Shay Seaborne's Synergy Field

Happy Mother’s Day, Jerome

Shay — Tue, 15 May 2012 10:30:11 +0000

My thoughtful daughters gave me colorful flowers and a lobster dinner, but the most memorable part of my Mother’s Day was helping to save a young man from himself while simultaneously betraying him.
I first saw him through my front window, when my daughter came inside after retrieving something from her car and told me there was a man out there who needed help. She said he had fallen, she had offered to help him up, there was something wrong with him and she was afraid he would get hurt.
Looking through the window blinds, I saw a man wearing dark gray baggy pants, a light gray jacket and a black ball cap with the bill turned backward. He was facing away from me, standing almost against my neighbor’s car, wobbling as if he would fall down any moment.
I called 911 and described the situation, saying I was afraid he was going to be hurt. As I talked, I saw the man fall down in the open parking space. “He’s not moving,” I said to the dispatcher. “Please send someone quickly.”
As I went outside to check on the man, he rose and started walking down the sidewalk to my left, toward the pool. To my right I saw several people, neighbors from the block around the corner. A man with shorn hair said, “That guy just drank a whole bottle of Thunderbird, smashed the bottle in the street and cussed out a lady!” Pointing to his right, he continued, “Then he broke the window on that truck and took something.” I noticed the man had many old and new scars on his head and face, including an eyebrow and a scalp wound that were held together with small staples. Nearby there were two teenage boys, who were wound up, having witnessed these events. They ran off toward the wobbling man, their laughter edged with malice.
I went back into my house and called 911 to report that the man had moved, that he had reportedly smashed a bottle in the street and broke into a vehicle. My daughter was very concerned. She, too, had heard the malice in those boys’ laugh. I grabbed my cell phone and walked in the direction they had gone. Excitedly, they told me the man had fallen down in the street twice, was now on the other side of the bridge that crosses the creek, and the bag he carried was something he had stolen from the truck.
A group of about a dozen young people were hanging out in front of a house, and the man in gray was standing on the sidewalk in front of them, his torso veering right and left, forward and back as he tried to maintain his balance. I assumed they knew him, and had some concern about a crowd mentality, but I approached calmly and respectfully.
When I saw the young man’s face for the first time I was struck by his eyes, which were remarkably large, clear, deep and intelligent. His handsome features included smooth skin, angled cheekbones and a snappy little goatee.
“Are you OK?” I asked him.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered respectfully.
“You’ve been drinking, and I saw you fall down. Did you take anything else, anything that could hurt you or make you OD?”
“No, ma’am,” he replied, his voice slow with intoxication. I was not sure I could believe him. He was swaying in effort to remain on his feet. I took his arm and asked him to sit on a nearby stump.
“We don’t know this guy,” said one of the young men sitting on the steps in front of the house.
“Can you get him out of here?” asked another. “We don’t need the police here.” I understood what they meant. The group of people was black, easy “profiles” for the police.
I noticed that bag that the wobbly young man had reportedly stolen was in the dirt at his feet. I could see that the bag contained the repair manual for the truck. I picked it up.
“I’m going to take this back to the truck where you got it.”
He reached for it and held it firmly. “I need to take this with me” he said. I looked him in the eye, giving him a “Mamma stare” and he eased his grip. I asked him to come with me and I helped him up. Afraid he would fall down again, I held his arm firmly, noticing through his jacket it was hard muscle. He began to lurch in the opposite direction from my house, the weight of his muscular frame yanking me along.
“Where are you going?” I asked him.
“Going south,” he replied.
“You are really drunk and you fell down a lot of times. I am afraid you are going to get hurt,” I told him. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he said.
