in times and lands past...but today's trip was good too, just in a different way. I picked out jalapeño salsa tortillas, pomegranate berry yogurt, and dark chocolate coconut chews. (The store was magnificent, so impressive it was no surprise to see the wrinkles of discontent in affluent brows that patrolled the aisles, looking for things they could complain about not finding.) We danced together the whole way home, no need for music, we made our own rhythm and melody.

I bought her some new jewellery, to lock her down and keep her for myself. I asked the salesman where the best places to take her around here are, and was gratified to hear his answer, “around here, pretty much anywhere.”

We danced so much in fact, that the Voice of Responsibility in my head had to remind me to pay attention to the sluggish creatures sharing the floor with us; cars just aren't as graceful as the swoops and leans of my beloved bicycle.

Suddenly this city, not large in itself, but part of a metropolis that spreads far beyond each horizon, is much more attainable, and to my circumstantial delight I find it is crisscrossed with “bike route” streets which offer shady avenues with less autos to pass, more fellow cyclists to nod hello to.

Riding again, I just couldn't stop smiling. Sometimes I fear that a grin that just won't quit will sometimes drift down to a smirk, but I don't think that was the case today, as it evoked a succession of kindred expressions, until I was riding through a haze of happy, sparkling with smiles, warm September air, and a body moving in harmony with a machine, with itself, with a place.

God I enjoy bike riding.

Coming home from work

It’s raining tonight.

It’s usually raining here.  Especially at night.

I like the rain.

On the train everyone has their own something to read.  We sit looking down at our laps.  We don’t look at each other.  Someone left their broken umbrella, open, in the exit doors.  Every other disembarker nearly trips over it.  None of us pick it up.  I want music as I bicycle home.  Metallica is not right.  The Supremes are not right.  Shuffle guesses “Andare” by somebody whose name is probably Ludovico Einaudi.  It was a free download.  It’s piano and pretty.

It’s still raining.

The girl in front of me rides her bike with her red umbrella open.  She disappears when I’m not looking.  I pass the school where I took my first Dutch class.  That was fun.  Nice people.  I can’t continue with them because of my new job.  I’ll miss them.  Someone in the line of cars honks, and I consider the idea that someone knew me.  It’s unlikely.

I listen to the same song a second time, not wanting to risk a wrong next one.

I feel like I am riding fast, and wonder if I have the wind with me.

Today was the second day of my new call center job.  Still training, normalcy starts Monday at 14:00.  It is totally different from and resembles my last job.  I made my first call today.  To Saint Anthony’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado where Kathy was very friendly and gave me a different number to call.  My brain produced endorphins.  I hypothesize that it was like the first time I jumped off the high dive at Eagle Pool, 10 years old I think.  I’m not sure yet how I feel about it…but I want to do it again.  I think I could get good at it.  Swan dive?  I think I am the only one of the new people who tried it.

I listen to Ludovico’s song a third time.

I pass the house on the corner that just had a new baby.  They hang baby clothes and a banner outside, which says the name is Nieke.  I am guessing that’s a girl.  I wonder if she’ll go any of the places I’ve been.  And how they’ll be different.  I wonder if I will ever do any of the things she will.  I wonder where we’ll be on each other’s 40^th birthday.  I’ll be 70 at hers.  Will I be 70 at hers?

The third time through the song ends as I pull up to the garage we share with the other tenants, who fill it with bags of recycling and a baby carriage, and which smells like my rusty first car when it’s damp.

I turn the music off.