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A Slippery Slope

2/27/2015

"History," Arnold Toynbee famously said, “It’s just one dammed thing after another.” And that’s how it feels with an injury.

"But I don't have a fracture," I protest in the doctor's office as I await an (by me unwanted) X-ray. I've had plenty of radiation on my right side over the past year and I'm not anxious for more. "Yes, you do," replies the nurse and sure enough when I see the full X-ray, there it is. Hairline, but still definitely there.

Meanwhile, I can’t shovel my steps, make a salad, or even wear a glove on my right hand. The morning routine takes forever, and the smallest domestic chore can quickly spiral out of control.

For example, I can’t pill the cat with a busted wrist. So I’ve been powdering his meds and mixing them in with his food. This does not go over well, and he eats gingerly around the granules (don't ask). Which is why the other day while sitting in my lap with no warning – and without his meds - he abruptly hurls his entire breakfast onto my computer keyboard and mouse. Try cleaning that up with one hand.

One of the small compensations of an injury like this is the enhanced opportunities for reading which a wait in doctors’ offices provides. Apparently I’m not the only one who feels that way because during my last visit, I take my eye off my kindle for a split second and before you can say Depuyten’s Contracture, it is gone.

I’m a very trusting soul and it’s difficult for me to believe that someone who actually saw me in my injured state, walking around wearing an oven mitt, could possibly have piled on. But when I get home to de-authorize, I am confronted with the unvarnished truth: I am not pitiable, I am simply a mark. On my account, I find a slew of new books, starting with “Secrets of a Side Bitch 4 (yes, there were three others) the three volume set of “50 Shades of Grey.” How many volumes does a girl need (I assume my thief is female)?

For a moment I wonder if maybe she is onto something. Maybe I should embrace this new library, turn to beach reading during this time, and not expect too much. But beach reading without a beach doesn’t have the same appeal. And where would I put the umbrella?

There are signs of hope I guess; I can use a computer keyboard with two hands now. And one doctor actually told me that if I kept the splint on while riding, I could be back on the bike in two weeks. But this is a guy who doesn’t know from potholes. I could seriously set myself back.

No, healing takes time. There’s no way around it. Meanwhile, think of all the things I can look forward to? Wearing pants with a zipper, shoes with laces. Flossing. Using an oven mitt for the oven. And at last, cycling. Meanwhile, I’m going to have to suck it up.

Long-time New Yorkers will recall a little hole-in-the-wall on 7th Avenue South in the 80s called “Out Of Our Drawers.” They specialized in piercing and piercing-related paraphernalia. They had a motto I try to keep it in mind as I slog for hours through tasks I once did without thinking. Because I have three weeks to go, and how do I want to spend it? When you come right down to it, attitude is everything. Or, as Out Of Our Drawers would say:

Your choice: with or without pain.

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The Heartbreak of Winter

2/15/2015

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When I was little and my father was already a wisp on the horizon, I depended on and worshipped my mother. A glamorous woman, still in her 30s, she attended the occasional cocktail or dinner party, leaving me with a babysitter (the horror!).

As she sat at her dressing table in a beautiful silk slip making her preparations, I’m told I stood by the bedroom door in a staunch state of denial intoning with each consecutive step – powder, mascara, lipstick and finally full attire - “Mummy’s not going anywhere, Mummy’s not going anywhere.”

My denial could only hold off the truth for so long of course. Eventually, with all preparations made (and smelling divine), she would rise, kiss me good bye and waft out the door. Whereupon the howling would begin. I learned about denial – and abandonment – early on it seems.

It made me a perfect sucker for cycling.

Picture this: you meet in the Spring through friends. The relationship starts out auspiciously enough with outings around the city. As the season wears on, you become more and more enamored – this could be it. You take the occasional trip out of town, but over time you begin to hear rumors of past behavior. It seems cycling is a bit of a fair-weather friend. To your dismay, you discover the rumors are true: by Winter, it has disappeared entirely.

You can chase after it if you want (and we all know people who do this), taking on full responsibility for both sides of the relationship with heroic acts of your own.

But watch out. If you choose this route, there are risks and sometimes injuries (I’m discovering), which take weeks – even months – to recover from (and these can happen even when the weather’s good).

