Spoken word sings

 Ex-punk rock chola

brings life to the party

As her web site says, “Poet Rachel McKibbens is an ex-punk rock chola with five children. Known for her astonishingly visceral stage presence and devotion to craft, McKibbens has become one of the most respected poets in the spoken word community. She is the 2009 Women of the World poetry slam champion, is an eight-time National Poetry Slam team member, a three-time NPS finalist, and a 2007 New York Foundation for the Arts poetry fellow and Pushcart nominee.”

Out Loud editor Molly Kat asked Rachel if we could feature some of her work, and she kindly obliged. We trust you’ll find her poetry and her voice both charming and disarming.

SPOKEN WORD

M, from After the Fall

Grizzly

In the kingdom of pointing fingers

Head Above Water

Everything reminded you of what happened.
There were paintings of it hung
in the museums you frequented. 
Each new canvas was the same
horrible event, only a minute later,
until finally, the last frame -
your bed, covered in flies.

It followed you home after wild nights out,
shadowed your stagger, wiped the spit from your chin.
Your friends couldn’t look you in the eye any more.
They complained about it frequently:
It’s always staring at me, not saying anything.
And why does it have so many teeth?

You did your best to go on with your life.
After it tore your car apart
you rode a bicycle to work.
When it started eating children,
you stayed indoors.

When the people of your town
circled your house with torches, you left quietly.
Within a week after your departure, the town
returned to its slick comforts.

Eleven years have gone by. Only a handful of people
remember what you look like. When your mother
cried out for you in her deathbed,
she called the wrong name.
 

The local fishermen recount slurred tales of your sightings.
They say you built a giant raft, that the two of you
are floating hundreds of miles out to sea,
where undiscovered creatures of the deep
wallow in the freedom of their namelessness.
Where the girl, somewhere small inside you,
can finally get some sleep.

Across the Street from the Whitmore Home for Girls, 1949

The Mad Girls climb the wet hill,
breathe the sharp air through sick-green lungs.
The Wildest One wanders off like an old cow
and finds a steaming breast inside a footprint in the snow.
She slips it into her glove, holds it close like a darling.

At night, she suckles the lavender tit, still warm
in her hard little hands. She drapes it over her heart–
the closest she will ever come to a Woman Thing.

The girl sleeps on her right side with the breast
tucked between her legs. Her eyes flutter like a rocked doll.
She dreams of Before the Father, when her body
was smooth as a crab, her fingers
tip-toe soft. Outside her bedroom, the Lonesome Boys
hid in trees to watch The Father lift her gown.
Before It Happened, her mouth was a shining crown,
her hair moved like a hungry dog.

In the morning, the girl is who she is again.
Her hair, a soft black brick, her body held together
by hammers. The breast is shriveled up. Gone cold
in her lap. A death-blue fish with one stone eye.

Reading All the Ads in the Back of Magazines

You fold two loads of laundry.
Your hands, once split by heat,
are now calloused, invincible.

You sit at your kitchen table,
masturbate next to a half-eaten bowl of cereal-
swollen clouds floating in pink sugar milk.

You stand in your living room
turn off the television, glare at the
reflection of your thickened hips,
wipe your hand across the screen
tearing through static.

A garbage truck roars outside your window.
You watch the barrels spit out the unwanted-
exhausted light bulbs and soggy cabbage,
a doll’s torso bruised by crayons.

You press your hand against the glass, shock
at how the morning’s cold presses back,
how even calluses do not deny
this pointed chill.

It is in this moment that you see yourself.
First, spot your left arm, pale blue stiff
and reaching. It tumbles with empty milk cartons
and a dead hamster zipped in plastic.

You see your heart waddle
like a damaged plum as it drops against
your breasts now sticky with syrup.
You watch your blood crumble and fall
like day-old rice, your face,
thin and jagged, slides from
the barrel like an oiled mask.

You turn away, once you recognize
the sound of your legs slamming
against the truck like twin corpses.
This.

This is when you realize –
you should have kept his number,
should have stayed after he kissed you
so hard it split your lip

when he chewed your nipple through
your sweater and you nearly fainted
by the shock white charge of it,

when he ripped your stockings
grabbing your thighs, when you felt
his fingers move inside you 
as if searching a coat pocket.

