Monday, January 26, 2004
ON MY BIKE I must be constantly on the defensive but never hesitant; cautious but not retreating. Thursday I am riding down Broadway in Oakland; a bus breathes down my neck. I begin thinking of a friend who said he's been hit by cars six times; I suddenly become too aware of it; I lose my focus, lose my nerve for a second and get trapped behind a line of right-turning cars. You can't do that. You can't stop; you have to keep moving; once you slow down you lose all maneuverability, you're a sitting duck. The first three seconds starting from a stop, someone could blow on me and knock me over; I'm all arms and legs and pedals and spokes, no sharpness, no center.
But oh, when I'm with the traffic, in the traffic, I'm smooth, I'm fast, I'm smart. I am alert to every signal--not the overt ones, but the subtle ones, the human ones: the turn of a head; a slight lean; a look of confusion; hands moving, ever so tentatively, from the ten-and-two position on the wheel. I make thousands of life-saving decisions, fine adjustments per minute. I weave exquisite patterns through the double-parked delivery trucks in Chinatown. I am the star of my own little mini-drama.
****
My darkest enemy is the road. I know how to mistrust people; I haven't yet learned to mistrust the road and other inanimate objects. It's the last-minute swerve to avoid a pothole, or the plunging into it, that catches me off-guard. The traffic report doesn't include that level of detail: "...and on 11th Avenue, there's a tennis shoe in the left lane, a patch of sand on the right..."
BICYCLE FASHION AND OTHER OXYMORONS Tuesday I catch a glimpse of myself in a shop window. Black loafers, rubber bands around scrunched-up pant legs, orange nylon jacket, storm-trooper helmet. My hair puffing above my helmet straps in two handles, a cross between Princess Leia and Pippy Longstocking hair. I realize I am becoming my dad; I can see him returning from work, briefcase tied with bungee cords to the rack, hair standing straight up in the wind. ("I've been trying so hard not to become my mom that I did not see this coming..."--Rachel Green in an episode of Friends).
But oh, when I'm with the traffic, in the traffic, I'm smooth, I'm fast, I'm smart. I am alert to every signal--not the overt ones, but the subtle ones, the human ones: the turn of a head; a slight lean; a look of confusion; hands moving, ever so tentatively, from the ten-and-two position on the wheel. I make thousands of life-saving decisions, fine adjustments per minute. I weave exquisite patterns through the double-parked delivery trucks in Chinatown. I am the star of my own little mini-drama.
****
My darkest enemy is the road. I know how to mistrust people; I haven't yet learned to mistrust the road and other inanimate objects. It's the last-minute swerve to avoid a pothole, or the plunging into it, that catches me off-guard. The traffic report doesn't include that level of detail: "...and on 11th Avenue, there's a tennis shoe in the left lane, a patch of sand on the right..."
BICYCLE FASHION AND OTHER OXYMORONS Tuesday I catch a glimpse of myself in a shop window. Black loafers, rubber bands around scrunched-up pant legs, orange nylon jacket, storm-trooper helmet. My hair puffing above my helmet straps in two handles, a cross between Princess Leia and Pippy Longstocking hair. I realize I am becoming my dad; I can see him returning from work, briefcase tied with bungee cords to the rack, hair standing straight up in the wind. ("I've been trying so hard not to become my mom that I did not see this coming..."--Rachel Green in an episode of Friends).
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
TODAY IS SQUIRREL APPRECIATION DAY Seriously. I heard it on NPR.
Let me take this occasion to tell you about one of my favorite squirrels.
Just off to the side of my balcony, visible from the window where I sit to work, there is a bare winter tree, about 20 feet tall--a beech tree?--in a neighbor's yard. It appears above the top of a seven-foot graying wood fence, some of its branches gently trespassing the air space of our yard. Pick any branch on this tree: It begins reaching toward the sky at a 45 degree angle, the diameter of the branch gradually decreasing, until suddenly the branch bends, its thin bifurcating ends tapering and hanging in sheer plummets toward earth.
My squirrel, on warm sunny days, climbs a certain branch facing my house, scurrying just to the top of the 45 degree angle, as if to the edge of a cliff, stopping just before the branch bends and weeps. I am amazed that he never misjudges and falls; this squirrel clearly knows his physics.
And then he simply sprawls on the half-inch diameter wood, like a couch potato on his favorite couch, his beer belly of winter-stored-fat bisected by the branch, hanging in big folds on either side of it. He stretches his front paws casually in front of him. At occasional intervals he extends one paw to the right, as if in a silent yawn. I have never seen such a relaxed squirrel.
Of course, the instant there is the slightest movement on the tree, or nearby--a bird landing, a breath of wind--he instinctively acts like a squirrel again: he jumps nervously up, eyes darting from side to side. And he is gone.
Let me take this occasion to tell you about one of my favorite squirrels.