When these happen, do you:

1. Lie to your friends to cover up, taking the blame upon yourself (I shouldn’t have gone out that day, I knew better)?

Or worse yet, believe that old chestnut:

2. It Won’t Ever Happen Again (I’m sorry)?

If you live in the Northern US and answered yes to either of these questions, it’s time to drop the denial: you’re in a relationship with a serial abandoner.

You can keep up the illusion with affairs out of town, riding in warmer weather for a couple of weeks, but when you get back, it’s the same old thing. And like all abusive relationships, there’s invariably the one reason to keep you hooked:

Spring is coming.

It’s just weeks away. Are you really going to walk away from joy like this, even when you know it can only lead to heartbreak down the line? It’s like being involved with a married man. He’s never going to leave his wife, and he’s always going to spend all the holidays with her. Deal with it.

It could be worse. If you’re in New York, the riding season is relatively long. What if you lived in Minneapolis? The heartbreak is geometrically harder: hundreds of miles of bike trails – and only 3 months to ride. Talk about unavailable!

Cyclists in southern climes have a far better time of it, it’s true. But it’s such a long commute to Broadway theatre.

It’s kind of like that old story Woody Allen tells about the man who complains to his shrink that his wife is acting like a chicken, but he stays with her because he needs the eggs.

To ride in the Northern US is to know the heartbreak of Winter. So we bargain. Maybe we’ll have an early Spring. Maybe next Winter will be shorter. Maybe next year will be different. In the meantime, Spring is on its way and look - the light is already better. There’s bound to be a thaw sooner or later for a couple of days.

Maybe we can stick it out for one more season…

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Healing

2/10/2015

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One of the biggest aspects of a wrist injury is how is slows you down. Getting dressed takes twice the time. So does getting out of the house. Forget flossing. And showering is actually dangerous.

All kinds of activities have to be reworked. You use your teeth more. Toes become an anchoring device (handy for can opening). An oven mitt is repurposed as a glove:

And there are times when help is grudgingly accepted.

But if you’re a cyclist there is never a moment where, once healed, you would consider stopping. I know, sounds crazy, right? What could the attraction possibly be?

My friend M had a wicked bike injury last year. Like most falls, it was harmless in concept, but it had big consequences. Her healing process took months. There was surgery involved. She ended up with a plate in her wrist and 8 pins. Ouch!!

Yet never once during all of that time did I hear her speak of not biking again. To my astonishment, long before she was fully functional, she was already talking about upcoming local tours.

As someone with no experience, it was clear to me that anyone with an injury like that must be nuts to want to resume cycling. And yet here I am, a scant week later, counting the days until I can return (there was never any doubt). In fact, the more bikers I talk to about injuries, the more I find out everybody seems to have had at least one. And yet here they are.

Why do we do this? Why do we do this to ourselves? What is it about cycling that is so addictive, so fulfilling, so wonderful that we are willing to take these risks?

I imagine everyone has their own reasons. For some, the danger itself is the attraction; an activity that lets them live life on the edge. For others, it’s speed and competition, or simply a pleasant form of exercise. For me, it harkens back to a time of childhood healing. And as an adult, biking allows me to escape from whatever’s bothering me and return feeling healthy and with fresh perspective.

But all of this assumes that we somehow live in denial of its dangers. We compartmentalize them so that we can keep going (I never ride fast, I’ll be OK; that was my fault, it won’t happen again; that was a freak situation, what are the odds of it repeating? Etc).

Because when all is said and done, we love it too much. It was love (oddly) that drove me out onto the ice that day. Not wanting to relinquish, even for a day, the joy and freedom that riding a bike can bring. And having learned how to conquer the cold, I was bound and determined to conquer ice. It didn’t work out that way.

Why couldn’t I have fallen in love with Pilates or Yoga like a normal person? Those are activities that are good for you, and will see you well into old age (not to mention through the seasons). Believe me I tried, but couldn’t get myself to continue an activity that was fundamentally so unappealing.

I suppose there are sports with greater dangers: car racing, extreme skiing, advanced barbecue (with its unique risks of hardening of the arteries). I suppose.

This time last year, biking wasn’t even on my radar. In fact, after I lost my friend Jamie, on a bike in the 80s, (http://www.bikeloveny.com/blog/riverdale) it was the one activity I swore I would never do in New York. Yet when the moment came, that was the form the transformation took. And then I met Lucille and I was a goner.

Some would say cyclists are born, not made. There’s certainly something to be said for that. I didn't bike for many years - and then suddenly, I did. And once I did, it felt like a long-lost love; something I had always known. Because I didn’t choose cycling, really. It chose me.

