We Ride With Susan

All things considered, I want to live. The pain my loved ones would endure is palpable enough for me to never want to die; although I have no fear of death, the love I have for my family—and, possibly more importantly, that they have for me—gives me a firm sense of self-preservation. While I do have a nagging sense of invincibility (despite having never stepped into oncoming traffic, there have been plenty of other close calls), I know eventually my family and friends will have the option to attend a memorial service of some sort in honor of yours truly. Hopefully not for a very, very long time. Hopefully my parents aren't here to scatter my ashes.

I don't want a ghost bike memorial service. I don't want my parents to fly in to whatever city I've been living, to be picked up at the airport by my husband, to find the nearest clean hotel to the area where the incident occurred, to prepare a few sentences to say into a news camera or to a crowd of people they've never seen before and probably won't ever again.

I don't want my friends to gather in the rain and exchange awkward, "How are you?" "Good! Well, you know, considering..." conversations. I don't want anyone to catch cold on my behalf, for cops to stand in the road to direct traffic around my ghost white bicycle while cars, enraged behind them, resist the urge to honk as they pass the lone mourner across the street from the vigil, holding a sign that says, "What's the hurry?"

Susan Hicks was about my age, an academic, friends with my friends. She was following the rules of the road that were made for cars, that drivers of cars throw in cyclists' faces when other ghost bikes are chained to poles, rules they insist would have saved that life. A driver wasn't upholding their responsibility as the controller of a 4,000 pound car, and crashed into a car that became one end of a Susan sandwich, along with the car it had smashed her into.

The problem isn't just this driver, it's that this is a common problem. That cars honk when I ride my bike 28 miles per hour in a 25 mile per hour zone, because they want to drive 55 miles per hour. That the railway crossings to enter the park are guarded by rail yard workers who yell at us to get on the bike path as we are trying to get on the bike path they are guarding against us. That cars yell at us to get on the sidewalk when there is no sidewalk, and when even if there were one, it's illegal and dangerous for us to ride on them. That as we've tried to ride home from work, or just enjoy a beautiful day, drivers have become incensed, have thrown bottles at us, shot at me with a bb gun, and have swerved their cars purposefully into cyclists, righting their destructive ships at the last minute, laughing at this game they play with our lives. That distracted driving is an epidemic, and many drivers text and drive while speeding, even in residential or business areas. That four lane roads, like the one on which Susan was slaughtered, carve through college campuses and cars swerve recklessly from one lane to another, desperately afraid of getting stuck behind a bus. That these memorials happen everywhere, and the news covers them, meanwhile publishing slanderous articles and letters to the editor calling for more restrictions on cyclists, who are responsible for a scant number of fatalities.

I don't want my family to come see me in the hospital, or to figure out how to pay off my debts, or what to do with my lousy stuff. I don't want my sister to have to explain to my nieces that I won't be able to FaceTime with them anymore. I also don't want to call my husband's parents and drop the devastating news that their son was killed. I don't want to go through his belongings and figure out how much is enough of a keepsake to keep, I don't want to think about what to do with the house or the cars. I don't want to have to figure out how to continue on with my lousy, ruined, meaningless life without the love of my life. But I know it's so, so possible. 

And yet, still, people have a place to go, somewhere to be ten minutes ago. We are in the way, and the response to a text is more important than a life.

Indeed, what's the hurry?

There were over 250 people standing in the rain today near where Susan Hicks was killed (which is incidentally where Critical Mass starts), holding candles and hoping they don't catch cold. There shouldn't have been anybody.

Over tea and coffee this morning, my roommate and I talked about our complicated feelings about attending the vigil. How it's important to be there, but that for many people it isn't a place to be political, they don't want politics to be involved. But for a group of people who have been asking for years for a bike lane on that stretch of road, who lost a wonderful young person (though even if she was an asshole and old, it wouldn't make a difference), it is political. Sadness and Anger go hand and glove. It's hard to attend a memorial and not be mad that we even need to be doing this, again. It's a horrible feeling to think that maybe, now that a well-loved academic, a smart and charming white woman, a well-known citizen of Pittsburgh, was killed, things will change. That is a disgusting thought. And as it passed through my raging, sorrowful, idiot brain that wants so much to not be the next one whose name is Sharpied onto a sign next to a white bicycle, the SadMad began to subside, pushed out by the familiar depression that so often takes precedent, and I felt sick to my stomach.