This is why the price tag still swings
from your wedding dress, why you cannot
fuck your husband with eyes open,
why you dunk your child’s head too long
while rinsing his hair.

This is why permanence terrifies,
why your spine threatens to tear out
and run, why you do not own pets
but keep cages

this is how you haunt your own house,
why your hands coil in hunger
and why the sound of screaming tires
burning away in the night
is the only song
that ever puts you to sleep.

Narratives:

Framing the Dark Side

 By Larry Hamill

I have known Chas Ray Krider since the mid 1970’s, when he would roam the streets of Columbus, Ohio, with his trusty Leica M2. He shot seemingly mundane scenes that on closer examination revealed an aesthetic underpinning, which would continue throughout his life’s work. His deceptively simple compositions lent themselves to more complex narratives

In recent years, he has subtly combined his street images with fine tuned studio photography to create a more cinematographic experience. Through a very distinctive form of lighting, Chas Ray creates a sense of impending drama in his photographs. His exterior environs lead to an evocative interior action as his inner and outer worlds combine in fascinating ways.

Throughout his career, Chas Ray has received numerous grants from arts organizations, enabling him to continue pursuing his Zen-like form of narration. His work has been published throughout the world, and whether he is on the streets of Los Angeles or Madrid, his photographic journey continues.

The following images are from two series: Goodbye Kitty and Days of Noir. 

__________________________________________

Goodbye Kitty

Goodbye Kitty, 6

 

Goodbye Kitty, 17

 

 

 

 

 

Goodbye Kitty, 18

 

 

________________________________

 

Days of Noir

 

Days of Noir, 1

 

Days of Noir, 1

 

 

 

Days of Noir, 4

 

 

Days of Noir, 8

COVER FROM NOV.-DEC. 2009 

 Above: Chas Ray Krider photo. See more in “Photography”

______________________________________

Danger — Killer Issue Ahead

November-December 2009

 Nunca Triste                            Lynda Barreto

Ordinary People

With Famous Names

In Denver, a woman named Amelia Earhart reports on traffic from a helicopter for a local news station. The broadcast news people at that Denver TV station don’t crack a smile when they introduce Amelia Earhart in her helicopter. Maybe they were all born too late.

This got me thinking about famous names in unlikely places. With the help of an Internet search engine that uses U.S. census data to arrive at its statistics, I discovered that there are over 79,000 Amelias and almost 3,000 Earharts, but only one Amelia Earhart in America. Apparently, she’s the one flying around in a helicopter. And how many of the three Charles Lindberghs even have pilot licenses?

            There was a Howard Johnson in a company I worked for once, but sadly, he didn’t work in our cafeteria. There are 2,837 Howard Johnsons in the U.S.

            It must be difficult going through life with a famous person’s name. People either expect too much of you or don’t take you seriously. If you’re one of the three Frank Sinatras, for example, you probably have to be ready to sing a few bars of My Way at the drop of a fedora.

            Not too many Tiger Woods, yet, because only some 1,500 or fewer people are named Tiger; but I’ll bet that situation changes in the future. At this time, there’s only one Tiger Woods, which should provide some comfort to the rest of the players on the Professional Golfers Association tour. We might eventually see some Tiger Smiths, Tiger Browns and Tiger Johnsons become celebrities, for that matter. Or we could soon see other not-so-famous Shaquilles, Beyonces and Chers. I’m surprised there are only 15,000 Elvises.

            Barack Obama is not high on the list of popular names. In fact, there’s only one. I think Barack Schwartz or Barack Harrigan would have a nice ring.

            Have any other of the two Mickey Rooneys or the 4,400 Elizabeth Taylors been married eight times?

            There doesn’t seem to be an Alfonse Capone, but apparently there are nine Albert Capones, five Alfred Capones, and 13 Alan Capones. At least some of those 27 Capones are called “Al Capone” by their close friends, I suppose.

            Of all the 18,000 Lincolns in America, how many would you guess are Abrahams? The Internet says only three.

            Are all the 342 Bob Hopes funny?

            You probably don’t realize that over 500 people are named Roy Rogers, yet there are only 429 Dale Evans’ to go around, making for almost a hundred lonesome cowboys, assuming they’re all cow people who want to hook up with a cowgirl counterpart having her famous name. Good luck, pardners, and happy trails to you.

            There are estimated to be 19 William Shakespeares, but nary a Hamlet in sight, prince or otherwise.

