Happened to be thumbing thru’ Delicious Laughter today in search of ‘Two Ways of Coming Down a Mountain’ and also re-discovered ‘When  a Madman Smiles at You’.

With some judicious editing:

Physician to assistant: ‘Can you administer some of that medicine to me?’

Assistant: ‘But that medicine’s for crazy people; you hardly need it yourself’

Physician: ‘Yesterday a madman turned and smiled at me, arched his eyebrows, and touch my hand. He would hardly have done that if he hadn’t recognized in me someone congenial — not so different from himself.’

Those to whom you’re drawn share some common consciousness. Also watch who avoids you — it may teach you something of your inner qualities.

Rumi

There’s a psychological adage that goes something like: people don’t change — they can only learn more about their flaws. Motorist ‘blindness’ is now being cited as a major threat to cycling safety. No argument there at all, frequently noticing that I must have forgotten to take off my cloak of invisibility before setting out for a ride. Sadly this driver affliction may be a permanent, even growing disposition. And the responsibility for safer cycling just might have to reside on the other side of the windshield — with the cyclist. A few thoughts on where this process might start.

‘Just like riding a bicycle’ — usually referring to something we (sort of) learned to do a hundred years ago and may not have used since; and for some reason assume the skill set still to be fully intact. Bikes and roads have changed — and, just possibly, so has the rider. Spend a little time getting to know your 21st century equipment, environs, and self. If you have to ask ‘what number (gear) should I be in’ — perhaps you’re not ready for prime time (cycling or oil painting). Ask a vet. Old cyclists are old and cyclists for two reasons: they’ve been at it for a long time — and they’re still alive. Possibly have some useful tips tucked away under what remains of their hair.

Remember Billy-Bob’s Driving School. Same lessons apply to two wheelers. Check your bar end mirror frequently. Better yet, get a bar end mirror to check. What’s going on behind you is generally as important as what’s coming down the pike toward you — and a whole lot more dangerous. Turning around to have a peak is cheaper, but more wobbly and kinda the equivalent of checking that text message while driving. And recall the one about ‘defensive driving’. Insert ‘riding’ and you’ve got a safer platform. If you can’t make eye contact with that motorist about to pull out from the side road, he likely doesn’t see you. Oh, and the ‘always have an escape route’ caution from old B-B. Good advice for the biker too. Having the room to brake, veer, or otherwise avoid is generally preferred to the road rash you’ll cultivate from sliding into second.

There’s a cycling accoutrement found in most bikers’ kit bags, but that I’ve yet to find for sale in any bike shop. Attitude! Comes in a variety of colors and sizes. Generally, however, seen in red and XL. And best left at home; you’ll hardly ever need it. Being right is not the same as being safe. Taking your entitled portion of the road in the middle of the lane is often an unwise decision. 30 pound bikes don’t do well in confrontations with 3000 pound cars. The universal ‘salute’ is not necessarily the best way to win friends amongst drivers. Some motorists actually like cyclists; some actually are cyclists. A friendly wave when you’re given the (deserved) right of way — and one clearly distinguishable from the its darker twin — is good politics.

And then there’s the group ride. There are some sports that are better done alone or in very small, trusted bunches of friends who would gladly sacrifice their first born for you — and who are very experienced at their chosen activity. Fly fishing, mountain climbing, and hunting come to mind. (Golf and snooker qualify as well — but those aren’t sports.) And I would add group cycling. The loose canon with the shiny new 12 gauge, the enthusiast who doesn’t know a peg from a carabiner, or the twitchy guy who thinks carbon fibre gives him faster internet connections are often better given a wide berth. Safety in numbers, sadly, is a myth. No good data on this one, but personal experience is that the most dangerous element on the road for a cyclist is not found behind the wheel of a pick up. He / she is in that group of happy, chatty, distracted, skittish, inexperienced, self-absorbed, forward-focused fellow riders — most probably the one directly in front of you and about to shift their butt position on the saddle, brake, stop peddling, or. . .  all without warning. Reaching out and touching (wheels) almost always ends badly.

And finally, the requisite rant about helmets and sidewalks. The latter are called side-WALKS for a reason. If they were intended for cyclists’ use, they might be called side-rides. And, of course, the ‘no brainer’, as it were, around wearing a helmet. If your encounter is with a semi, a helmet really doesn’t matter. But in those lesser meetings — car doors, gravel strewn intersections, other cyclist’s wheels — that piece of plastic-coated styrofoam may just save your life. Your choice.

Likely grade 10, perhaps 11. Sitting on the edge of my parents’ bed, door closed, using the ‘private’ phone. The ivory one that did its best to match the brocade bed spread; and distinguished it from its black companion in the busy kitchen. The call likely didn’t last very long, extended only by the awkward, adolescent silences. Angie had accepted my  tentative and self-conscious invitation of a date and, enough accomplished on call one, I’d signed off with the promise of a contact in the few days following with details. As much surprised as cheered by her response, I marveled a bit at what passed for teenaged enthusiasm on her end of the conversation. She wasn’t the most attractive girl in the class. But still this had definitely been easier than expected as I’d rehearsed my dialogue before dialing. Call two: ‘Oh. I thought you were Larry.’  ‘No, I’m David.’ And that was that.

