Hell-on-wheels

I bought a bike light today. Of my seven wrecks in the past fifteen years, two were caused by hitting obstacles in the dark. Of the others, excessive speed caused one; inadequate speed caused two; and dogs caused two.

Ninety percent of bike fatalities are male, and a wreck every two years is more than I can walk away from indefinitely, especially now that I get hurt more easily and don’t heal worth a damn. My problem is that I like to go fast. If I can cross an intersection a hair’s breadth ahead of a speeding car, I’ll do it. If I can take a minute off my cross-town time by tearing through unlit parking lots and alleys, I’ll go for it. I wouldn’t say I’m exactly compelled to speed, but I would feel like a namby-pamby if I slowed down.

Eugene is a great city for maniac bikers because cops mostly ignore you unless you actually collide with them. I hear of people getting $250 tickets for running stop signs, and I know someone who got a ticket for failing to yield the right of way to the car that hit her; yet I rarely see a bike stop for a red-light if nothing is coming; and I regularly see them tearing down pedestrian filled sidewalks, speeding the wrong way on one way streets, passing cars between lanes of traffic; and behaving in other ways that are as reckless as they are obnoxious.

Eugene is also one of the country’s most bike friendly cities in that is has numerous bike lanes, bike racks, bike cages, bike thoroughfares, and bike awareness. When I moved here, I was freaked out by all the bikes because they were smaller than anything I was used to looking for. They seldom had lights; came out of nowhere; never gave signals; and behaved erratically. Now, I am very careful to watch for bicyclists because I know that a large percentage of them are idiots. Consequently, a large percentage of motorists regard them with contempt.

It doesn’t help our image when large numbers of bikers get together and ride abreast down busy streets, purposely creating traffic jams. (Their goal is discourage the use of cars.) Last year, they delayed an ambulance, and this led to public outrage and the issuance of massive numbers of tickets at subsequent events. This in turn led to biker accusations of police unfairness, partiality, and even brutality; so the cops have again backed off.

Eugene is also one of the world’s capitols for bike theft. My last bike light was stolen without its mounting bracket. I had left it on my bike with the assumption that no one was likely to steal an easily detachable light from a practically non-detachable bracket. Since then, I’ve learned that it happens all the time. On another occasion, I had my front wheel stolen, and it’s not unusual to see securely locked bike frames from which every removable part has been taken.

If a business allows patrons to take their bikes indoors, I take my bike indoors; and if I were to buy a new bike, I would deface it to discourage thieves. As it is, I take comfort in the fact that my ten-year-old UniVega is not high on the crooks’ shopping list. It would still be stolen if I didn’t take pains to protect it, but at least I don’t have to take extreme measures. People with new and expensive bikes often use them for recreation only, and keep an old clunker for commuting around town.

Peggy got rid of her bike a decade ago after a wet grate caused it to slide out from under her. She wasn’t hurt much, but she was so shaken that she was still sobbing when she got home twenty minutes later. She felt even worse because, of the many witnesses to the accident, no one offered to help. She only bought a new bike this year because we can no longer hike together.

Peggy is not as good at judging the speed and distance of oncoming cars as I, and I’ve worried for years about her walking to work much less biking (the hospital is twenty blocks and several busy intersections distant). I’ve been pleased to observe that she shows good sense without excessive caution. My theory is that the years she has walked have greatly improved her ability to judge speed and distance.

Compassion is a crust of bread

Peggy, our neighbor Ellie, and I went to the Cascades yesterday where they hiked a loop trail over two little mountains (Aubrey and Heckletooth) while I finished reading Main Street. They returned exhausted, although Peggy had previously considered the hike easy, and Ellie is a martial artist who is eight years younger than Peggy. Peggy is simply in the worst shape she has ever been; as for Ellie, fitness in one sport seldom translates into fitness in another.

I hate sitting on the sidelines while Peggy does things that we used to do together. No matter that I always wanted to read more and hike less; I wanted to do it by choice. And I find it almost as hard to watch Peggy’s decline as to watch my own. I’ve seen her train vigorously for months for a single climb up a Hood or a Shasta, this despite her inability to adjust to altitude. Many times, she vomited her way to the tops of mountains that defeated people of greater ability. Now, I see her exhausted by an eight-mile hike below 4,000 feet, and I am astounded that age has come upon her so quickly.