I figured that I could move him away from the group that didn’t want him around, and then when the police came there wouldn’t be any issue for them.
The young man nearly fell down again. I moved him away from the group, toward a tree, and suggested that he sit down until he feels better, so he would not fall and get hurt.
“I’m a’ sit right here,” he said, looking at the curb that edged a storm sewer upon which an outdoor trashcan was located.
“OK, I’ll sit with you,” I told him. He stepped off the curb and tried to sit, but crashed into me, almost knocking me over. I thought about how he was solid muscle and fall-down drunk, but docile at the same time.
I asked his name, but he was so intoxicated I had a hard time understanding much of what he said. I believe he said “Jerome.”
“Hey, Jerome,” I said, “What’s up with you that you drank so much today?”
“My mamma died on Feb’rary 11th, 2002 and it’s Mother’s Day.”
“I’m very sorry,” I said. “What was her name?”
“Rosaletta,” he answered, reverently.
“That’s a very pretty name,” I said.
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen, ma’am. I been on my own since.”
I felt bad for him. Wondered what he had been through between that time and the present. What had he been through even before his mamma died?
“I see your hat has a Batman insignia. Do you like Batman, Jerome?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did you ever wear a cape and pretend to be Batman?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We chatted a bit more about his childhood, during which Jerome told me he was from Detroit, and that he had owned a Ninja bicycle that was blue and silver, and he rode it very fast.
“Where do you live now?” I asked.
“I got no place, ma’am,” he answered.
“Where do you sleep?”
“I find a place,” he said.
Jerome was saying that he was homeless, but he didn’t appear to be so. It had been only a couple of days since he shaved. His clothes smelled fresh, and his hair was arranged in neat new-looking cornrows that terminated in a fringe of short braids hanging down in the back. The young man’s eyelids began to flutter and he stopped talking and fell asleep, elbows propped on his thighs, head hanging. He started to fall over and I put my arm across his thick shoulders to steady him.
“Do you want to lean against me so you don’t fall?” I asked. Jerome responded by putting his arms around me and pressing his forehead into my neck. He reached for my hand and for several seconds he held it tight. I noticed that he had the letters D-O-R-E tattooed on his right hand, one block letter inked in black upon each nut brown finger. Two of his knuckles bore dried blood where they had been broken open.
Jerome quickly became heavy, and I pulled out my cell phone so I could use my left hand to text my daughter, asking her to tell the police where we were.
“I think they are not coming,” she wrote back.
“Call them again!” I replied. “He needs help.”
After several minutes Jerome seemed to be in a deep sleep, so I decided to try to lay him down on the sewer top. “Let’s lay back here,” I said, moving downward with him, until his head was resting on my arm. He did not protest. I moved my arm from beneath him and felt concern at his lack of response. I was afraid he might have alcohol poisoning, or have taken some drugs. I watched his chest carefully for the rise and fall of his shallow breaths.
“He has to get out of here,” said one of the young men from the nearby stairs. “He’s messing up the neighborhood.”
“I know,” I replied. “But he’s too drunk to walk. He might get hurt.”
“Somebody should call the police,” he said, too loudly.
“That’s been done,” I answered, trying to answer in a way that wouldn’t alarm Jerome.
Some of the other young people started moving in closer to us. They ran past just a little to close, on purpose. One of them, standing about 15’ away, said, “Dude if you break into that van over there, you will have hell to pay.” The closing crowd emanated anger toward the stranger in their midst.
Jerome began to rouse. I kept my hand on his shoulder, encouraging him to stay where he was until his head cleared. But he had heard the word “police.”
Trying to distract him, I gently teased Jerome about getting drunk, which caused him to grin with satisfaction. This did not last long, though.
“I have to go now,” he said. “I can’t be here when the police come. I just got out of prison two days ago.” He tried to rise, and a set of Allen wrenches fell from one his bulging jacket pockets.
