Response: Open Letter to Motorists

I sometimes forget these things can really get out there into the interwebs, and it's left for others' interpretation. I received a few comments in reaction to my "enough is enough" post regarding motorists' treatment of non-motorists, and some things were inferred that I thought I could explain a bit more. This is not to be interpreted as lashing out against criticism of my feelings, but rather a way to be better heard regarding my specific objections to being asked every day, "Did you ride your bike?"

I should have mentioned in my post, Open Letter to Motorists, that I used to work with a woman who also biked to work, but for completely different reasons than why I do. For her, it was about fitness and staying in shape for competitions. She had a car and children and I think she asked me sometimes to guilt trip herself when she didn't ride, or to make herself feel better if she rode and I didn't. I really despised the competition and having to "admit" my choice [daily] when sometimes there is a very complicated decision-making process ("Am I meeting someone after work who has a car and no bike rack? Do I need to bring in awkwardly shaped objects to work? Do I need to get groceries on the way home? Am I leaving straight from work to catch a plane or go on a roadtrip? Is it too icy to bike?") No one wants to hear about those details, they just want a simple yes or no, did you ride your bike? But I want to know, "Why do you care?"

I understand that most people are just trying to think of something to say to me, to make polite conversation, but it is very hurtful when something so important to me is reduced to a yes or no. When they use my means of transportation as a way to demean me, by assuming that my experience must be awful on some days, even if quite pleasant on others. It is even more hurtful when people put down riding the bus. It is not glamorous, of course, but it is also a statement, of equal importance to riding a bike in my mind, of my commitment to safe, environmentally-friendly and progressive transportation. But from the looks on people's faces, and the way it stops the conversation, it indicates that I am poor or lazy. And who would want to spend all that time downtown...where the black people are. I'm being sarcastic, of course.

My problem is not that people ask me questions, it's that they ask questions to demean me. You may think that I'm overreacting or misunderstanding them, but when you get questioned day after day with the same responses and comments, you begin to sense a pattern. It is the same with my veganism. People automatically default to extremely negative reactions, "Oh, sorry, you can't have that" or "I had some [insert dead animal] last night...Oh, sorry, you don't eat that." "Where do you get your protein?" "I could never give up cheese, it's just too delicious." All of these things seem harmless, but they are in fact negative evaluations of my choices, which, by the way, make me blissfully happy apart from the negativity I receive from other people. The point is, you can be lazy about making conversation with me, but pick something that doesn't bring in our diverging ethical beliefs on a wintry Friday morning. No one thinks they are being rude, because they are in the majority.

My partner also rides his bike or the bus to work, and is vegan, and experiences the same interactions, though sometimes worse (I work in a community health department, so people tend to be more accepting of my "lifestyle" than they are at my partner's corporate media company). On the day I wrote the previous post, he and I were tied for 3 comments about riding our bikes in the winter weather by 10 AM.

I actually feel this way nearly every day, and yes, I decided to just write about it because it doesn't do much good complaining to Adam night after night about the idiot things people say, mindlessly, to me about things I care very much about. I have story upon story of outrageous things people have said to me, but what gets to me is that they don't want to have a conversation. They want to say something mindlessly and not have it mean anything. And I just think that's wrong. I don't care if this is an office and we're in cubicles. Don't ask about people's lifestyle choices if you don't want to talk about them. Don't bring up my ethical values and then treat them as if they aren't ethical. Don't disrespect my choices by talking about how miserable I must be making them. As I said in the end of my post, I continue to talk to people politely, racking my brain for constructive responses to their questions, a way to dig a little deeper with them, but they don't want to think about it. They don't like it when they say "Be careful on your ride home" and I say "You too" because that puts the onus on them, and they don't want to be responsible for my safety.

Sometimes people who are endlessly nice to others who don't deserve it need a place to debrief that isn't their kitchen.

open letter to motorists

It finally has to be said.

Motorists drive me absolutely up the wall.

