Day 354, March 4, 2021
The Go-Bag (part 1)
Tonight's soundtrack: Paco De Lucia, Leverkusener Jazztage, 2010
It is wonderful to start imagining a return to something closer to normalcy. It is hard to really fathom what that return will feel like, or what those intermediary steps might look like. In some ways, I wish knew more about the post-influenza times of 1918 and wonder if the relief of surviving might have fueled the Roaring 1920s. But, of course, the Roaring 20s were roaring only for some, and we romanticize it more than we realize with stylized hair dos, convertible automobiles, and Artdeco jazz clubs.
In my post-pandemic world, I imagine riding my bicycle again. It is a thing I can't really fathom right now, my trusty steed has been mostly dormant in the basement for so long, I fear the tires have flat spots where they've rested on the concrete floor.
When I was a child I loved riding my bicycle. It was the embodiment of freedom. My friend Tae-jin had little Bionic Man stickers on his bicycle frame and we would pretend our bicycles were super powered as we accelerated down the driveway or laid down skid marks on the street. Later, we affixed transistor radios to our handlebars and would cruise through the neighborhood listening to WBCN with the thin chrome extendable antenna sticking up dangerously close to our eyes as we bent over the handlebars speeding down Bittersweet Lane.
Later, I had a 10-speed and rode across town with my books precariously bungee strapped to the back rack. It was almost certain that all the books would fly off the rack somewhere along the ride as I hopped curbs and wiggled my way up the steeper hills.
I had a bicycle in college too, and rode the trails some, but also just loved the ease of riding between classes and I'm sure I ridiculously rode while smoking a cigarette more than once. What an obnoxious thing to imagine now.
When the twins were little, they loved riding on the back jumper seat on our bikes and I would get the demand to go faster as we zipped through the campus of Mount Holoyke College.
Later, when we moved to Amherst, I maintained a workshop in Northampton and rode on the bike path back and forth on a regular basis. Bike riding became a normal mode of transportation. It was a functional thing, but also a marvelous meditative state. While I knew it was healthy for me, I didn't think of it as exercise, it was more utilitarian, but a utility where I was able to cross the Connecticut River every day on the rail trail. It was utilitarian, but also a way to clear my head of complex thought. When I am riding my bike, particularly for long distances, thinking becomes more primal. It becomes easier to let go of all the complex worries of one's day, and instead focus only on what you can see ahead of you, focus only on your breathing, the rhythm of your cadence, the refrain of the last song you had running through your head.
I can't remember when I started riding to work at GCC. I do remember arriving on campus one day when the Core renovations were still underway and a giant crane was lifting a tremendous steel beam into the air. I was so enamored with the image I drifted to the island off the driveway and froze in a moment of indecision so that I crashed into the curb, went over the handle bars, and struck the no parking sign with my helmet hard enough to make a cartoon like ring emanate across the parking lot and lawn. Of course, several students and onlookers came running to see if I was ok. Aside from my pride, I was unscathed.
Over time, I developed a routine and managed my schedule as best as I could to create some days where I had no off campus meetings and didn't have to stay too late so I wouldn't have to ride home in the dark. I had a locker and access to showers. It was a perfect start to a day, to ride for 45 minutes, shower, and arrive at my first meeting refreshed and damp.
I haven't ridden south from my house to Amherst, yet. It is funny how different the terrain is when you are riding a bicycle. Riding in a car, you may think you know the roads so well you can almost navigate them without thinking. But on a bicycle, suddenly every little incline, every vista, every rough area of pavement becomes a new landmark. The way south from my house is primarily defined by a Route 63, which I don't think you can really call a highway, but people drive fast, and for much of the route the speed limit is 50 miles an hour, which doesn't make for very pleasant bicycle rides.
An alternative I have been considering is to take a more meandering route, to leave the highway and climb into the hills and back woods of Leverett and arrive at Amherst that way. I suspect the route would be physically exhausting and take a much longer time than I could easily afford in the morning or afternoon.
I've wonder if this will be the excuse that will push me to look into an e-bike. A colleague at GCC had a wonderfully sleek and effortless looking machine. She would sail past me on the driveway to the college waving her arm like a modern-day Mary Poppins. I would like to be like that. Perhaps an e-bike would make the travel through Leverett less exhausting and more manageable.
Early in the pandemic, I researched the e-bike idea and imagined making a down payment on one. It seemed like a distant prospect, to imagine riding back to work again, and yet one embedded with the urgency of toilet paper and hand wipes. As it was, I would have traveled nowhere with such a thing and my regular bicycle has lain dormant in the basement, and the downstairs bathroom closet still has an extra large package of off-brand toilet paper, should the unthinkable ever happen. And yes, the hand sanitizer and other supplies in my go-bag are still untouched and will probably need to be replaced someday soon.
I wonder what things we'll look back on about the pandemic and laugh. I suppose I should write about the creation of my go-bag. How does one come to the point when zombie driven dystopias press at the temples and cause a weak moment of online shopping for survival tools?
I also have a COVID box, the insurance if one of us got sick. It has my one N-95 mask, left over from a woodworking project so the front is stained with mahogany dust, but it would be better than nothing. There is what remains in a gallon jug of bleach. I'm not sure what we would bleach, but it would be there if needed. There's also hand sanitizer, if you run out of bleach. And if you run out of hand sanitizer, there are hand wipes. There's a whole lot of soups, miso, chicken noodle, and granola bars. There's an oxygen meter to clip to a finger, and a working thermometer. There are vitamins, and a bottle of Gatorade. With these things I will survive COVID, if it comes to that.
There is also the Pandemic Guitar, which was bought early on, just after my temptation with e-bikes. That was an indulgent splurge that then triggered a the last round of letting go... which continues on today.
There's the standing desk.
The stockpiling of dried beans.
The Instant Pot phase, where everything I cooked was done in a pressure cooker.
The days of a can of baked beans for lunch....
We are so close, I can almost laugh at the nostalgia already.
As a colleague recently reminded me, nobody wants to be the last person to die in a war.
Stay safe and be well,
Leo
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