“Did you take these from that guy’s truck, too,” I asked?
“I got to go,” he said. He wouldn’t tell me that he had done anything wrong.
I still had my cell phone in hand, so I surreptitiously dialed 911 and left the phone on while trying to keep Jerome from noticing. I expected the phone would give our location and the police would come if I gave them some hints in my conversation with Jerome.
“You stole some things when you broke into that van,” I told him. “We should go give these back to that guy.”
Jerome suddenly looked more sober and he began to quickly empty his pockets into the trashcan. He threw in another set of Allen wrenches, some socket wrenches and other things I didn’t see.
My phone rang with the alert “unknown number” and I answered. It was the police from the next county over. The man asked if I had dialed 911 during the conversation about stolen property and I affirmed without letting Jerome know it was the police. The voice on the phone asked where I was and I tried to downplay that I was giving an address of a nearby house. He said he would patch me in to the local county police and I should tell the dispatcher what I had said. I told him I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, that I had already said what was up.
A woman’s voice identified itself as being with the county police. She was talking loudly.
“Who is that?” Jerome asked.
“It’s my daughter,” I said. “She is wondering where I am.” I gave the address to this dispatcher.
“We have cars in the area and they will be there soon.”
Jerome was becoming agitated and anxious. He grabbed the bag with the repair manual, moving away from the street.
“This has to go back to the guy you took it from,” I said.
“I’m taking it with me, sweetheart,” he said, looking me in the eye. I looked back at him with greater determination.
“No, we need to do the right thing,” I said. “Don’t you want to do the right thing?” I asked?
“No, sweetheart,” he said, words still slurred. “I got to do what I got to do and whatever happens, happens,” he said. “Give me a hug,” he asked, and ex-convict held me tight for several seconds as three police cars pulled up. Jerome moved away from me as five or six officers walked toward us. The young man just stood there, accepting his fate. The police questioned him and he answered respectfully, but in a flat tone. They put the cuffs on him and I began to move toward the young man. I wanted to say…something.
“We’ll be with you in a few minutes,” a male officer said in a firm voice that also told me to stay back.
Jerome looked at me, and for a second I saw that he felt I had betrayed him. Then his eyes went soft again, he turned his head away from me, swaying slightly until two police officers escorted him to one of the cars.
My daughter walked up, visibly upset, tears in her eyes. We both felt helpless and sad even though we both knew we had each done what we could for this young man, what seemed like the right thing to do–what nobody else was willing to do. Still, it felt like it made no difference.
I went back home to my Mother’s Day flowers and my by-then cold lobster dinner. Though it had been a long time since I ate my favorite seafood, I was unable to fully enjoy eating it, as I could not stop thinking about Jerome, the polite young man, who had lost his mamma at 13 and still felt the pain of her loss so greatly that he tried to quell it with Thunderbird. A young man who had gone to prison and was released with no place to go and nobody to go to, in an economy where jobs are scarce, into a world where it seemed nobody cared.
My friend Sonya later told me that, “it may be a turning point in his life because someone cared enough to become involved.” She went on, “Sometimes we can’t save someone from themselves, but if our intervention gets them thru another day, the next may be the one that holds the change for them. We may never know for sure what happens, but we can take comfort in the fact that we reached out in compassion, empathy and love for a fellow human being, and that matters.”
As I expressed my feelings about this experience, Sonya suggested that I could “be comforted that you reached out…and set an example not only for Jerome, but for all who were witness to the situation.” I hope so. Mostly, I hope that Jerome at least had felt, for a while, a sense of being cared about, as any human being deserves. As drunk and disoriented as Jerome was, he probably won’t remember me, but I will not forget him.