Not sure if there’s a best before date for one’s ego.  A number of direct hits that the self tolerates and from which it, phoenix-like, will rebuild from the ashes of the moment — with the usual support from well meaning parents and such — before it simply shrugs and calls it a day. Mid-adolescence morphed into the university years.  A putting behind of my small, southern Ontario town and its associated coming of age pains (along with Angie, of course); and enough validation to keep said ego afloat in the meantime. Various identities took shape and thrived — largely. The parent, the practitioner, the runner, the mentor, the partner. Time spent aging in the barrel seemed to vary. But eventually they were all ready to be bottled. People seemed to listen. And, with age and a certain reputation for crustiness, even defer (or duck).

There is, however, an arc. You’ll know the one. It’s the function that describes most everything. It starts low, builds to a peak. . . then descends, sometimes gradually, sometimes a little more precipitously. In the parlance it’s dubbed the ‘inverted U’. And it’s universal. . . and inevitable.

It’s difficult to say when I began to feel less resilient, less substantial. Perhaps scurrying across the cobblestones of Venice, vainly attempting to catch a train to the middle of nowhere. And falling twice. Time was when such a tumble would have called for a shoulder roll — and back on one’s feet. Nothing broken (this time) — but the damage ran deeper than the scuffed elbow. Or it could have been that Sunday morning ‘run’, mercifully out of sight of most, on the nature trails by the river. The moment when the belief that the two intervening decades of ‘staying fit in other ways’ was put to the test — and failed. The shuffle that passed for a stride was hard to rationalize. Harder still to ignore.

The universe can be a relentless old thing. Never content to rest at one or two reminders of which side of that ‘U’ one is occupying, the messages continued to arrive — usually unbidden, certainly un-welcomed. Following a challenging ten days cycling in the mountains and feeling that, to quote a younger member of the group (that would be anyone else), ‘I’d done well —  for someone my age’, I was particularly unnerved by the ‘Venice experience’. Old, out of shape guys in Tilly hats trip on pebbles. Not me.

And so hatched a resolve to address the long-neglected ‘upper body fitness’ (no doubt the villain) at the local Goodlife. Spin class success and a serviceable level of cardio fitness aside, truth be told, I’d become a ‘one trick pony’ — without even realizing it. The fantastic array of hyper-specialized machines, whatever their expressed purpose, is even more adept at finding one’s achilles heel … and bicep, and quad, and. . . Who knew? Nothing worked as expected. The defining truth: tipping over, mid split-squat and feeling every inch a turtle rolled onto its shell. No darkened streets or shaded trails to mask the event this time. No cobblestoned culprits. Just a warehouse full of fellow ‘Goodlifers’ to mark the moment.

With physical ‘slippage’ so come the reminders of one’s level of relevance in other domains. Perhaps prophetically, we had decided to downsize in recent months, when the ‘little bungalow around the corner’ came up for sale — and some coincident interest was expressed in the home from which we’d sworn previously to leave feet first. Offering up for public appraisal the domicile shaped and stamped with one’s taste and identity is a humbling exercise, not for the faint of heart (and certainly not for one mid-self examination on other fronts). Gone (evidently) are the days of a few quick Brownie Instamatic shots in the local weekly. Past too is the era of shoveling the snow, cleaning up after the dogs — inside and out — and making sure most of the dishes are out of the sink. Then list. Or even in the reverse order!

Multi-media ‘exposure’, with its overhead drone shots, video of every room, even the ones no one was ever intended to see, and descriptive text so flowery that the perfumed smell lingers for days put one on display for all the world to scrutinize — and judge. Staging is now de rigueur; with its clear (oh, so clear) subtext that one’s furniture is frumpy, one’s art collection is just a small step up (maybe) from superhero posters and Kleenex reprints, and one’s color choices are, well, just so ‘last year’ … or century. Lose what’s made a home yours, euphemistically described as ‘neutralizing’. Small solace that the exercise is to allow the potential buyer to ‘imprint on a blank canvas’. The final bits of self are shipped out to the storage locker, displaced by tasteful rentals. And this is all before the ‘appraisers’ plunk a bargain basement sticker price on this final bastion of who you are.

So maybe Erikson had it right. Stage Eight (of eight!) is about, in the man’s own label, ego integrity, the ‘post-narcissistic love of the ego’, a time of reflection (not competition or self-aggrandizement or acquisitiveness or comparisons) and making sense of what is — not despairing of what is no longer; all that stuff on the other side of the ‘U’. And ‘downsizing’, in a completely different tradition, has this egoless state (Sannyasa, if you’re interested) pared down to the absolute essentials: a pot, a flask, sandals, trousers, a blanket, and a staff. How good is this. I get to have a place to pee, keep my single malt, my Birks, my Levis, and my four season sleeping bag — and even a cane, as I wobble across Piazza San Marco!