            Here’s another interesting statistic: only 276 people are named Jaclyn Smith, which just doesn’t seem like enough.

            Although there are over 42,000 Levys, 201 are named Mark Levy, believe it or not, but I’m the only one you get to hear on Weekend Radio.

            If you’d like to check the frequency of your name or someone else’s, visit the web site: HowManyOfMe.com.

Mark Levy is an attorney with the Binghamton-based law firm of Hinman Howard and Kattell. He is a contributing editor to ragazine.cc with Ryan Miosek (Feeding the Starving Artist), and an occasional contributor to NPR, where his comments can be heard some Saturdays at noon.

FLYING BARK 

America, I will sing for you.

Land of self-proclaimed dogmatic regulators. Offenders of the standard

78 degree room temperature. When you roll down the window, you say:

“Serendipitous to think so.” And the officer chuckles. The officer gives

you a handshake. You must reciprocate by throwing an equally ferocious

milkshake, or one of greater grandeur. Depending on the crossing chickens.

If it rains on your lawn do you spray disinfected solution on the branches

of the elks? Should you wipe clean your transmission with a rag made of dust?

Who will compare you to a fine summer’s clay? The fluorescent lights remind you

of Michael Jackson. You have a fever and no one will say: “Contentious grackle.”  

WHEN BEES CRY   

 The thought entered my mind. The thought entered my mind during the middle of the night. In the middle of the night, the thought entered my mind and I cried. When I cried, the thought left my mind. It left my mind, this thought, and I have never thought this thought again. It has been twenty days since the night I thought this thought. I have not thought this thought since. Now I am worried that perhaps this is the nail that shuts the lid or the hammer that claws the nail from the lid. Maybe now I will think this thought again. Now that I’ve realized that I haven’t thought this thought in twenty days. But I do not want to think this thought. And I have not thought the thought. It is lovely, I think, not to think this thought.  

A BIRD BROKE MY WINDOW  

Yesterday morning, a crow flew into my room

and said: “Sell your lawn for Exxon.”

There was nothing else I could do.

I read out loud a few words I was reading.

The bird dropped dead.

Why did this bird have to die in my room?

d on my favorite desk.

Alina Gregorian is a graduate student in the program at the New School. She has created with Bianca Stone a poetry opera recently performed in New York city. Her prose poems have a sense of surrealism and play both comical and startling in theirs juxtapositions. This is her first publication in Ragazine.

Bring Me Waterlilies

We lay on the damp sand bank of a pond, and when the heat of day threatened to erase us, we dove below the water’s first few feet of warmth, following the tethered stems of waterlilies rooted in mud. We loved oblivion so much, we didn’t want to miss one minute of it.  We fought the nods, our heads bobbing in their wake. We swam, but he went further out than I did, circling the acres of the pond, returning with buds of waterlilies saved from drowning.  I floated on my back, one blossom wedged between my breasts. Night fell.  We saw the true moon float on the pond’s surface, a disk rooted in deep water, its appearance in the sky a mere reflection. We were raised by strangers and we had no blood kin. We heard oblivion calling from our veins. We looked for more. We scored. He fixed me, and then he fixed himself. Near dawn we fell asleep, near waves, his sex slipped like the lily bud inside my sex that opened. The lilies browned and rotted on my window sill. I left when I met my future husband. He left when his high school sweetheart finished rehab. We stayed blood siblings. He lived inside me like a pulse, in dreams of anodynes and ponds. The virus blossoms ‘til we die.  I was like him when we lived like waterlilies, both spawned and drowned by where deep night is.

G-20 in Retrospect

 In the last edition of ragazine.cc, I provided some comment in anticipation of traveling to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the G-20 summit. Having participated in the proceedings, in both summit and demonstration venues, here’s my follow-up. As always, feel free to comment or add your insights accordingly.

 The scale of the G-20 mandate

Clearly, building a sustainable global recovery amid the financial crisis that has both stunned the world and stunted its processes, seems a daunting and enormous undertaking. In fact, whether or not this could actually happen, particularly with any sense of urgency, and especially given the historical, political, social and religious differences among the countries represented at the G-20, seems open to question. After all, given the differences, particularly as they are intricately tied to the essence of economically motivated interests, well, it’s not hard to imagine the chore at hand.