Rocking the Cherry Blossom Regatta

Shay — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:44:47 +0000

Though I was originally to sail with GOOD TRADE, her skipper, Bob, landed me a spot crewing aboard TRUCULENT TURTLE, a modified Lindenberg 26 (hull #41 of 51). This is a very fast boat, with a great skipper and crew. At first I felt out of my league, but Prag, Brian and Noah were congenial, informative, and forgiving of my foibles–even if they chuckled at them once or twice.

The wind forecast had been for no more than 10 MPH, but that proved wrong and we had enough wind to make the race a lot of fun. We joined three races, running north up the Potomac River, and beating our way upwind and down river. The two new sailing terms I learned are “foot cleat!” (meaning “get your foot off that line!”) and “butt cleat!” (meaning “get your butt off that line!”). There were a few other choice words thrown about. Prag paused to question the hardiness of my ears and I assured him I had heard much worse, that I can even dish it out.

The Cherry Blossom Regatta included races between single-designs (FJs, Interlakes) and spinnaker and non-spin classes. TRUCULENT TURTLE was in non-spin, since we didn’t have enough crew experienced with the spinney. Oh, how sorry I was about that! I so wanted to fly a spinney, to race with one. Sadly, that will have to wait for another day.

Prag took the helm, Brian handled the sheets, and Noah and I helped with sheeting and served as “rail meat” (movable ballast). The two of us didn’t just sit dangling our legs over the rail. We were on alert for Prag’s next call for “tacking in 30 seconds.” This meant quickly swiveling our torsos inboard from between the lifelines, pulling legs up to deck level, swinging legs aboard, scrambling to our feet or knees, moving across the deck or cabin top during the tack while avoiding the swinging boom and whipping jib sheets, pulling down the foot of the jib if needed, clambering up to the windward side, and re-positioning at the new windward rail. Sometimes this was repeated in quick succession. By the end of the third race I was having to push past my fatigue in order to perform.

Even without the spinnaker, we had a great time racing TRUCULENT TURTLE. She’s so fast, and Prag and Brian so well versed that they could pretty much have won even without any help from Noah and me. We each did our part, though, and TRUCULENT TURTLE won two of the three races, and was the overall winner for the non-spin class.

Aside from the new terms, I learned that it’s best to grab a copy of the race diagram, just in case something happens to the skipper’s copy. Ya’ don’t want to rely on some other competing skipper’s word for the location of the marks. Especially if that skipper is so afraid of losing to you that he’ll try to gain advantage by lying–which isn’t exactly sporting, is it?

My muscles are stiff and sore, skin is bruised and hands blistered, but I am happy. Thanks to perfect weather, a turn of luck, a generous introduction and a kind welcome, I had about five hours of terrific sailing, smiling inside and out the whole time. A day like that can sustain a body for another couple of weeks…until the next race!

[See my album of photos from the Cherry Blossom Regatta.]

Germ warfare

Shay — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:45:38 +0000

Hand washing and safe food handling are very important to me. I’m not above bringing food safety brochures to potlucks. This fixation is not without cause, though; as a teenager, I contracted my first obvious food-borne illness, Montezuma’s Revenge, after eating strawberries in Mexico City. There’s nothing like a 3-week course of chronic diarrhea to make one aware of the importance of safe food handling.

During the space of the next few years, I had the educational experience of coming down with G.I. infections of staph (simultaneous vomiting and uncontrollable diarrhea all night long) and salmonella (relatively mild diarrhea and cramping), also due to the unsafe food handling practices of others. And then, in my youth, I landed a job that required me to become a certified food service manager. It was during this training course that I learned the sad fact that most food-borne illnesses are attributable to fecal matter under the fingernails. Serious “EW!”

In the Food Service Sanitation class, I also learned that “the top 3 ways to prevent food-borne illness are: wash your hands, wash your hands, and wash your hands.”

Knowing my interest, and tolerating it exceptionally well, my friend Kelly, the homeschool mom who coordinated my kids’ science club, asked me to present a unit on microbiology one spring. Imagine my delight at being asked to share the Gospel of Food Safety with seven impressionable children! I found many resources to tap, and put together a loosely structured unit that began with hand washing, then moved to safe food handling, and then into kitchen sanitation.

