Though I like to think of myself as a fairly patient person, in reality I am often only outwardly patient. Inwardly, I, the same person who just a few days ago got really upset at someone honking at him for “holding up traffic” for 20 metres by going 25 instead of 50 kph, am often very impatient. I first really noticed it a few days ago as I was riding home on a major arterial street (that luckily has a bike/carpool/taxi/bus lane). Because it is a major street, there aren’t many lights and I was able to build up a good head of steam and ended up cruising along at probably 35-40 kph. When the person in front of me slowed down to make a right turn I was amused to note just how grumpy I was at the fact that now I had to regain all of that momentum.
One of the places where my internal impatience is at its worst, though, is on the TTC. Take Yonge/Bloor station. For those who haven’t visited, this is a relatively large station at the crossing of two subway lines – one upstairs and one downstairs. When I get off a subway there (usually having chosen a car as close as possible to the stairs to minimize the crowd in front of me and speed up getting to the other line), I briskly walk to the stairs, quickly go down them and on to the next train. In reality, though, what often happens is that I get off the train, and either get stuck behind someone trying to muscle a stroller down the stairs (where’s your sling, dammit! That’s a whole other discussion – the number of parents who should be using slings instead of strollers and how much easier it would be for everyone), or a person taking the stairs slowly due either to age or injury. Now I don’t get angry, I don’t say anything, and am often the one helping the stroller-carrying parent get the child downstairs. I just sigh inwardly and try to find some way to pass as soon as I can.
Friday night, though, someone thought I needed a bit of empathy in this realm. It was a beautiful night as I headed home. Well, by beautiful I mean to look at – a storm was brewing and so there was blustery winds and dark clouds. As I was riding I was thinking what a great ride I was having – most of the wind was at my back, traffic wasn’t bad, and damned if the city wasn’t gorgeous to look at in this weather. It got even prettier when I got off the streets and into the park. I was one of a very few people riding down the path and so I was moving rather quickly. I didn’t have my GPS installed so I can’t say exactly how quickly – probably 20-25 kph. Things were going wonderfully until I came around a corner. I heard a metallic scrape and my rear end lifted up a little and before I knew it I had lost control and was flying forward, still holding the handlebars. It’s been a while since I’ve had any sort of accident, fortunately, and I had forgotten what a trip the whole sensation of time slowing was like. I was able to have several ideas go through my head – everything from hoping I was capable of getting out of the park afterwards, to the condition of my bike, to what the hell did I hit? (Turns out, for the curious, my bike has a little metal stand it sits on when folded that sits just under the bottom bracket where the pedals attach. You can sort of see it in the picture here. That bracket caught itself on a bit of pavement that had been pushed up by a tree root.
The memory that sticks most with me is the sight of the ground rapidly approaching my face followed by a shout of pain as I hit first my knee, hands, chin, and finally shoulder on the ground. While it got one heck of a yell out of me, the injuries were, fortunately, relatively minor.
Once all my inertia had been spent, I picked myself up, brushed myself off and assessed the damage. My left knee got a painful bruise and a 1/4″ cut that probably should have had a stitch or two due to its depth and tendency to keep opening up, the chain ring bit into my right calf leaving a wound that looks like the usual stain of chain grime that is often found on my calf anyway. I was wearing gloves so my hands were mostly spared though there is a bit of road rash on them, still, and my chin now looks so much like it has a goatee that Sage can’t help but laugh when she sees it. My bike chain had fallen off and managed to jam itself between the chainring and frame of the bike. Once I fixed the bike, I hopped on and started to head home. It was then that I noticed that my knee was not going to permit me to ride at all, let alone at the 35-40 kph that I would need to on the upcoming main arterial road. I got off the bike, and walked the 500 m or so back to the last entrance into the park where I folded up the bike and called a cab which came just as the sky opened up.
I spent the evening on the couch doing as little as possible in hopes that getting to work the next day would be fairly easy. Turns out it was not as easy as I’d hoped. By Saturday morning I was able to pretty much walk just fine on flat surfaces but stairs were a different story entirely. Going up or down was painful unless I took them slowly, relying on the railing to help me. Where I could I had to look for operating escalators to avoid the stairs entirely. Having this perspective was pretty humbling. Now I was the slow one holding up the others sighing inwardly to themselves waiting for some way to get around this person who was slowing down their commute. Yes, as a matter of fact, I do feel bad about my attitude.
On the way to work Friday, I was thinking to myself about how my attitudes have evolved as I have grown older and I’ve come to the conclusion that I am wired backwards. While others of my generation were left-leaning and progressive in university, they have become moderate with age. I, on the other hand, seem to have started in the centre and am moving further and further to the left as I get older. I wonder why this is. Why are most people becoming less radical as I am going totally the other way?
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