I can't tell you how many times I'm asked daily, "Did you ride your bike today?" And usually, no, almost always, it's because the weather is so crappy they can't imagine hopping on a bike to get to work. So that's a really nice way of saying "I bet you had a really shitty commute, huh?" The other 2% of the time they ask me because it's a gorgeous day, and if by chance I didn't ride my bike, they look disappointed.

Let me explain something. When I don't ride my bike, I take the bus. I never drive to work (maybe 3 times, when I borrowed a car from my sister, while she was out of town). People, though, for being so thoroughly enthusiastic about me riding my bike (on good days) are so thoroughly unimpressed by my taking the bus when I don't ride. It completely ends the conversation.

I would just like to say that I don't ask people if they brushed their teeth this morning, or if they got off their asses and went for a run after work. I don't ask what route they take to work or if they stopped at Dunkin' Donuts for a 700 calorie doughnut hole. I don't ask them if they speed or if they give pedestrians the right of way. I don't ask where they buy their gas or IF THEY GODDAMN DROVE TO WORK.

I get asked in the bathroom, in the kitchen, in the hallway, and at my desk. I get asked when co-workers (who never actually work) stop by the window 12 times a day to look at the weather. And then they ask if I rode. And the kicker is, they truly don't care whether I rode my bike or not. Because they already know how they feel about riding. That they would never consider pairing physical activity with commuting. That it must be such a hassle for me to bike to work. I'm guessing they think taking the bus is a hassle as well, but I don't know because, like I said, it's a conversation-stopper.

Today we got our first big dumping of snow, and people ask me almost nervously if I braved the snow on my two-wheeled chariot. When I "admit" I took the bus, they look relieved and proceed to tell me how they saw an idiot cyclist on the road in this weather. As if they didn't want to say anything if they knew I had been an idiot too. "I mean, CARS are sliding all over!" The whole problem with their attitudes is that they think I am doing something dangerous, when I am actually avoiding the danger--the possibility of KILLING someone with a 2-ton high-velocity metal cage. Riding my bike is only dangerous because they are out there in their cars.

Then, if I ride my bike, I'm told to "be careful". As if being surrounded by 2-ton high-velocity metal cages during rush hour near the largest employer in the city weren't a good enough reminder of how "careful" I need to be. As if my bare body doesn't care about looking for traffic even though I could be smashed in the blink of an eye and it not be my fault.

So what do I do? I'm completely trapped because I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. If I ride my bike on a day when motorists find inclement weather, then I'm stupid, and if I don't ride my bike I'm unimpressive. But the whole goddamned point is that I'm not out to impress anyone. I don't ride my bike so that people will ask me about it. I wish they wouldn't! And I don't want to tell you that I rode my bike just so you can lecture me about being safe, because I know exactly how dangerous cars are--so much so, I choose not to operate them for fear I could kill someone.

I could write a novel on my annoyance with people not letting me just enjoy riding my bike, but I'll save that for another day. For now, I'm going to sit here and pat myself on the back for always making more environmentally friendly choices than driving a motor vehicle, and for being nice to people who are jerks. So there.

Resolve

So it's January 5th and I have to say that I should have gotten rid of the sugary products in my house before starting my sugar-free journey. I'm not one to let things go to waste, and since our house guests are gone I've taken to cleaning out the sugary stuff, so to speak. Agave nectar, mom's cinnamon bread (though she did go light on the sugar), coconut nog and fruit juices still tempt me at home, but I'm okay with that for now. The only way I do things is gradually.
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I finally got my hands on the Kinfolk Magazine. I heard about it through two blogs that I read, and I was waiting to put iOS 5 on my iPad so I could download it.

It was SO worth the wait.

Kinfolk is a magazine dedicated to the art of small gatherings. It is a beautiful collection of stories and photographs that glorify the goodness of sharing a cup of tea with a friend or the importance of lovingly preparing food for loved ones. I am very inspired by this particular aspect of the human experience to which these talented artists and writers decided to dedicate this magazine. It makes me proud of the gatherings we hosted over the holidays for friends and family and glad that I put so much effort into making our home cozy and our food inviting. It also encourages me to let go a bit--to allow things to unfold naturally, organically, without feeling contrived.

