Tagged commute diary

Commute Diary #6: Problem solving by bike.

May 20, 2016 — by Elly Blue

On my commute, I usually spend about equal amounts of time thinking about what’s going on around me (Is that car up ahead going to dart out in front of me? Whoa, that old park is now a construction site!, etc.) and thinking about *problems.* Problems can include anything from figuring out how I should have managed a difficult conversation to a tricky editing conundrum to worrying about all the people who used to sleep in the park that is now being converted to a huge new building. Not every problem can be solved, but when they can be the solution usually comes while biking.

I don’t know if it’s the repetitive motion, or the the passing landscape, or just the big block of time when I can’t even glance at a computer screen or device, but biking time is pretty much the best thinking time. Entire essays write themselves, negotiations become untangled, and perspective on everything gets clearer. When I get to work, I’m ready to rumble.

At least… sometimes that happens. On other commutes, I just get further mired in my thoughts, finding new ways to argue a point that’s already been won or lost in years past, finding new reasons to resent problems that were never actually that big a deal. Even so, when I get to work with such a disorganized brain, I’ve usually gotten whatever it is out of my system and am ready to go. Problem: solved by other means.

Remembering the years when I had no commute, except to stumble into my living room with a cup of coffee, I wonder how I worked anything out or got anything done. I also wonder, though, if it’s the same with any sort of commute. Is the time you spent driving, or on the bus, as productive? I know walking is—maybe even more so, for me at least. I’d like to hear how these things play out for everyone else.

Commute Diary #5: Takes One to Know One

May 17, 2016 — by Elly Blue

Last week, on whatever day it was in the nineties, I was riding home with our six foot long trailer attached to my already long cargo bike. On the trailer was another bicycle that I’d just picked up from the repair shop. It wasn’t the heaviest load, but I was cruising slowly to keep from jostling my load, enjoying the sun and my music.

As I went through the traffic circle in the center of Ladd’s Addition, I heard a roar behind me. It was a giant pickup truck, and as it passed me slowly, I saw a truly giant American flag waving in the wind behind the cab. I gave the driver a nod and a thumbs up, from one weirdo vehicle to another. He blushed bright red and almost smiled back as he continued on past, enjoying his own sunshine cruise.

On the next corner was the friendly woman who’s often there with a big red cooler, selling food to hungry passing cyclists. Instead of yelling “tamales” as usual, she was holding up her phone, filming the truck ahead of me. I saw her almost put the phone away, then spot me and keep filming, her commentary amping up a notch.

Was flag guy cruising around lefty southeast Portland to make a point meant to differentiate himself politically? Or was he like me, going home from work after picking up his flag at the flag repair shop, and making the best of the way people reacted to his rig? Either way, on our own we each looked like a different brand of freak; converging this way in the Ladd’s circle, we became something else entirely, either a set piece from Portlandia or just a couple people doing their own thing as they saw fit, and with an undeniable performative flair.

Commute Diary #3: Anger is a Secondary Emotion

May 10, 2016 — by Elly Blue

I’ve doled out some bad, inactionable, sort of pompous road rage advice in my day. “Breathe,” I’ve said. “Remain calm.” Ha. As if it were so simple.

But finally, I’ve got some real help — from brain science! A zine I edited a few months ago has had a major impact on my commute. It’s called This is Your Brain on Anger, and it’s by by Dr. Faith Harper, a counselor in San Antonio who wrote it as part of the wind-up to her 2017 book with us, Unfuck Your Brain (you’ll hear more about that one later!). Like I said last time, I get pissed off a lot while I’m biking, which is not exactly the emotional state I’m going for in life, and also doesn’t exactly inspire me to make great choices in traffic.

Anyway, the gist of this zine is that anger is by definition always a secondary emotion—we use it in place of whatever we’re actually feeling that isn’t as culturally or personally acceptable. Like, say, the terror of a truck grille all up in your face, or the hurt of getting callously brushed aside by someone texting in luxury SUV—both literally in the road and metaphorically in your rapidly gentrifying city.

“Anger is a secondary emotion” has become my mantra on the road. It’s sort of helpful in forestalling my own anger… though once I’m mad, I pretty much forget everything but that ’til later. Most of all, it changes my response to someone else’s anger. When I hear a horn blare, or feel the whoosh of air as a car zooms past me too close and fast, I think “secondary emotion.” Wondering what they’re actually feeling and taking out on me is weirdly soothing. My reflex to respond by flipping someone off, blowing them a kiss, or yelling something sarcastic or crass dissipates completely when I can imagine that what they’re feeling is something other than murderous psychopathy.

In reality, almost nobody on the road actually hates me personally and wants to kill or maim me. I’m not so enlightened that I can excuse or even really forgive reckless or callous driving—don’t people realize they’re behind the wheel of a two-ton weapon? But it’s nice to learn that I can at least feel some compassion for someone’s bad choices and reactions, and prevent myself from ruining my own day by reacting in kind.