Using Google’s image search, I found plenty of pictures of bacteria and some of the hideous effects they can have on the human body. Among the photos was a lovely image of the E. coli bacterium, in which it looks like a pink duster: fuzzy and deceptively harmless. Having once dreamed of being a puppeteer, I decided this was my chance; I made an old pink sock into an E. Coli puppet, by sticking bright pink feathers into the knit, so the effect was somewhat like a humongous E. Coli bacterium. So I opened the microbiology unit with a brief–and-to me, anyway–funny talk given by the puppet. “Escher,” as the puppet liked to be called, had to speak up to be heard over the groans of the 10-to-15-year-olds in the audience.

OK, so the puppet was a flop. But things went better from there. We had a lot of fun doing experiments with GloGerm, a harmless product that simulates the presence of bacteria. It comes in powder and lotion, and once rubbed in to hands, cutting boards, cutlery, etc., it can’t be seen without aid of a black light. For the first experiment, I secretly rubbed GloGerm lotion into my hands, then shook hands with each student. After a while, we went into the bathroom-the only windowless room in the house-and looked at each child’s hands and face under the black light. They were amazed at how the “bacteria” transferred from hands to noses, eyes, and mouths. The kids soon came up with some original ideas about how they wanted to use this product.

As much as the group of homeschoolers liked the GloGerm experiments, they were even more enthusiastic about the experiments in which they cultured swabs of various surfaces, from the dog and cat’s mouths, to telephones, doorknobs, and bathroom fixtures. Everyone was grossed out when we viewed the colonies of bacteria that had grown on the agar plates.

Even though the topic was “icky” and many of the experiments disgusting, the science club kids seemed to enjoy the unit a great deal. The group came away with a greater understanding of- and appreciation for the factors that contribute to food-borne illness. They were so appreciative that they even gave me a funny and thoughtful card, and a gag gift: a “microbiology safety kit” they put together, containing rubber gloves, a can of Lysol, hand sanitizer and so on. Or maybe they gave it to me as a good riddance gift. I may never know.

I saved dozens of links from my searches for interesting microbiology activities, but space doesn’t permit me to list them all here, so my very faves appear below. I hope you and yours can share the gross fun!

-Shay

Food Safety Resources

Food Safety.gov
The gateway to government food safety information provides news and safety alerts, consumer advice, info for kids, teens and educators, and much more. The best single site on this topic.

Science and Our Food Supply
Curriculum for use in middle level and high school science classes. My primary resource, adapted to suit the interest of the group.

Food Safety Music
The Elvis of E. Coli provides new lyrics to old rock songs, including Stomach Ache Tonight, We Are the Microbes, and many more hits. Listen to the songs, read the lyrics, and order your own copy.

Federal Citizen Information Center
Lots of materials to download for free or order for a nominal fee.

Microbe World
Resources and hands-on activities. This is where I found a neat “Fun with Fomites” experiment that the science club kids especially enjoyed.

Why Getting Grimy As A Child Can Make For A Healthier Life
“We’ve known for a while that people who grow up on farms are less likely to have ailments related to the immune system than people who grow up in cities. Those include asthma, allergies, inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis.”

Virtual Museum of Bacteria
Brings together many links on bacteria, bacteriology, and related topics available on the web. It also provides crystal-clear information about many aspects of bacteria.

Bacteria Study Kit
This is the most homeschool-friendly and all-in-one source for culturing common bacteria.

Henry the Hand
Henry offers information on food safety and the importance of hand washing, plus activities and a contest.

Home Food Safety Survey
Kids can have fun surveying their household for areas that need improved food safety action.

Sponges and Sinks and Rags, Oh, My!
Where microbes lurk and how to rout them.

How Stuff Works: Black Light
Of course, the kids wanted to know how the black light works.

Trusting the rutted trail

Shay — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:00:24 +0000

I felt a strong sense of foreboding as I pedaled my bike to the beginning of the path through the woods one August evening a few years ago. Deeply shaded by the heavy growth of late summer and cutting through the trees at the edge of the industrial park, the rutted trail seemed lonely and dangerous. I had heard that it connects to Veterans Park–which is a great place to ride–but my trepidation won out. Instead of going forward, I slowed, circling the cul-de-sac a few times as I sized up the threat, and decided to turn around. The trail was too creepy and dark for my comfort.

