Advocacy

As soon as I love it, it's been too long

It’s not a matter of anti-technology, as evidenced by Facebook, Twitter, a blog, and a phone with web access (it sends text, voice, video messages and something else I don't know how to do, surely). I’m inter-connected across the planet with a biographical maze of people who share one form of common interest or another: cycling, music, books, schools, work, any number of things that link us all up.

Through three or four degrees of separation, we’re all connected, somehow. In a few minutes of websearch, we can find out history, background, or food preferences of almost anyone. You can tune, filter, autosort, schedule, track, promote, search your life to the detail of an ant’s footprint. My significant other can track my location via cellphone pings on my ride home. There’s cable internet at my house, and my neighbor can watch TV shows from other countries via a small metal plate on her roof. I embrace it in a way you would a warm quilt on a cool winter night. My routes can be dissected into foot elevation gain, suggested safety from the point of view of a cyclist, and organized into safest, shortest, and fastest.  There's never a need, or even an underlying call to unplug and detach.

Sometimes, though, I ramble. Ramble? Wander? Perhaps even, in the old Dutch word origin of ramble, romen? Sometimes, with out knowing, just veer off course and forget. Released from concerns, obligations, deadlines, ideas, destinations, and just ride.

Which leads me here, leaning on a street sign, staring at a dive bar on a street corner of an offshoot of University, looking at a young lady in a leather jacket, cigarette at the tip of long-nailed fingers, revealing denim shorts, high heels, yelling into a phone in Spanish, at a rate roughly near the speed of light. I’ve taken a turn that led me to a one way street, and a decision must be made about which direction to go: back, across, or some other option.

It’s called “El Uno Bar”, or "El Bar" or something like that. In the dark, it glows reddish and only the feeling of music emanates from it, something not quite audible. Cat calls from the passenger of a truck driving by, and she quickly shoots the middle finger up, deftly not dropping the cigarette, nor slowing the stream of conversation going into the phone. Across the street, a shopping cart full of cans and plastic bottles rattles by, pushed by a man who surely, at some point in his life, was the inspiration for Nirvana's version of “The Man Who Sold the World.”

In contrast to downtown, stark contrast, most buildings are occupied. Not as many have succumbed to a downward-spiraling economy, though the normal empty rule for this area applies. The police term the area Mid-City. You could call it worlds apart from Horton Plaza, bank buildings, or even the sharp-edged Hillcrest/South Park area. Almost as if the Georgia Street bridge over University Avenue denotes a different world. From inside the bar, a loud voice echoes out and laughter follows it.

The façade is simple, almost catchy, nearly tacky, in some ways inviting, in other ways a deterrent. You shouldn't drink here if you're faint of company, carry only a gold card, are from La Jolla, Carlsbad, or any gated community, or have shoes that cost more than a pay check. You should drink here, because the love of your life is at the end of the bar, nursing a golden-yellow beer in a mug that has been run one to many times through a dishwasher, and perhaps been thrown a few times for good measure. You should know this place, because it is where you should and shouldn't be. The darkness inside the door is impenetrable. Somthing tells me, naggingly, almost yelling, to lock my bike up out front, pull some sweaty, crumpled dollar bills out of pocket and have a beer. Or two.

No one has ever seen this place until my eyes see it now, at this moment, and it will not exist if I don't remember it, or could not have existed prior to this moment. Staring momentarily into eternity, the building cannot be recalled from the many times I've ridden by. Was this a rambling ride, or karma leading to "El Bar" for some deed? I adjust my bag on my shoulder, shift slightly and try to concentrate: what was I doing? The lady outside looks at me suddenly, and creases her brow. Another car drives by, followed by a rumbling pickup truck.

A song starts playing in my head, going from quiet to loud, forcing my eyebrows to raise in wonder, but it’s only my phone. Technology reaches out and takes priority from a snapshot of life seen from the handlebars. Taken over by purpose, the ride home transforms from meander to hustle. Maps, often studied, laid out, planned, come to mind, distances calculated, risks considered, heartrate picks up. The world goes from wide open color, sound, and smell to narrow, focused hyper-detail of what lays ahead, and immediate right and left. Sweat comes out from under my helmet and everything worth seeing actually becomes a blur. Cars are evaluated for their motions: potential and actual. Dark streets are analyzed with seasoned details for known and unknown road imperfections. Tucked, hustlin’ -- the push to get home in time for something. Home is got, the bike put up with the others, a bag hung, sweaty gloves dunked in the fountain and rinsed, shoes kicked off.

Only a few days later, that moment in life was revisited. The memory slid around in my mind, like slightly melted ice cream in a porcelain bowl. The faint hint of the song felt, but not heard, the scent of burning tobacco, the muted colors under street light. Like a reflection in water, it can be seen, but will vanish at the touch; the memory is held, but shimmers and fades at focus. Stretch out my fingers, grip, almost feeling the handlebars.

Maybe you're reading this, looking for a punch line, a qualifier, or some little lesson to take from it. Perhaps a quip about seeing “the other side” of life, or about not taking things too seriously, or the division between some portion of life. Our failings in life are often our greatest art.

by BikeSD Staff