Just off to the side of my balcony, visible from the window where I sit to work, there is a bare winter tree, about 20 feet tall--a beech tree?--in a neighbor's yard. It appears above the top of a seven-foot graying wood fence, some of its branches gently trespassing the air space of our yard. Pick any branch on this tree: It begins reaching toward the sky at a 45 degree angle, the diameter of the branch gradually decreasing, until suddenly the branch bends, its thin bifurcating ends tapering and hanging in sheer plummets toward earth.
My squirrel, on warm sunny days, climbs a certain branch facing my house, scurrying just to the top of the 45 degree angle, as if to the edge of a cliff, stopping just before the branch bends and weeps. I am amazed that he never misjudges and falls; this squirrel clearly knows his physics.
And then he simply sprawls on the half-inch diameter wood, like a couch potato on his favorite couch, his beer belly of winter-stored-fat bisected by the branch, hanging in big folds on either side of it. He stretches his front paws casually in front of him. At occasional intervals he extends one paw to the right, as if in a silent yawn. I have never seen such a relaxed squirrel.
Of course, the instant there is the slightest movement on the tree, or nearby--a bird landing, a breath of wind--he instinctively acts like a squirrel again: he jumps nervously up, eyes darting from side to side. And he is gone.
Monday, January 19, 2004
RAIN: EPISODE ONE It was not a day like any other, at least not for a long while. It was one of those days when you realize you have forgotten, for the past 11 months, just how miserable California weather can be, when it really puts its mind to it.
One of those days of cold windy rain where carrying an umbrella is pointless. Inside I have the warm comfortable feeling of being protected as the wind blows rain sideways, daggers tapping furious, insistent against my windows. Walking to the street to rescue the mail from my leaking mailbox is an event, a necessary battle that must be fought for the sake of legible bills, unsoggy Christmas cards. The sidewalks at the street corners are entirely flooded over, with no way to cross without immersing feet to above the ankles or else making a complicated set of leaps toward and through the center of the street.
This is a day that ends with the following items dripping happily in my shower--water leaping from them with joyous little plings: four socks, two gloves, one wool hat, one pair of Levi's soaked to the Vs on the pockets, a second pair of jeans soaked to the knees (both pairs of jeans will take a full week to dry), one long wool coat, one grey wool cardigan, one purple jacket that I once believed to be a rain jacket (word to the wise: if you buy it in an alley in Beijing, it may not actually be Gore-Tex), one soggy receipt fished from an inside pocket of said jacket, and a couple of other small items that should have been--but were not--out of the reach of the all-permeating rain. A gentle barnyard smell of wet wool spreads from room to room.
This is the kind of day you stay in, read books, eat soup out of cans. Any other course of action is foolish.
But in the morning I have an orthodontic appointment at the top of Solano, uphill, against the wind all the way. I barely make it on time. My jeans are wet to the knees; I try to slide down on the dentist chair so I won't leave squeaky wet marks.
Even after the morning event, I am stir-crazy, and I don't have the right books. At the first break in the rain, I make a dash for the library. Alas, not to make it home before the next stormy assault, which propels me directly to REI, where, dripping my way through the store to seasonal clothing, I give in and spend what seems like a million dollars on a new rain jacket.
One of those days of cold windy rain where carrying an umbrella is pointless. Inside I have the warm comfortable feeling of being protected as the wind blows rain sideways, daggers tapping furious, insistent against my windows. Walking to the street to rescue the mail from my leaking mailbox is an event, a necessary battle that must be fought for the sake of legible bills, unsoggy Christmas cards. The sidewalks at the street corners are entirely flooded over, with no way to cross without immersing feet to above the ankles or else making a complicated set of leaps toward and through the center of the street.
This is a day that ends with the following items dripping happily in my shower--water leaping from them with joyous little plings: four socks, two gloves, one wool hat, one pair of Levi's soaked to the Vs on the pockets, a second pair of jeans soaked to the knees (both pairs of jeans will take a full week to dry), one long wool coat, one grey wool cardigan, one purple jacket that I once believed to be a rain jacket (word to the wise: if you buy it in an alley in Beijing, it may not actually be Gore-Tex), one soggy receipt fished from an inside pocket of said jacket, and a couple of other small items that should have been--but were not--out of the reach of the all-permeating rain. A gentle barnyard smell of wet wool spreads from room to room.
This is the kind of day you stay in, read books, eat soup out of cans. Any other course of action is foolish.
But in the morning I have an orthodontic appointment at the top of Solano, uphill, against the wind all the way. I barely make it on time. My jeans are wet to the knees; I try to slide down on the dentist chair so I won't leave squeaky wet marks.
Even after the morning event, I am stir-crazy, and I don't have the right books. At the first break in the rain, I make a dash for the library. Alas, not to make it home before the next stormy assault, which propels me directly to REI, where, dripping my way through the store to seasonal clothing, I give in and spend what seems like a million dollars on a new rain jacket.
