The road less cycled

Some clever wag once commented that we’re all unique, just like everybody else, or something to that effect. Together with planning to be spontaneous tomorrow, it’s one of my favorite oxymorons, because it captures the internal dilemma that so many of us grapple with. Nobody, but nobody, wants to “fit in with the crowd,” or to “be mainstream.” Nobody will happily admit that they’re pretty mainstream, that they just go with the flow and do what most other people do, and like what most other people like. The phrase “I just don’t do mainstream” is almost ubiquitous.

In ‘05 I worked a blueberry field in Matsqui, where I had this conversation with a woman who was just pickin’ for kicks, saving some pocket money and spending time with her daughters. I posited that I’d sort of come to the conclusion that if most people seemed to be doing something, it probably wasn’t the right thing to be doing. She agreed, saying it was the exact conclusion she’d come to. The next step in that line of thought however, has to be, what if most people are studiously avoiding what what most people are doing?  Is it then time to avoid mass avoidance and fall back into line with the masses? Now we’re well into the realm of circular thinking, of self-destructive logic.

The reason being, that the scale of acceptance of a school of thought or phenomena shouldn’t by itself be the litmus test of its worthiness. We all have to make our own judgement calls on every particular issue; sometimes this might put us squarely in line with the majority, other times it might put us on a collision course with a juggernaut. This is when things get interesting, and you check the displacement value of whatever you’re driving. (for the uninitiated, this is what passes as dry 2:35 a.m. humor.)

Of course, the line between being “mainstream” and being “unique” is extremely broad. You only have to read the book, “Stuff White People Like” to understand this. In fact, the range of lifestyles, hobbies, and careers that are available to us in today’s day and age is mind-boggling, and so broad as to make us all unique almost simply as a product of living in the society that we do. We are all drawn to particular aspects of our culture for various reasons; some people have an affinity for puttering around with clubs trying to stick little white dimpled balls into holes in the ground, some get together in groups and try to simplistically emulate popular numbers with simplified guitars, which is basically an admittance that we’re too lame to actually learn to play a guitar and instead are content with knowing this is as close as we will ever get. Some people like to take up a cause and try to arrest the momentum of something they are certain is Bad so that something Good can take its place. Point being, we all have the little things upon which we balance our Individuality. In keeping with the ubiquitous quest to be “random” and “spontaneous,” people especially prize being able to claim as a hobby something that apparently has no basis in the realm of practicality and is by all appearances completely unproductive, and of course, random. If there’s one thing that can be said about the segment of society with which I am familiar, it’s that above almost all else, we prize anything and everything “random.”

Well, there are other things that unite us of course, things that run as common threads through many of us, and, yes, make us “mainstream.” One of these, nearly to a man (and woman, geez, the expression was written before feminism ok?), we’re extravagant consumers. When we shop at Tim Horton’s, Starbucks, Staples, Ikea, Walmart, buy Apple computers or use Windows operating systems, buy a daily coffee because we “need” that to kickstart our day, uber-obsess over appearances, look for a “good” “job” (which I’ve heard defined two ways – “just over broke, and jackass of boss), these things make us mainstream because we all do them. This doesn’t necessarily make them bad, it just makes that highly likely. I mean seriously, try to defend any of those lifestyle practices to me from a social consciousness perspective. I ain’t all holier than thou either. I do all that too, fairly regularly actually. And so, I forego my claim to the realm of “uniqueness.”

Where all this is going, is to pave the way for me to say that, “there are a million things I could do with this life; just none of them have appealed to me so far.” There. I just quoted myself, on something I just put into writing now for the first time. Somehow that seems appropriate, I think because I’ve been turning that phrase over in my head for so long that I feel like it’s not even original anymore.

I could study geography and go on to revolutionize the community planning process with my brilliant ideological reforms to the way we plan stuff right now; right, that would go over well. I could take out a mortgage, as most of my visioning episodes for the future do seem to involve a peaceful domestic life, but they do call it a “mort-gage” for a reason. I could take up the bottle and drink and party myself into oblivion, interspersed of course with unpleasant episodes of reality. I could study the political process and try my damnedest to effect the change I want to see through political avenues. I could barnacle onto one of my dad’s businesses and maybe eventually run the show. I could study the heck out of investing, smart tax strategy, and financial policy to try and play it smart by raking in enough cash to live on without actually hardly working. I could learn a trade or two and be a hard workin’ Joe earning my living through hand-labor. I could be a transient farmer, helping out on organic farms round the world. I could devote myself to music/arts and see if I don’t have some untapped potential in that area. I could “be a writer, laddie buck” and try to turn words into dollars, work from home, and hopefully do some travelling along the way. I could be a career student as well….

For the time being, I’ll not be doing too much of that, particularly not the exotic stuff. I can’t, you see, for reasons that I can’t go into except to say they’re not financial – not primarily, at any rate.

No, I’ll be sitting tight here in the Valley for a bit, biding my time and…..being unconventional.

As usual.

Unlike everyone.

This little Doug. Fir sprang up in some disturbed soil in the field next to my house. It’s likely that it was seeded by the larger Douglas Fir next to our driveway, that a Red-breasted Sapsucker drilled full of holes this winter. It’s also likely that this area will be developed, so when I move, this little guy comes with me.

Well, I just went weak in the poetic knees after reading this, so I had to post it of course. Isn’t this just superb?