In any event, the mandate of the G-20 has been directed at precisely this effort. Importantly, the major theme that has been integrated into the process is that business can no longer continue in its current form. Said another way, “business as usual” cannot coexist with the change needed in how the economic/financial/market systems are being run. What exactly “changing the system” means, and to what extent it’s possible in terms of regulation, de-regulation, and/or system “policing,” seems to remain in the balance of the G-20 considerations.

As a follow-up to the earlier Summit in London, what happened in Pittsburgh centered primarily around these issues: restructuring global financial institutions;  preserving, restoring and protecting trade investments; securing food and agricultural growth;  protecting the climate and the environment; and reinforcing the prosperity and health of the citizens of both developed and developing countries. Of course, this meant that the details, data and designs relative to each issue were expected to be sorted through, with some consensus among the countries – again, amid all the ‘differences’ referenced above – expected. It also meant that these negotiations would be happening under the growing threat of terrorism and war, two concerns underscored by the discovery of an Iranian nuclear plant the second day of the Summit.           

Although much could be said pertinent to the vast amount of economic variables tied to the G-20 proceedings, and/or on what each country must do to bring about global financial change, and/or on the intricacies of organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, The World Trade Organization, The Financial Stability Board or the International Finance Corporation, I will leave this to others, those with perhaps more expertise. Instead, what I would like to reference is more in tune with what stood out to me as I moved about the Summit, talking with people and listening to the briefings and interviews that were happening throughout the two days of the meeting.  I would suggest that you can certainly follow-up on the wide variety of elements tied to the Summit should you so desire, particularly given the amount of material that is being produced from it.  Along these lines, the closing speech of the Summit printed ‘on-line’ is a start. It certainly provides more on the expanse of variables set upon the international community’s table.

Observations amid the G-20

I

On the logistical and organizational aspects of the Summit:  Aside from the enormity of the mandate of the G-20, these were the first things that struck me.  I’m not sure that any of it could have been done another way, but it seemed the cost and resources attached to bringing in the delegates, making the huge David Lawrence center operational for media, G-20 participants and the security personnel (there was a large number of security people inside the facility, intermingled with the 2000 media individuals and G-20 participants), and securing the city with some 4,000 police and military personnel had to be enormous. Placed up against the global financial crisis itself, it wasn’t hard to understand the criticism that the Summit seemed symbolic of how resources, certainly needed elsewhere, can be wasted. The staging of the entire event also did little to support the aforementioned theme that the G-20 would not be about “business as usual.”

II

On security:  The armed police and military personnel, both in full battle gear, stationed at various checkpoints throughout the city roads and bridges or often passing in the streets in small bands of ten or twenty, the police boats in the river waters, the barricades, the wire and fencing, and the closing down of many of the streets, made the city look like a military zone. It reminded me of a smaller version of Zagreb where I had been during the early ‘90s, amid the Bosnian conflict. Many of the residents from Pittsburgh whom I chatted with felt this whole process was too much, and it served more to close off their city to visitors than anything else –  not a good thing for Pittsburgh overall. Again, I’m not sure of the alternative, nor were those I spoke with, particularly given the potential for serious problems. Nonetheless, it was a bit eerie in the street. 

                                                                       III

On the demonstrators/protesters/opposition:  Obviously, as had been made clear at every “G” event across the world, the opposition represents an important part of the proceedings. The argument that what is raised by the opposition is as important in the G-20 proceedings as anything else certainly has some credence. In this sense, I suggested the idea that it would behoove those who organize the Summit to invite delegates from the demonstration/protest/opposition side to the proceedings. This would serve to get that side involved in a participatory process, help diffuse their sense of alienation, and allow for G-20 participants to interact with them. I’m not sure of the idea’s future, but it did draw a few encouraging nods. In any event, as someone concerned with all aspects of the G-20 (and the problems in the world), I did my best to stay informed on the agenda of the G-20 opposition.

     I attended several meetings sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center, which helped framed the objections and assisted with the organizing of the various demonstrations and the march on the most significant day of the Summit. I participated in the march, albeit only for a short part of the walk. There were not a large number of people in the march, about on scale with Pittsburgh, and it was well-organized, peaceful and meaningful. It is interesting to note that although most of the people had been at the issues for years and/or decades, they had varying views on the G-20 itself. The views seemed to hinge on interpretations of capitalism:  whether capitalism needed to be completely done away with, or altered to a form where its application would be more socially acceptable.