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Reaching The Limits

2/5/2015

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What is the line between brave and foolhardy? When does pushing the limits of fear take you into dumb and dumber? And can it be quantified?

The temperature is in the forties. Groundhogs will be groundhogs, but cycling is an outdoor activity and at this time of year I take my opportunities where I see ‘em.

There's plenty of snow on the street.

But you don't have to ride in it. And this would be perfect if I had any errands to run... Instead I decide to take my road bike Janet for a ride up the west side to see if the plowing has kept in pace with the snow.

Forget that that's a dumb ass reason to begin with, the sight of this unplowed entrance already gives me my answer...

But am I listening?

The path itself actually looks better than it did a couple of days ago.

And it's all going pretty well until I make it under the West Side Highway, where it starts to get a little dicey.

Then it clears up. Then better then a little worse; then better, still worse. And I'm not listening to that little voice in my head (a familiar one to cyclists) that is already dreading the trip back. I think the equation goes something like this:

Forward - Return(dread)2 = Go Back Now.

When I get to the 1st Promenade, its clear there's no ascending.

But rather than turning back, I remember that course I took on Winter riding with BikeNY.* Surely this possible...

I double down, returning to the River in the hopes there may be a way up to the 2nd Promenade. In spite of the fact that the road to the tennis courts was barely navigable last time (and we've had another storm since then), in spite of the fact that there are virtually no other cyclists around, in spite of the fact that the path now looks like this:

In the early 70s, I lived in Southern California. Back then you couldn't swing a cat without hitting another nutty religious movement, all borrowing from Buddhist concepts but changing them ever so slightly, (usually to justify bad behavior). After I learned rather abruptly that the guy I thought was my boyfriend had bedded another the night before, I was given this advice from a self-proclaimed spiritual seeker hoping to comfort me:

"This is your opportunity to experience disappointment."
(Expectation - Reality = Disappointment)

It didn't feel like such a great opportunity then. And it doesn't now.

Equally abruptly, Janet and I go over in a heap. Janet is none the worse for wear. Me not so much. I know right away I've done something bad to my wrist. What now?

The thing about this sallying forth on my own, is that if something happens it's not just me I have to think about; I also have a bike. I cannot just ditch Janet (whose fault this was not by the way). I'm at around 96th Street I think. The next ramped exit isn't till 72nd st. I start walking, wheeling Janet with my good arm, feeling a little faint. Water, and the need to keep going bring me around.

Meanwhile, I veer between panic at my situation, and shame at my recklessness. I have some great rides ahead of me I've been planning for months. Will this be the end of them? Will it be the end of my riding?

We are headed towards Beasty Hill. Which has some metal plates that are slippery as hell.

I hate this hill. It's been like this for 10 years. When is the City going to fix this??

I navigate carefully up (that's the only way you can do it) hoping to avoid another injury. I'm wondering if I can fit Janet in a taxi. But I know I'm headed to the ER where her presence will only add to their chaos - and my stress. Then I remember that my mother's apartment is nearby.

I have never been so happy to see the front doors of this building. I drop Janet off and take a taxi to the ER (Beth Israel).

The X-Ray shows no obvious break (though there may be a hairline fracture), but I have a helluva sprain that goes almost to my elbow. I'm released with an orthopedic referral, a splint and a sling. It's gonna be weeks.

How could I have been so foolish?! One little fall can change everything! I continue to flagellate myself thus (with the good hand) until the following night when I run into a cyclist who says simply, "If you hadn't fallen you wouldn't be stupid." Huh. I guess that's true. And falls happen to everybody (though mostly I live in denial about it). But the best way to reduce your chances of falling is to avoid situations like this. Which won't be hard because the 6 more weeks of Winter we're expecting will be pretty much the time I need to heal.

Surprisingly, this fall has not made me more fearful - or less. I't seems that fear has a life of its own; it needs to be faced on a daily basis. And that's my plan, with one modification. The new equation:

Fear + Courage - foolhardiness = Smart Riding

*Disclaimer: BikeNY advocates for bike safety. They never advised riding in these conditions. That was my big idea...

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Staten Island

2/3/2015

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It’s the day before Ground Hog Day, and we’re headed out to the Staten Island Zoo – home of Staten Island Chuck.

