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Phoebe Sinclair Writes

Phoebe Sinclair Writes

Tag Archives: angry-bike-moments

Whole Heart . . . Rage?

21 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Bike Life, What Is It

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Tags

angry-bike-moments, as-we-are-living-it, emotion

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Your laundry. It’s locked in the Laundromat and you can see it, unmoving, in a top dryer. The sign on the door reads that the ‘mat closes at 8 PM. It’s 7:45 PM and you need those pants for work tomorrow. Annoyed.

You step onto the bus and realize you don’t have enough on your ride card. Crap. You fumble to find actual cash while other riders queue up behind you. The bus driver exudes distrust while you struggle to add money to your card using the ridiculously complicated system. Finally, the driver says something impatient, and your eyes snap up. Aggravated.

You walk out of the building and

  • Your bike lights have been stolen. Again
  • Someone plundered the bungees and now there’s no way to keep your basket on the bike
  • Someone tried and failed to remove your front tire
  • Your basket was ‘mistaken’ for a trash receptacle
  • You bike isn’t where you (thought) you left it

Anger. Fear. Compounding, splitting like atoms.

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You’re eleven years old. You stand on a corner in your neighborhood, not doing much of anything. A car whizzes by and a young man leans out the window to holler the N word. Shocked, you pause in confusion, listening to the hysterical laugher recede as the car retreats. At first you think the slight will slide off; instead it permeates. There’s an almost audible click and you are rushed with random childhood injustices, more focused micro-aggressions against your color and gender, your own American slavery lineage, and the rush becomes a deluge, you’re experiencing not just your own but drawing from a ground spring, a geyser of . . .

Rage.

I remember September 11th. I worked at a dotcom and the news of the towers, fire, and terror spread slowly around my office. As the story evolved from accident to intention, no one could concentrate. TVs came on. My co-workers stared in horror and someone said, “I don’t understand how a person could do this.”

The desire to inflict deep, unassailable pain, the planning, the getting on those airplanes, the flying –I found none of that imaginable. Horrific. Repellent. But when I looked inside myself, I realized I understand how rage grows. How it collects, fuels, feeds. I watched the country take a deep dive into that rage, post 9/11. We flailed, grieved and struck out. I wanted to go back to that conversation with the co-worker and ask, haven’t you ever felt . . .

Rage?

You’re no longer you. A vessel. A conduit. You’re at service to however it manifests, whatever looks like. You’re the place where hurt and outrage and fear and grief swirl, twirl, bubble, punch, jerk, get good and mixed. Then you reach down and borrow from someone else, maybe many someones so together you can

Explode.

Scare the heck out of everybody. Including yourself. Hurt somebody. Maybe yourself.

From small slights to the catastrophic, it’s there. Rage is equal opportunity. It’s rarely right-sized. It’s patient. Will wait years for you to step unwittingly. You can try to press it down, rationalize it, breathe it away but sometimes it’s just like . . .

Boom.

In the next moment, your world is different.

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Morning Mind Modes

20 Monday May 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Bike Life

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

angry-bike-moments, as-we-are-living-it, bike-commuting, goals, gratitude

The inchworm hangs from the tree with bokeh

On my morning bike commute to work, I’ve noticed that my mind tends to operate in several modes. Usually: Morning Mind God of Destruction and Morning Mind Gratitude.

Morning Mind God of Destruction, as you can imagine, sounds something like this: Use your blinker! WHAT is WRONG with you? I can’t believe that other cyclist just did that -he’s definitely not long for this world. LMA buses are the worst. What am I doing with my life? The best thing about today will be when I can finally go back to bed. I will STARE you into submission! Hungry already.

Young fronds

Morning Mind Gratitude: Riding my bike through the woods every day, in a city, is magical. Hi. Hi! I love when drivers wave at me. It feels so satisfying to know what projects I’ll be tackling at work today. I wonder what’s for lunch. Should I stop at Whole Foods for some kombucha? I’m so lucky. I really should learn a blessing to direct at irate drivers so I can check that goal off my list. Hey, there’s that singing cyclist again!

What forms do your morning minds take?

Bike handle decoration with beads

Hipster Bike Path

23 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Bike Life

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

angry-bike-moments, bike-commuting, bike-love, jamaica-plain

Like many people, I’m of multiple minds about graffiti.

Mind #1: I don’t like it: if it’s not your property, you shouldn’t alter it. If it’s public property, it’s even LESS cool to lay your mark. (Do unto others: I’m almost 100% sure the average graffiti artist would frown the frown to end all frowns if, heading into his/her bathroom in the morning to brush his/her teeth, discovered a pink hippo riding a tricycle spray-painted on the shower door.)

Mind #2: Show me a book on graffiti art world-round, and I’ll spend at least half an hour flipping through.  I won’t deny that there’s something intrinsically attractive about in-your-face art.  And sometimes the graffiti is truly beautiful; the skill of the artist enviable.

Mind #3: Place and context: is the graffiti just tagging (hi! I’m here!  Lookatme!  Lookatme!) or is it social commentary?  Was it skillfully applied or slap-dash?  Is it marring the side window of some little neighborhood coffee shop (you know the owner’s going to have to go out there with gray paint), or interrupting the monotony of a train ride down the Northeast Corridor?

I think it was last year that the Southwest Corridor multi-use path was repaved, making many cyclists, runners, rollerbladers, and rowdy high school students happy to enjoy smoother travel.  Not long after, someone trailed red paint in a erratic line from one end to the other, inciting in me a surprisingly possessive and self-righteous sort of anger (you kids!  get out of my back yard!)  Not long after that, somebody else stenciled the word Bold between Green Street and Stonybrook Stations.  Recently, the erratic line and Bold have been joined by a cyclist wearing a hat.

My first thought: does this mean the bike path has been claimed by hipsters?  How connected is the man in a hat to the JP Music Fest mascot, or perhaps walk signs in East Germany?

My second thought was more a resigned sigh.

What do you think?

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Bringing It

26 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Bike Life

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Tags

angry-bike-moments, bike-commuting, cambridge

In general, I’m not quick to anger. Sure, like most people, I’ve got my triggers, but I’m much more likely to laugh, shrug, or shake my head and wonder aloud at the mysteries of humans.

Enter bike commuting.

So this morning, riding serenely down Putnam Street in Cambridge (j/k – Putnam, with its constellation of potholes = far from serene), a woman in a large white SUV swerved around me, yelling out her open window, “Move over!”

Putnam Street is, I don’t know, twelve feet wide. It’s a narrow street. The Big Dipper potholes and road patches usually result in my taking the lane (for non-commuters this means = riding in the middle of a travel lane.)  I just don’t feel safe otherwise.

Enter the hollering driver in her SUV that barely fit in the lane. Enter 9:30 AM on a Wednesday. Enter fury.  

I fantasized about chasing her car down and through her open passenger’s side window (that she rolled down to shout at me?), giving that woman a piece of my mind. In a big way.

But you see, I’ve already done this. Multiple times, in multiple situations. It’s not satisfying. It’s never satisfying. Not even perhaps raising a choice finger. Not even mumbling savagely to myself. What happens is I get upset, I look out-of-control, I get exhausted by my own anger-adrenaline. And it’s just not worth my energy to take these situations personally, because they’re not personal.

Still when these situations occur, which is fairly often, a large (loud, panting, spitting) part of me is so ready to bring it; so unwilling to back down.  

Frustration leads to trashed bike?

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