     For many then, their opposition was pointed at the problems they felt were part of the main G-20 players’ own doing. In other words, the problems connected to war, poverty, unemployment, poor health care, and the environment remain tied to the same capitalist processes that the G-20 players actually support. For these protesters then, the G-20 was a sham, representing nothing more than “business as usual.” It could not speak to the issues in ways that would really satisfy the problems, as the G-20 members were more a part of the problem, rather than the solution.           

     For others, however, the G-20 itself was a valuable concept. Bringing decision makers from all over the world together over the economic crisis was of significant import. However, for these protesters, the countries participating needed to focus more on the social problems existent in the world, over and above stimulating economies for economic growth. In other words, their protest seemed directed at altering the current mode of capitalism with more with more significant emphasis on social concerns than the G-20 seemed to be giving.

     For others, there was also a concern that the social problems were not be adequately prioritized, but this was tied to the fact that the G-20 was leaving out the less developed countries in their proceedings. For them, both developed and undeveloped countries needed to be involved in the proceedings, and the lack of this happening represented the lack of concern for the depth of the social problems at hand. In this sense, pushing for the inclusion of the undeveloped countries would in turn bring about more concern for the social ills plaguing many of the world’s economies. (I spoke with two of these “include more countries and more issues protestors” who were inside the G-20. They were from London and seemed to take on a more professional approach both with their attire and demeanor than the protestors in the street. One of them said that their network of protesting in Europe was more sophisticated than what had been organized in Pittsburgh, and they thought their points at this venue could be better tended to by handing out flyers within the G-20 and talking with people. I’m not sure to what extent they were effective, or whether I personally liked them, but their presence did lend support to the idea of officially including the “opposition” in the G-20 proceedings.)

      In sum, much of what I saw and heard reminded me of the issues and actions tied to the civil rights movement in the ‘60s, and the callings of people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. From the concerns of violence and non-violence, to the logistical planning, to the difficulty of getting permits to organize the demonstrations, to the energy over the issues themselves, it was  inspiring to see the tradition of protest remaining active and worthwhile. As conditions in the world demonstrate, the struggle between our economic and social mandates continues, and there is more than enough room for improvement. Clearly there needs to be as many voices heard as possible in untangling what our collective future holds.   

IV

On the content of discussion, briefings and conversations:  “Capital, capital, capital” was how one French diplomat put it as I listened to his interview with Reuters news.  And that seemed to sum up much of what the G-20 was about. Debates on whether to continue with stimulation, how much would be enough, who should control the flow, who should get what and under what conditions, and when to exit from that type strategy, dominated the discussions. Like that same Frenchman said, “the devil is in the details.” And of course, this pointed to the intricate work involved at the G-20 proceedings.

     The Frenchman’s statement was applicable to another theme I found not quite missing, but not highlighted as much as its significance would merit. In short, the devil of the proceedings existed not really, or not only, in the details, but also at a more macro level concern – the ideological struggle that seemed to hang over the entire G-20 process. It is a struggle that could be referenced as a contest between established western capitalism, a system dominated by U.S. interests, and eastern capitalism, one being developed with China at its center. Importantly, the existence of such a struggle makes compromise and/or agreement within the G-20 proceedings appear on shaky ground. (I could only surmise that this is why, at least for public consumption, so little consideration was given to this point.)

     In essence, it is fair to ask to what extent China, with the most rapidly growing power in the world, will immerse itself in the “fixing” of the western, predominantly American version of capitalism, over promoting its own model. As western capitalism is at the center of the economic problems in the world, and with the U.S., its core player, mired in Middle East conflict, it is not difficult to understand the nature of this query. Add to this that China has its eye focused on developing countries, particularly those in Africa, which represent vast numbers of producers and consumers in addition to their own Chinese population. (Consider the Russian and Indian populations in this mix as well.) Again, would they prefer to rely on a model that is in serious jeopardy or promote one consistent with their own interests? (Another intriguing question could be to which wagon, the West or East, might the European Union, which also has its agenda, ultimately tie its horses?)