These days there seem to be innumerable ground hogs giving conflicting forecasts about how long Winter will last. Punkxsutawney Phil is losing his grip on the franchise, and the field has become rife with amateurs. How hard can it be to be a ground hog, you ask? But there are hazards. Last year “Chuck” (actually Charlotte) gave a correct forecast. But it made no difference. He/she paid the ultimate price for the privilege, tumbling into oblivion from Mayor DeBlasio’s arms. It’s a dirty job.

I meet the 5BBC at City Hall for the trip. I’m only one to show up. The weather may have something to do with it (it’s about 25˚). But veteran leader, Ed DeFreitas is undeterred.

And so am I. So off we pedal to the Ferry - which is free! I’m glad to hear this because Staten Island is the one borough I have not visited on a bike (and have only visited once without). So now I have a real incentive to return. We are inspected briefly by the K9 Unit, clamber aboard and park our bikes.

First stop is to the National Lighthouse Museum, a quick left off the Ferry.

I always think of lighthouses as quaint artifacts, not that historically vital. Not true. With no Federal Income Tax until 1913 (says Ed), it was through trade tariffs that the government was able to raise funds. And if ships didn’t have safe harbor, there was no trade – and no tariff. So lighthouses were vital to protect trade and hugely important in New York, especially because of its connection to the Erie Canal.

Our mission is two-fold: to visit the museum - and to encourage them to put up bike racks (once a cyclist in NY, soon an advocate). It would be better if there were more of us, but it doesn’t matter, because the museum is unexpectedly closed.

Probably didn’t anticipate many people on a cold Sunday in February (and I can see their point). But I’m glad I know how to get there now.

We make our way back along Bay Street, which gives onto Richmond Terrace taking us northwest around the coast.

To be honest, this isn’t the most beautiful time to visit Staten Island, which seems bare and industrial along its edges.

And with trees absent their foliage, it’s rather bleak. But we’re urban cyclists and up for anything. We cycle West to Clove Road and make a left up to the entrance of the Staten Island Zoo.

Following signs to the Dinosaur Exhibit. Given Ed’s and my age combined ages – we both got in on Senior tickets – I wonder we’re not the ones on display, but the point becomes moot when we find the exhibit under construction.

We proceed to the rest of the zoo.

As a childless female, I’m typically a great animal lover and hence never big on zoos. No matter how much room the animals have, it never seems enough. And although they may have it better in terms of being adequately fed, few it seems live according to their true nature.

But the Staten Island Zoo treats their animals well, keeps their environments clean, debunks some common myths...

And advocates heavily on their behalf with information on habitat and endangered status. Volunteers are also around handling some of the smaller animals which the public can see and touch.

There are lots of reptiles, birds and primates, but all I have is my camera phone and since using a flash would be cruel, many of my photos are not blog-worthy. These are the ones that came out (don’t judge the zoo’s variety by this):

A convex fish tank where the fish appear to be swimming in the air.

A gorgeous Crested Crane.

Iguanas.

A Polish Rooster.

And a magnificent animal carousel, perhaps the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen.

There are no bears (I’m happy to say), and one leopard outside who I hear has a nasty temperament. But I can’t say I’d be otherwise and having seen so many animals in captivity, I say a silent prayer for them as we are leaving, and pray not to be born into that state myself one day.

Our trip back is via Clove, left on Cheshire.

To Victory. Not unlike my Riverside Park experience, the plowing holds surprises.

But the trip to the top of Victory is worth it for the view.

We coast back to Bay Street and enter the Ferry terminal, greeted by one of the handsomest dogs I’ve ever seen in a K9 unit.

The ride back is easy. I thank Ed for his expert guidance, and head up the Greenway looking forward to making a day trip of my own come Spring.

As for Ground Hog Day, we stopped by Staten Island Chuck’s “house” while we were at the zoo, but saw no sign of him (probably in the Green Room). I learn later, that he’s going out on a limb this year and contrary to Punxsutawney Phil’s more experienced forecast, predicting an early Spring. Really? Does anybody believe this? We have snow. We’re getting more snow – and ice. Chuck is cute but let’s face it: Phil is the Walter Cronkite of ground hogs. He has credibility. He has gravitas. He has white whiskers. Like Cronkite, Phil is a brand I’ve come to know and trust. When it comes to weather forecasts, I’m not messing around. When it comes to weather forecasts, I’m leaving it to the professionals.

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A Slippery Slope

The Heartbreak of Winter

Healing

Reaching The Limits

Staten Island

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