Commute Diary #2: Music and Road Rage

May 05, 2016 — by Elly Blue

sound bike About a year ago, I was visiting my pal Davey’s bike shop (the recently exploded & then reopened G&O Family Cyclery in Seattle) and impulsively bought a little, waterproof speaker that straps onto my bike’s handlebars.

It immediately changed my daily life. Instead of a tedious, repetitive daily chore, my commute instantly became a solo dance party on wheels. Suddenly, fewer people would pass me in the bike lane. Was I inspired to keep pace with the music, or were they hanging back to rock out to my tunes? Hills seemed less steep, and the familiar sights I passed every day took on new meaning and interest in alignment with the soundtrack.

I also noticed, though, that my music choices majorly affected my experience and how I rode. One day I put on a particular punk album, and rode recklessly and made unsafe choices—that was immediately deleted from my phone. For a while I biked to work listening to the Riot Grrrl bands I’d never explored in the 90s, and would arrive feeling energized, empowered, and all worked up and ready for the day. But eventually, I realized that listening to Bikini Kill, although it spurred me along to great speeds and passionate determination, was also giving me a major case of road rage. Every little clueless, reckless, or thoughtless thing that someone in a car would do would set me cursing; even just driving past and existing on the road at all seemed inexcusable. It was exciting, but not fun, and not how I wanted to interact with the world or feel every day.

So I deleted all the angry music, too.

What did that leave? Well, my friend had just turned me on to her favorite band, Cloud Cult. Sitting in her house and listening to it for the first time, I was skeptical. The lyrics were sentimental and their extreme positivity turned me off to an extent that a therapist could probably have a field day with. The musical style was not one I was used to enjoying. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t relate to it, either, and I am sorry to say that I did judge it a little, despite my best effort not to.

But now it was the only album left on my phone. And the first time I played it on my commute, the difference was amazing. The upbeat tempo worked perfectly to bike to, and the extreme positivity … as well as the active attempt that I had to make to embrace it … gave me a whole new attitude on the road. Someone passed me too close and I grinned. I witnessed a near crash, and went around it, whistling.

Have my musical tastes changed from angry to posi? Absolutely not! I mean… okay. Maybe. Go figure. At least having a music-induced mellow attitude on the road during my commute gives me the time and space I need to have a heart-to-heart with myself over my lifelong musical choices and their connection with my emotional state. All that for only the cost of a bike speaker and a few albums? Priceless.

– Elly

Commute Diary #1: It’s a jungle out there

May 03, 2016 — by Elly Blue

hobo jungle from flickr commons We just got back into town this past weekend, after a couple of weeks in California. In that short time, there is a noticeable increase in the number of camps, and the number of tents at established camps along our route to work. Biking past before 8am, the tents are silent and zipped up; in the evening, people sit outside, playing instruments, chatting, watching the world go by.

There’s been a growing theme on the bike blogs and facebook groups I follow: fear of all the people living outside. The particular, rising fear for a while was of bike theft. My old employer at the BikePortland blog covered the topic extensively, even organized a bike theft summit. On every story, the comments were steeped in the fear—and presumption—of impending violence. That seemed to almost be dying down… and then there was a sexual assault on a secluded bike path, and suddenly it seems that fear of the homeless has turned up to fever pitch. It blew up last week on a thread (now deleted) in a facebook group for women cyclists. “I have empathy, but…” was the refrain. Fear trumps all.

It’s been upsetting to see the changes in Portland over the past decade. Ten years ago, mental health funding was kiboshed by the outgoing mayor, bent on leaving the city worse than she found it, and it’s been a long, fast slide downhill since then. In 2007-2008 and again in the past few years, our housing market has gotten beyond tight and prices have become untenable. Tearing down old mansions to build new apartments is okay with me; the gouging rents in those new apartments (and, in response, in older ones), not so much. If you don’t own a home or have a really stable, well-paying job, or preferably both, you’re really just a few months away from being shit out of luck in this town, and if you haven’t got a backup plan, well, welcome to being the newest member of the most-feared class of Portlander.

I find that prospect terrifying; I also find it impossible to fix that fear on the people it’s happened to. There are deranged people making bad decisions that are likely to hurt others at all levels of society; I’m way more nervous about the ones who are actually in positions of power, or who, not even realizing their power, have an influential voice among their friends and neighbors.

If you are actually living outside, then yes, your chances of being assaulted is tragically high. If you have a home and are just passing through… well, let’s just say your risks are astronomically higher inside your own home, while on a date, or at a party.

I think about all of this now as I bike to work. When I saw a man walking down the street yesterday in the peak of the heat, yelling and swinging his fists in the air, was I an anomaly for being more concerned for his safety than my own? It’s not that I’m particularly empathetic—that’s not my strength at all!—but I’ve spent a lot of time on city streets. I’ve done my diligence looking at the actual risks. And I’ve paid attention to the scary rhetoric on internet message boards by homeowners who are “empathetic, but,” and what I hear from the so-called progressive citizens of Portland makes me wonder if a Trump America would really be such a big change after all.

– Elly

Read more by Elly about bicycling, class, and many other issues