     My conversations, particularly with several of the Chinese delegates, and ‘listenings,’ including the briefings of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, did little to dispel the notion that China will do whatever is best for China. Moreover, in the speech of Chinese President H.E. Hu Jintao, it was clear that this is China’s mandate. In addition, Jintao stressed that China considers itself more a developing country than a developed one, particularly since it has been only since the 1970’s that China has shaken off ties to the Russian model it adhered to for several decades.

     It is important to note that this “developing more than developed” line of reasoning opens China’s strategies to those countries generally outside of the G-20. In fact, China has lobbied the G-20 for more countries to be included in the process. In this sense, it is not hard to imagine that China will continue to make investment efforts in the west, but more as a hedge to buttress its own developments in other parts of the world.  (As an example of both their ‘hedging’, as well as their range of power, take into consideration their large investment in America’s Treasury bills.)

    In sum, it is not difficult to argue that China, along with other countries that will benefit accordingly, is tying its hopes for the prosperity of the world to a new model of capitalism, with more of a socialist/communist/populist/Confucian oriented base than has ever been seen. It is a model actually foreign to U.S. political and economic interests, and, moreover, it may be beyond our cultural abilities to understand its properties. In the end of course, this situation serves to pit one system against the other, underscoring the concern of actual long-term, G-20 accord.

     The Chinese delegates I spoke with stressed that China has no real interest in “universalizing” its model, it is more interested in taking care of the needs of China. In that light, I posed the idea that as China moves in the direction of assisting the less developed countries of the world, it will, by logic of the producers and consumers involved, spread its version of capitalism (not necessarily by force or war mind you), while at the same time taking care of itself. This was in fact similar to the course followed by post World War II America, to some degree of success.

     My Chinese discussion-mates found this proposition most interesting. They did respond that I might be applying too much western logic in my image, that it implied a capitalistic, expansionist manipulation not really consistent with Chinese character and sentiment.  As a rejoinder, I noted that current business dealings with the Chinese might indicate otherwise, many see the Chinese business person as ruthless in character. Moreover, I stressed that, given my American heritage, my notions are centered on cultural instincts developed in the most advanced capitalist system in the world, and that they should not be easily dismissed by others moving more toward capitalism. After all, Americans had the call of democracy in their hearts at the country’s inception. Yet, given the situation in today’s world, this is often hard to recall. With these points in mind, they found my ‘expansionist’ proposition more worthy of consideration.

     It was important to emphasize that none of my questioning or proposing was directed at the value of what China may do. In other words, what might be developed by China should not be considered in a negative light. The logic of their policies and their concern for developing a more socially sophisticated model than what the west has produced might be a positive – the world may be a better place for what ensues. Even in light of the human rights and environmental concerns in China this might eventually be the case. (The Chinese, particularly in the context of their being a “developing country,” like to remind Americans of their own struggle with these issues throughout the 20^th century.)  But one could imagine that for many in the U.S., this would not be the feeling. They may see any move toward another way of doing business as an assault on America’s political and economic domain, a threat to our existing power. And this again frames a major concern relative to the success of the overall G-20 proceedings. (As an addendum to this concern, consider the international currency-modification discussions engaged in by countries like China, Russia and Brazil, as well as the advance of an Islamic financial model as an alternative to what is currently in use. The context of these considerations, with the devaluing of the predominantly American dollar exchange in sight, also points to issues centered on the balance of power in the world. This too has a significant bearing on the nature of G-20 outcomes.)

* * *

AT END: For the most part, this is what I took away from the G-20. It was interesting and informative on every level, and as you can tell, the West versus East notion seemed most intriguing to me. I would offer that all of us, across all countries and populations, need to know more about each other. No one can argue that a better grasp of how the world works is essential for our collective future. Let’s hope we never lose sight of this, and that we continue to grow accordingly.

Jim Palombo can be contacted at ragazine.politics@gmail.com

Becoming All Animal

“But she didn’t entirely forget. We are always in both worlds, because they aren’t really two.”

—from The Woman Who Married A Bear by Gary Snyder

            You study the sky, hesitant to have left shelter. Wind pushes clouds over the granite ridgelines like predator and prey, the white ones seemingly chased by darker ones. But for now the sun is warm on your hair. You have time and needs to meet. Something in your bones surges and you feel your feet make the decision to proceed. Your load is winter-ponderous, not the light lift of warm weather, but your back revels in being useful, capable. As you move, your breasts, fuller at this time in your cycle, amplify the sway of your body over land. Your haunches rally as you step up rocks; shoulders, hips, and ankles balance-dance as beneath your feet the granite shifts color, clouds still dashing across blue plains above.