A few days later, motivated by my interest in getting through to the park on the other side, I decided to go forward despite my fear, to trust that it would be safe and worthwhile. The trail did seem creepy, lined with coarse trees, poison ivy and an occasional pile of trash dumped just in the woods. However, it also let me ride into Veteran’s Park, which offers the cyclist a good flat piece of road, as well as some interesting trails along the water.

Today I ride down the gravel path regularly. It is bathed in light and shadow, in late summer the greenery arches over it, in winter bare branches stand starkly aside it, and sometimes there is a pile of trash just off of it. But now I find it not at all creepy or lonely, and I even traverse it after sundown.

That rough gravel gash through the woods provides an inroad from the industrial park to the recreational park and back again, allowing me to enjoy an extended ride through varied landscape. The route has not changed since my first attempt to ride it, when fear and foreboding kept me from going forward. The one thing that has changed is my view. It is amazing what opportunities can open up when one lets go of fear and sees things from a perspective of trust.

A beautiful wind on the river

Shay — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 11:30:09 +0000

Two of my fellow sailors were out enjoying the river this lovely day–and rubbing my nose in the fact that I had to work at my indoor “day job” and could not spend the day as they were, flying across the waves, soaking up the sunshine and playing in the wind.

I did get outside for a few minutes here and there during my work hours, reveling in the breeze and the warmth of sunshine on my face. After work I took a delicious bike ride as the evening sky deepened, pedaling to the Occoquan, where I found a beautiful wind on the river. There I stopped to take in the sensations of the riverside: the susurrus of waves against the shore, a chorus of tree frogs in the distance, the sensation of wind caressing my skin and the falling coolness of the air.

Although I did not spend this glorious day outside, sailing on the river as did my colleagues, I squeeze as much enjoyment as possible out of my moments of pleasure, and, perhaps I found even more than they, simply because I hold the pleasures more dearly.

Love them the most when they act the least lovable

Shay — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 03:06:51 +0000

Kids seem to know when a parent is most overloaded–and that’s when they act up the worst! I swear they have radar for this. If yours are like mine, they even have a pact to take turns being “the bad and annoying one.” One will be super obnoxious until I’m about ready to kill and eat her, while the other plays the angel. Then suddenly, they switch; the angel becomes the devil and vice versa. The better to wear me down.

Unfortunately, kids pick up on parental energy and tone, amplifying and acting it out. So, they are being their worst at precisely the time we need them to behave at their best. This is one of the things that truly sucks about parenting, and I say this out of experience.

The subtex of the kids’ behavior is pretty much always that they need love and assurance. When mine are acting up–even now, supposedly as “adults”–I try to remember that people (and I mean all people, not just kids) need love the most when they act the least lovable. This has been a tough concept for me to grasp, much less, integrate into my SOP. However, it has repeatedly proven accurate, and I now know it is virtually 100% true.

When my kids were younger and both of them were out of whack, I would find even small ways to slow things down for all of us, if just a little here and there. Maybe they would skip an activity or two and I would heat up left overs instead of planning- shopping for- and preparing a meal. I would make sure to spend extra time with them, get them outdoors, or at least, moving. I would instigate spontaneous fun, start up some kitchen science experiments, or let them play with sand and water.

Their response to these acts was most often positive, and soon they were back on a more even keel. Though it took a little extra thought- and sometimes effort, “loving them the most” always helped everybody feel better.

Frostbite Regatta

Shay — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:00:58 +0000

Imagine the deck of a 31′ sailboat, slick with spray and heaving over three-foot waves while heeling at a 45-degree angle. As she tacks, you duck out of the way of the boom and hang on, while keeping feet and legs away from the jib sheets, which can pull you overboard.

Then climb, climb her 10′ beam to the windward side, hang your legs and arms overboard and lean out between the lifelines. Wind in your hair, spray in your face, the boat speeding at 8.1 KT, the exhilaration is marvelous!