Aging appeared so desirable when I was young. Thirteen, eighteen, and twenty-one, were occasions for pride. But then came thirty and the end of young adulthood. Forty was halfway to death. Fifty was halfway to antiquity. At 57, I can scarcely believe the things I could do five years ago that are now impossible. No diet, supplement, exercise, or attitude can erase the accumulated months and years. Yet, they passed so quickly. Age is like a runaway boxcar that is scarcely noticed when it leaves the yard, but how dizzying its speed and how sure its destruction when it drops into the darkness of the valley below.

I would be at yoga now, but I strained both shoulders two weeks ago, and they have deteriorated to the point that my hands and forearms tingle continuously. I tried to find ways to do yoga anyway, but I finally had to give it up. I thought to do a few simple stretching exercises at home, but even those made my shoulders worst. Now, sharp pains in my knee are keeping me awake at night.

My deterioration inspires me to look back at my life and wonder what it was all about; and to look ahead at my life, and wonder what it is all about. Self-pity is not admirable; yet it seems to me that the pretty pictures we paint in order to get through our lives are less than rational. Some believe in heaven, or at least in some Higher Power that put us on earth for a reason. Others believe that, just as the flap of a butterfly’s wing is said to have the power to create a typhoon, everything we do has the potential for inestimable importance. Finally, for those who lack such comforting beliefs—who can find no reason to think that life has any meaning other than the meaning we give it—there is the possibility of focusing upon more humble goals. We accumulate things, or live for our families, or donate to charity, but we know that our choices are made on the basis of an existence that is as paltry in wisdom as it is in length.

I have spent years working on a house that will someday be torn down, yet I work for what it means to me now. I exercise a body that will soon rot, yet I exercise it for the good I can get from it now. This is how I live, and sometimes it seems reasonably satisfying, and sometimes it seems empty. Sometimes, I must struggle to find a reason to get out of bed. I think that, well, when I deteriorate beyond the point that I am willing to tolerate, there is always suicide (I dwell on this daily). Then I remember Peggy, and I know I couldn’t voluntarily leave her. I also think of my dogs and, in their absence, of the dogs at the pound, and I think that, well, even if my life becomes of no value to myself, it could still be of value to them. So what if my time is short and my efforts paltry; surely a brief and paltry effort is better than no effort at all. I believe suicide can be a noble way to die, but not until the drain of my life on others exceeds the good that I can create.

Do I know that I am right about this? How could I in my brief life and with my limited knowledge? Yet, I can distinguish between consolation and despair, and if I can bring more of the former than of the latter, I will have my reward. The problem is that it is awfully hard sometimes to care about consolation. If I console an unwanted dog that is about to be euthanized (I have consoled—and destroyed—many such dogs), I will have done something, yet the dog will be no less dead, and will have no more memory of whether it lived in a castle or died in a pound. By such thoughts, good is enfeebled; and the only thing I can say in its defense is that, poor though it be, it is all I have. If a starving man is thrown a small crust of bread, will he not eat it? Even if it serves only to prolong his misery, he would be a rare man who could refuse it; and I would be less than admirable if I could withhold it.

Peggy joins S.C.U.M.

Today, I went for part (which was all I could survive) of an all day workshop at the Sikh kundalini yoga center. I knew almost nothing about kundalini, so I looked it beforehand in Wikipedia. I quote:

“Summary of Known Problems [resulting from kundalini]: Death, pseudo death, psychosis, pseudo psychosis, confusion, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, sadness, suicidal thoughts, urges to self-mutilate, homicidal urges, arrhythmia, exacerbation of prior or current mental illness, insomnia, inability to hold a job, inability to talk, inability to drive, sexual pains, temporary blindness, and headaches.”

I naturally wondered if I would survive the afternoon, but, “what the heck,” I said to myself, “it's free. Besides, what are the odds that I’ll have all these problems at once?”

I was the only male in a roomful of middle-aged women (the other men having presumably died or gone insane), all of whom sat comfortably on the floor with their legs in a lotus position while I propped myself torturously against the wall. We practiced exercises that seemed so fiendishly designed to destroy knees that, had I been paranoid, I would have thought the teachers knew I was coming and were out to get me. We—rather the rest of the class—sat with their knees bent so their feet were beneath their butts; they squatted with their heels touching one another; and then they returned to a lotus position. I had to stifle my laughter as I considered the absurdity of my utter ineptness at doing any of the things that everyone else could do so easily.