Fighting the Good Fight

I skipped boxing last night because there has been a lot of stress in my little family and I thought it would be nice to take a night off from obligations and just ride around the park in the woods at night with my husband. I'm glad I did it, but when I got caught behind a slow truck on my way to boxing this afternoon and knew I was about to be late, I had to fight myself from turning around. I forced myself to keep driving, and when I got to the gym four minutes late, I made myself walk in with my tail between my legs and wrap my hands. Coach Jeff is as kind (to his students anyway) as they come, while still being directive and authoritative. We talk band stuff, because he used to be in the popular PA band Simon Says who played the college circuit in the 90's. I missed the jumprope warm-up but caught all the important lessons, and then finished with the jumprope at the end. To skip it is to only cheat myself. I deserve it to myself to put in the effort and make the most of my time. We all deserve it.

I came home, changed, and was working through the many emails and deadlines I've been pushing around like peas on a stubborn little kid's plate, when there was a knock on my door from my neighbor. I've only waved to her in passing, and one she's come to my door when her puppy ran away. She asked if I knew anyone who knew self defense, and I told her I didn't have any training like those Women's Self Defense classes (though I should really take one), but that I used to kickbox and I currently belong to a boxing gym and take classes there. She told me she wanted to learn how to get away from someone. I showed her a jab, cross, hook. We talked footwork and weight distribution, where power comes from, our arms and legs as mere vessels for the strength and force of our bodies.

She told me she was attacked at a party, how her friends blamed her, said, "When did it become rape?" "'When I said no,' I told them." How it's causing drama in her family now. How the men are getting more and more daring and all she wants is to be able to go somewhere at night and know she will be okay. It happened in a bathroom. She wants to be able to get someone to leave her alone. I told her the jab is the "get away from me" punch. She showed me a move her husband taught her, to catch someone's advance and pull them in close, then knee them in the head. We went over kicks. She told me about a video she saw online, where a woman strangled a guy with her purse strap. "That's what I want to learn how to do," she said.

My heavy bag has been leaning on my porch with nowhere to hang since I moved in here. She has one hanging from a tree. She has sparring gloves.

"I have more support from you and my coworkers than I do from my friends. What's that saying? The more you get to know yourself, the smaller your circle becomes? Well isn't that some truth."

My heart broke for her (for everyone) but we are both excited to have a training buddy to work out with and learn from. When I train, my head is clear, all I focus on is what my body is doing, what my opponent's body is doing. I'm not good, I'm not disciplined, I'm still learning. But I'm really, really excited to have the chance to help a woman regain her agency.

That is what sisterhood is all about.

We Are All Walking Skeletons, Wrapped In Sacred Shawls of Flesh (ewwww)

Tonight, my best friend told me a story about her young nephew, who has been obsessed with skeletons.

"Does this monkey have vertebrae?" Yes. "What about T-Rex?" Mmhmm! "And how about Bacon the cat?" He sure does. Did you know you also have vertebrae, Shane? — The toddler's eyes grew wide as he held out his arms in front of himself, for the first time aware of his own skeleton, even though his interest was sparked by a to cage at-shirt my friend gave him for Halloween.

After she told me the cute story, I couldn't help but feel my own body, the miracle that is my skeleton, and life suddenly seemed so much less straight forward, such an elusive concept. How do we make ourselfs move about in this world, controlling our beautiful skeletons with thoughts and dreams? I thought about food and health and the body's insistance on living even in the worst health, and how sometimes we just lose all control and the machine breaks down. 

Life is such an odd, beautiful thing. We breathe, we love, we dream, and in between we are consistently alive, for some incredible reason, with complete control over the body, except when it controls us.

As the New Year approaches, be kind to your one miraculous body. Love your aches and pains and weaknesses, love your fat and clumsiness, love each precious breathe you've somehow figured out how to take and process, you incredible living genius organism.