Here is a link to the Allen Ginsberg photo mentioned in the poem: http://mysite.verizon.net/paulruby/ginsburgmonkey.jpg

1984 Honda Elite Scooter, 12K miles, $750, 769-3329, Bellefonte

Paul Ruby

Let me tell you about it.

It starts easy

with a little electric motor

attached to the side of a big one.

Kind of like those icky fish that stick

to the side of the big shark in the pulsing

ocean’s belly.

It used to make me so happy

waiting for my stuff to dry,

in front of Splish Splash Laundromat.

And even though I only like the Pina Colada song a little

I dreamed I made whoopee on it

in the dunes of the Cape.

Go ahead, sit on it.

You’ll think you’re in Paris

or India with the monkeys

like in that Allen Ginsburg photo.

Girls will wave

as you drive by.

Forget about a Corvette

that only attracts other guys.

You need this Scooter!

Take it for a spin put on

my helmet.

Your breath fogs the visor

and mixes with my smells

of garlic, dirty hair and extra virgin olive oil

in a squishy corner of your mind.

Now we are close. It’s the smells of our

fore fathers, their fathers and that fellow in the

Raphael painting riding the stinky pony

on the Apian Way.

This scooter is your ticket to ride.

Okay, so it won’t start.

Help me bounce it up and down real hard

to knock some American sense into it.

Notice how the tires leave the ground

coins and tools fly

out of the glove box and bounce

under my ex’s burgundy Camry.

Look down.

That’s her watching us through the laundromat

window. The steamy window of our lives.

One of many, many, trees around 16th and 250th that was filled with crows

They’re viewed as pests by some; as natural marvels by others. Cunning, highly social, and omnipresent, crows evoke strong imagery by their presence. They are commonly used in literature and films. I’ve been told about a Hitchcock thriller in which crows turn violent and turn on people; since then I’ve had the occasional nightmare including such imagery. Crows act as Saruman’s spies in The Fellowship of the Ring. Ernest Thompson Seton writes of a wise old crow named Silverspot, who led a band of crows for years before being murdered by an owl, and in The Secret Garden, Dicken had a pet crow, I do believe.

I once observed two crows making out in a cottonwood tree, to the best of their ability (we are far better equipped for that).  This is one of several moments which impressed on me how little removed we really are from the rest of nature, and how much we have in common with all life, and how interconnected everything is.

The night I took this picture, the sky, in places, was black with crows. Hundreds of thousands swooped and perched and cawed in this area of southern Aldergrove. Their presence changed the very mood of the area. A few moments ago I heard a beautiful birdsong that perhaps will kick off a low-key winter dawn chorus, but the sound of many crows together is harsh and raucous; it sends chills down your spine and makes your hair stand on end. Crows have a mystique, a stigma about them that many people dislike, but which I find fascinating. This night the trees were weighed down with crows, it was as if they had gathered here for a grand congress, the entire crow family coming together to meet and talk and elect leaders and draft policy. I have no doubt there is meaningful communication going on at these gatherings.

For a rare moment, humans were not the predominant, overriding presence on the landscape. These black winged animals drowned out the human presence. They flew in from all  corners of the region, they blackened the sky, they were a reminder that we must yet cooperate with nature and live within its limitations.

There is a Save-On Foods inhabited by two birds; this discovery was the highlight of my Tuesday. The short glimpse I caught of one of them led me to believe they are Juncos; little birds that before I knew their actual names, I used to call “black-heads” and “gray-heads,” because the males had solid black heads while the females were just a light gray.

I mentioned this to a staff member. I was heartened that she was aware of them and that the staff there had actually named them, rather than removing them from the premises.  I guess I just expect that nowadays nobody can accept the intrusion of anything natural that potentially compromises “food safety,” and it makes me happy to come across an exception.

I am not specifying which Save-on Foods right now, but next time you are in one, keep an eye on the rafters; you just might see a flash of feathers as a Junco flits out of sight. Who knew you could birdwatch while shopping? Now that’s multi-tasking…

I’ve never, ever, sincerely regretted a bike ride. I’ve had flat tires, gotten soaked in impromptu rainshowers, ran out of water, been dead beat so I felt I couldn’t pedal any further, been honked at by retard drivers, been honked at by sane drivers because I was a retard cyclist doing stupid things, pissed off bus drivers, flipped the bird to more than one driver, cycled home from Langley, cycled to Cultus Lake and then dragonboated for a couple hours and then cycled home, gone over the handlebars after being cut off and jamming on the brakes, and had all kinds of other wonderful bike-related experiences. Three things I haven’t done, which perhaps disqualify me from being a true, blue, cyclist, are cycled drunk, cycled naked, or doubled anybody. Neither have I ridden a tall-bike, ridden a unicycle, or texted while cycling. All of those are on the list of fun bike things yet to come. Here’s to all things bike-related!

Of note, just yesterday I was cycling home along the Bevan bike lane, which I usually avoid because it’s hillier than the alternative route, but today I took it because I wanted to do the hill. Guess who was riding the opposite way? The only cyclist I saw riding that day? Abbotsford-Clayburn’s MP, B.C.’s Solicitor-General, and Minister for Public Safety, John van Dongen. As long as I’ve been involved in cycling advocacy, he’s been a strong supporter of more bicycle infrastructure, and someone who really listens to his constituents. He’s a busy guy, yet somehow he finds time to ride his bike to and from work now and again.

And he was taking the hill too.