Not that the teachers were content with knee twisting exercises. We also stared at our noses, tightened our anal sphincters, drew energy through our navels, chanted the same four syllables interminably, touched our fingers to our thumbs in time with our chanting, and panted—all at the same time. I could soon see that kundalini yoga would indeed drive me stark raving mad, and that it wouldn’t take long either.

After three sessions, each of which was wilder than its predecessor, I left. I couldn’t believe that people actually do this stuff, yet my curiosity would have kept me there for the final hour if only I could have sat in a chair.

As I biked home, I reflected upon my inability to do a single exercise correctly as well as the absence of other men in the class, and I recalled the S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting-Up Men) Manifesto which was written in 1967 by Valerie Solanas, the radical feminist who shot Andy Warhol. The following will give but a mild taste of her sentiments:

“The male is a biological accident: the Y (male) gene is an incomplete X (female) gene, that is, it has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion…. the male is unfit even for stud service…[he] is, nonetheless, obsessed with screwing; he’ll swim through a river of snot, wade nostril-deep through a mile of vomit, if he thinks there’ll be a friendly pussy awaiting him.”

Since the part about snot and vomit was true enough, I asked Peggy--my resident nurse--whether the male Y gene really is simply an X gene with some parts missing. She said, “Picture a Y. What you’ve got is an X with only one leg right? This being undeniable, it necessarily follows that every Y that ever existed was a totally screwed-up, irredeemable mess. This is why the women in your yoga class could stand on one foot with their other limbs extended while you crashed to the floor. They were mighty towers of beauty and light; you were a three-legged dog in a hurricane.”

“Uh,” I interrupted. “I knew there were X genes and Y genes, but it never occurred to me that the genes really looked like Xs and Ys or that they had to spend their lives on their feet, as it were.”

“Well, sad to say, but now you know,” Peggy concluded. “This is knowledge that female nurses have always had, but that male doctors—even geneticists—have been protected from. Mine is, after all, a compassionate gender. That’s why we don’t start wars or beat people up like you stupid men.”

So it is that I will leave kundalini yoga to the gender that is better suited for it, and welcome to it they are. I had rather be strapped to a chair and forced to watch sitcoms from the 70s.

Extreme fighting letdown

Jay and his wife, Danette, took me to breakfast yesterday. Danette mentioned that they were going to watch a fight Sunday, caught herself, and apologized to Jay for telling me something that maybe she shouldn’t have. He told her that I already knew he was "not your usual yoga teacher,” and explained that Danette was referring to extreme fighting, and that they watch it on pay-per-view. All I know of extreme fighting is that it consists of putting two men in a cage in a combination boxing match, wrestling event, martial arts contest, and barroom brawl. The fight ends when one man is too injured to continue.

I have a problem with my yoga teacher taking pleasure in such an event, and I have a bigger problem with him watching it regularly and paying to support it. But then is it reasonable for me to care about the ethics of my yoga instructor (president, mail carrier, etc.)? So what if he enjoys violence—or kiddie porn for that matter—as long as he is a good teacher? My every relationship implies that I have weighed the good against the bad, and found in favor of the good.

I don’t know if I will find Jay’s behavior sufficiently offensive to change studios, but I suspect I will, as I have noted that I progress through six steps in regard to behavior that troubles me. First, I feel shocked. Second, I try to understand why the person might do such a thing. Third, I wonder if I am blowing the situation out of proportion. Fourth, I remind myself that no one is perfect, people interpret events differently, and what looks to me like a pattern of ethical failure might turn out to be a fleeting phase. Fifth, the problem continues to bother me. Sixth, I give up on the relationship.

Something that greatly bothers me today seldom bothers me less tomorrow. This only leaves the alternative of changing the way the other person looks at his behavior, and I rarely attempt that. In this case, I doubt that I could offer any objection to extreme fighting that Jay is unaware of, and I would anticipate alienating him by discussing it. It therefore seems preferable to break ties gracefully. If I decide to leave his studio, there are many reasons I might offer that would be less truthful, yet also less damaging. I do not believe in being truthful in the absence of any good that I imagine coming from it.