That is how I spent a few hours on Saturday, during the Frostbite Regatta off Quantico Yacht Club, aboard Te-Keel-La, a beautiful Catalina 310. Te-Keel-La already had more than enough crew, so I mostly served as rail meat/photographer. While these positions did not help me advance my racing knowledge much, they were highly enjoyable, and allowed me to catch some very good pictures of the action, both on board and in the scene.

Te-Keel-La competed in the first race, a challenge in winds of up to 28 KT, and waves about three feet. Two of her reef points tore before she crossed the finish mark in about an hour and a half. The Catalina 310 served as the committee boat in the second race. While bobbing on the anchored committee boat was not as exciting as racing, it put me in position for action shots at the start/finish line.

I was lucky enough to be able to sail again on Sunday, teaching basic sailing, then enjoying a pleasure sail with friends–for a total of five hours in a fresh breeze. These three sails brought me sore arms, legs and back, sunburn, windburn, chapped lips, two broken fingernails, three small cuts and several bruises, but I’m still smiling because I actually had enough sailing this weekend.

Delicious night ride

Shay — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 02:41:43 +0000

This afternoon I felt irritation as I realized that, once again, I was not going to leave work on time. Minutes before “quitting time,” my boss had something important to discuss, and it could not wait. I was going to arrive home too close to dark to go on a much-needed bike ride–and that annoyed me.

I ended up leaving the office more than an hour late, with a commute of over an hour in front of me. Traffic was unusually thick, too, making the drive even longer, and contributing to my irritation. Bike riding is one of the ways I keep healthy, fit and relaxed, and I had not been able to ride in almost two weeks.

Arriving home, I quickly changed into my cycling clothes and dashed out the back door. Pulling my Fila hybrid out of the shed, I found the front tire, which had been leaking for some time, was beyond service. This meant I had to change the tire while using up what little precious daylight remained.

My irritation escalated to anger, which I turned into determination. I was going to finally change that tire, by golly! and then be able to ride without trouble. Tomorrow. When the forecast is for rain.

Grabbing tire levers, air pump and Vise Grips, I went at my task with a vengeance, changing the tire more effectively than ever before, even though I was quite rusty. Still, by the time I finished the job and put away the tools, twilight had fallen. It was too late to ride. Or was it? I needed to test the new tire a bit, just riding around the neighborhood for a few minutes. I donned my reflective wrist- and ankle bands, and the LED headlamp–the kind that is like a flashlight on an elastic headband. I was merely going to pedal around for a few minutes, but this turned into a delicious night ride.

My mouth broke into a grin as soon as I started pedaling down the street. I missed riding, and was enjoying the lovely feel of it. “Maybe I’ll just go to the railroad tracks and back,” I thought, “on the sidewalk, where it’s safe.” From there, I went on through the wealthy neighborhood along the river, and through a couple more neighborhoods in that area, stopping in front of the private waterfront park, looking at the river from behind the chain link fence. I paused for a few minutes, feeling the cool light air, watching the reflection of distant lights dancing on the black face of the river, recognizing how different it looks at night, and remembering splendid days of sailing, right out there.

Continuing on, I pedaled toward the public park, opposite a long line of vehicles driven by the soccer parents taking their kids home after the evening’s games. In the darkening night, the light from their headlamps broke harshly on my eyes. I turned my bicycle down a side road, into a quiet neighborhood near the river, with large lawns and an open field in the middle. Pedaling around the long oval road, I was aware of how, without normal ability to see, I was relying more on my other senses. Without seeing them, I felt the presence of several deer. Turning toward their direction, I saw only the green reflection of my headlamp in their eyes, and the white flags of their tails as they bounded across the meadow.