One line from a story really stood out to me. In talking about the harshness of a Manitoba winter, one writer wrote, 


"Winter is the recognition, in the form of a season, that we need each other."

I think about the times that Adam and I make the effort to brave the cold and snow and wind to visit a friend and how it always seems worth it, and how the weather is not as bad as we thought it would be (usually).

A few weeks ago I wrote that I was embarrassed to be so enamored of fancy things like tea and cozy neighborhoods and eating at restaurants because of my deep awareness of the suffering and needs of our community, and yet I find comfort in knowing that all humans have the desire to be warm, to drink from warm mugs in the winter and to share a meal with the ones we love. It is not luxury that I seek, but rather the comforts of community and home. All I have to do is work to extend the hospitality of our home to more neighbors.

So add that to the list of intentions for 2012.

This is the New Year

I have been thinking a lot about ways to dig deeper and live better in 2012, and there are several ideas bouncing around in my head.

First, I've decided to go sugar-free. No sweet baked goods, no added sweeteners, and no sodas (not even diet). I have been getting on and off this bandwagon for the last 6 months, but it's finally time to embrace it. I simply feel awful when I eat sugary things and I feel better when I don't. More about this in a future post.

I also, after creating a spreadsheet, have figured out that I can save $6000 and pay down my student loan debt to under $3000 by year's end, so I'm going to to do that. The trick is to stop feeling like I'm rich by investing my money immediately into the areas that need it--my savings account and my debts. If I know my checking account is low, I will be less likely to spend on more frivolous items. So the plan is to invest $500 into my savings account and $500 into my loans every month. It ends up being a hefty portion of my take-home pay, but it's definitely worth it.

These two things, I think, will really help cover the rest of my goals. Which are:
1. Get serious about reducing my belongings, both personally and within our household; sell what I can, give away what I can't and reduce the amount of new things that come into the house
2. Stay focused on creating inexpensive, nourishing, home-cooked meals full of nutrients but without expensive additions
3. Stop going to Starbucks and other coffee shops and instead take 2 minutes to pour myself a tea to-go
4. Drink more water instead of snacking in the afternoon
5. Spend more time reading (news, fiction, non-fiction) on my internet devices and less time shopping or reading blogs mindlessly
6. Grow more food; preserve more too
7. Meditate, do yoga, and take lots of walks (rain or shine)
8. Seriously reduce the amount of caffeine I consume; drink mostly herbal teas and water

Those goals may, at first glance, have nothing to do with my original two intentions, but they really do. I am so sick of putting money into loans--plain and simple. I can't stand what interest rates do to the amount you end up paying, and I want to finish the repayment as soon as humanly possible. Most of my other goals have to do with living more frugally so that I can manage this ambitious repayment (by the way, most loans are set up to be paid back in 10 years--I'm hoping to be done in less than 5). Not only do some of my money pitfalls have to do with impulse-buying, they are also connected to eating sugar. Even when I get plain latte's they still have sugar and caffeine. I tend to buy lots of snacks at work that are sometimes sweet, sometimes salty, but I am less likely to snack if I know I can't have cookies!

In the end, I want my money back. I want to have something to show for the salary that I earn. I want all of my money to go towards new adventures and investments, not into a past investment (my education). Who knows, I'll probably need to take out loans for graduate school at some point. But I hope I will have completely paid off my undergraduate debt before that happens. I also hate thinking about my decent-sized salary going towards lattes, burritos and shoes and having very little to show for the rest. So it's time to be in control of the cash that flows from my credit card and put it where it belongs. In a way, what I'm doing is preventing myself from the impulse-buys by taking away my money before I can spend it. Oh, the mind games I play on myself. In the end, I want to spend as much money as I can where it counts, so that I can truly take advantage of being debt free in a little over a year...can't wait...