Down the stairs now. It is unusually warm outside for January. Good for a bike ride, bad for a trend. I try to keep my mind on the present: on the pleasant warmth of the sunshine and the cool breeze snaking through the courtyard.
Out in the alley now. It's quiet. Birds chirp. There's a dull drone from Ocean Blvd. over the rooftops. I put my earbuds in and turn on the mp3 player. Hip hop begins to play, the rapper hissing and sputtering as he spits his words through a jaw tightened with postmodern stress, ferociously punching his golden age vision through the rusting carcass of a dead iron age.
Riding now, taking care to maneuver around the potholes. I cross the street and now I'm riding down the hill to the beach. I pass a girl pushing her way up the hill on a bike. It's a tough hill. I look over and she smiles self-consciously yet sweetly.
On the trail the foot and bike traffic is lighter than usual. It is a beautiful day; a light haze hangs out over a glimmering ocean. Seagulls sway in clouds over the ocean and the coast. Some gather in groups on the sand. I try to get inside the heads of the people I pass:
A white girl jogging, her eyes briefly meeting my gaze and darting away: "Did he see me? Does he think I'm beautiful? Did she see me? Is she jealous? Am I beautiful? Is she more beautiful than me?"
Maybe she's thinking about her friends and family, or the landscape. But her movements are mechanical, her eyes quick, indications of self-consciousness, like most of the other people on the trail.
A black man with dreadlocks, his eyes darting as well, but his face kind and intelligent: "Do they respect me? Do they accept me? Do they fear me?"
A white man with his shirt off, his torso ridiculously toned: "Did she see me? Did she think I was ripped? Did he see me? Was he threatened by me?"
I take care to remember that these inferences are more a reflection of my own thoughts as opposed to an accurate representation of theirs, a projective model built on observation. Probably correct, but keep in mind the edges won't line up, or some of the inferences could be just plain wrong.
I pass several more; they are staring straight ahead, or their eyes are shooting to the ground. I take my glances but my eyes do the same behind my darkened sunglasses. I hope they don't see my eyes dart to the side, that quick little jolt that prompts many in this culture to ask, "What's wrong?"
And so we pass each other in silence, lost in our own heads, our inferences on each other probably not lining up, our mutual self-conscious adjustments at tension and entering into feedback loops with one another.
I long to meet them, to know what they think, but then we pass, a quick judgement, and its over. On to the next.
On better days I try to smile at everyone, regardless of the signals. Otherwise we're all locked in a stalemate, trying to anticipate what the other is thinking and becoming dismayed at the signals we interpret from the others trying to do the exact same thing. It is all the calculating that leads to the dissonance. We must learn again to forget. And simultaneously.
I continue on down the trail, close to the end now, enjoying myself yet well aware of a tightness and a constriction of awareness. I'm pulling back into myself again. Damn. It takes exercise. It takes constant force to hold the constricting mind open again. Keep at it. But sometimes I lose it.
A man passes on a recumbent bike. I see his shadow, unsure of what it is, and then he begins to pass me. I figure he's some bike nut that wants to muscle past, so I move over, thinking of the weavers on the freeway, pathetically fixated on minuscule short term gains, happy to cut you off if it means a few more seconds.
But his head is tilted towards me. His mouth is moving. I remove an earbud.
"What was that?"
"You know if you raise your seat a little, you'll get a lot more leverage. Your knees will be extended and you won't have to work as hard, especially on hills."
"Oh I didn't even think about that. Thank you, I appreciate that."
He smiled and rode on. Naive. Hopeful. Stopping to help his fellow man. Unconditionally. Or maybe he wasn't so innocent. Hard to tell.
Something was briefly thawing. A warmth. The aperture was sliding open and taking in more of the cosmos. Even as it was constricting again, it left an elasticity.
I passed a cloud of pot smoke. It smelled like it was wrapped in a grape blunt. A good day for that. I passed another cloud near a parking lot.
I rode back and climbed the hill myself that I saw the girl going up. It was a tough hill.
Was that my heart hurting? Is that okay? I am 25, is that right? Why does my stomach hurt sometimes? My joints? Why the fatigue? Is our food safe? Is our water safe? Are my constant self-injections of epinephrine tearing my body apart? Stop, stop. Keep riding. Keep going.
I climb the stairs. I cross the still living room. I guzzle some water. And so on.