In the darkness, sounds seemed louder, smells richer, and the touch of the wind felt greater. I pedaled back toward the park in front of the river, and rounding a corner, saw my headlamp reflecting in the eyes of a much smaller creature, a raccoon, which was looking at me nervously and trying to decide if it could squeeze its chubby body into the small drainage pipe at the end of a driveway. It did, just in time to duck out of sight of a fat black Labrador retriever laboring and huffing to keep up with its jogging owner.

I heard the blare of the train whistle before I turned back toward the railroad tracks. There, the traffic was stopped in front of the crossing gates as a long freight train rumbled loudly past. I pedaled along side the cars and trucks, wanting to be closer to the train, to feel it vibrate in my ears, my chest, my bones. The train went on into the darkness, but the gates remained down as the head light from another train moved closer. This train had a different rumble, one lighter, and it came with greater speed, so I knew it was a commuter train. I enjoyed looking at the people in the lighted interior as the train sped by, like I was looking into a model train set that was running top speed.

The gates lifted and I pedaled home, feeling satisfied by the exercise, the rhythm, the wind and air, the sensory stimulation. I also felt grateful for that experience, which I would not have enjoyed, had I not been kept late at work, had I not been slowed by the need to change a tire.

The courage to turn the other cheek

Shay — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:00:56 +0000

One evening last week, I asked a friend to make plans to come through on a favor he had gladly offered me in exchange for a favor to him. I sent the request by text message, since I know that is his preferred means of quick communication. Being that this request was for something seemingly easy for him, but important to me, I was shocked to receive his text in response, which blasted me for thinking of myself instead of his situation, and ended with “[expletive deleted] off!”

As a human being, my first reaction was to take offense, the “How dare he?” defense. Had I allowed my knee-jerk response to dominate my actions, I would have immediately sent a nasty text in return, saying something like, “I’ll remember this next time you ask me for a favor, jerk!” But I bit my thumbs and put my cell phone away, giving myself time to calm down and choose my response, instead of merely reacting.

I thought about my friend’s reaction, and my own, and turned the interaction over in my mind. I considered what I know of this friend–that he can be touchy, and often lashes out when under stress–and that he was facing a special challenge in the projected path of hurricane Irene. My thought was that he could have just ignored my text, or answered, “not now,” instead of being offensive.

I also considered the truth in what my friend said. Though his wording was offensive, at the core he was asking me to be more considerate, and I realized he was right; I had been caught up in my own challenges and needs, enough that I did not think much about his.

The following morning, I chose how I wanted to respond to my angry and offensive friend. I did not seek “an eye for an eye,” but turned my cheek. I decided to give him the compassion and understanding he needed, and to acknowledge the nugget of truth in his words. “You were right,” I texted back. “I should have been more considerate of your situation. I am sorry, and sorry I could not help. Let me know if you still need help,” I concluded, and waited to see how my friend would respond.

Not long after I sent that text, my friend replied, saying he was sorry, that it was not my fault, he had been very stressed, and “I still love ya.”

Sometime later it occurred to me that it takes a certain courage to turn the other cheek. It means having the courage to self-examine, to see the level of truth in another’s offensive words, to see the flaws in one’s own behavior, and to be the first to say “hey, I value you more than my need to be right.”

Keeping connection

Shay — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:00:10 +0000

The past two weeks have been difficult, as I have dealt with an injured wrist that has kept me from sailing, cycling and gardening. These favorite physical activities help me keep my life in balance, so when I cannot engage in them, I feel off kilter. Frustration follows, and maintaining a positive mindset and demeanor becomes a challenge.

Periods of difficulty have taught me the importance of holding connection to the things that sustain me, even if only by the thinnest thread. If I cannot sail, I can catch glimpses of the river when I ride my bike. If I cannot ride my bike, I can imagine I’m pedaling it over the hills and valleys during the last leg of my daily commute.

Even imagining myself engaged in favorite activities can serve to ease my mind and bring a smile to my face. This creates a positive start that sets the tone for the rest of my day. Then I can share my happy spirit with the people I encounter, and lift their spirits, as well. Keeping connection to what sustains me is a simple but powerful act.