            This is not just another solo backpack trip. I am on a mission, sent by that inner voice that, when I hear it, I cannot disobey. Though the forecasters call for the first winter storm of the season, and though I’m used to the milder climate and terrain of the southern Appalachians, I doggedly stuffed one more warm shirt under the top pouch of my pack this morning, and drove an hour-and-a-half to South Lake Tahoe to get my permit. There is irony in having to gain society’s permission to escape it. The ranger wrote out the parking pass and hunted down change. That’s what I was hunting too, in another fashion, and I was glad the ranger was female when she asked, “How many?”

            “One.”

            “Any dogs?”

            “No.”

            Locking my car, I pause before hefting the pack, always unreasonably heavy when I go alone. If I were a werewolf, or the bear husband of the old stories, this is when the hair would quickly grow in across my cheeks and shoulders, the claws emerge and back hunch. People watching would know then. But here in this parking lot, a family walks by and looks only at my pack and pony-tail. They have no idea the changes going on inside me as I attempt my first shape-shift. As I deliberately become all animal.

   You are away at college and have gotten up the nerve to kayak. Bobbing with what comes, hips starting to react on their own, you follow the experienced paddlers. At the end of the drop the back wave catches your edge and you’re underwater. So slow and dark and cold. And then you’re up, shaking your head like a spaniel. Such a different world beyond the familiar surface — now you know. This is what you came for. To belong somewhere like a frog or heron.  Like the people cheering you who belong on the river — so beautiful and strong and free — so unlike the people you grew up around. Laughing, you peel off wet clothes by the side of the road, not caring who sees. Later, in front of your mirror, you stare at your body, neck twisted, watching your back, flexing both arms at once. There, between your shoulder blades, new ridges. The beginning of wings.

            Of course I know and you know that we are animals. But like the phrase “Boys will be boys,” the fact that we’re animals is treated as something we can’t help, rather than something to be proud of, to cultivate. I don’t remember when it first occurred to me that by inhabiting my animal nature more I might find a way around my fears, which had grown rather than shrunk over the years of traveling, hiking, and backpacking alone. Fears of meeting human males in the wild; of being told, if I made it out of a bad situation, that I should have known better; of believing all the voices out there that say it’s a woman’s fault for going anywhere — but especially into the wilderness — alone. Maybe it was when I read about grizzly sows having to avoid and ward off attacks from the large males. They can’t hide away all the time and they don’t look for an even larger male to protect them. They adapt. They use their senses to discover if a male is around. If so, the sow tries not to feed in the prime areas when the male is likely to feed. But if she or her cub is charged and the sow must fight, she fights tremendously. And who of us would suggest if she fails and is killed, or her cub is killed, that she asked for it?

            At the trailhead I check the map for distances. A man with a toddler is ahead of me.

            “How far you going in?” he asks.

            “Don’t know yet.” I evade the question. Though my instincts say he is harmless, I won’t give my destination. Smiling, I leave them behind. My goal this trip is not to act as a female grizzly would, or any particular animal, though I often think about what I know of animal behavior. I want to become my own animal. To do this I must shut off the cultural white noise and remember what it is to think with my body. My cerebral cortex has been thoroughly colonized, but my haunches are still pretty pre-cultural. My hands and feet are quick to solve problems when I trust them to.

            I approach two middle-aged women at the top of a long stair-like climb. They’ve been resting and watching my small steps and deliberate foot placements.

            “How much does that pack weigh?” one asks in fatigued awe.

            “I have no idea,” I say with a breathless laugh. “Never weigh your pack. You want to believe it’s lighter than it is when you start out, and to brag it was heavier than it was when you get home.”

            This attitude is more self-preservation than suicidal tendency or ego. If the pack is too heavy, my back will tell me (I try it on at home). But put a number to it and my brain will convince my body it’s too heavy regardless. Or worse, if I’m having a bad day, I don’t want to know the pack is plenty light and should be no problem. Animals don’t weigh loads, and I know that when I’m out on my own my body amazes me. What seems heavy in the driveway seems infinitely doable on the leaf-strewn trail.

            You are thirteen, swinging down from the cherry tree by your window. It is quiet except for the sounds of cars nearby and your mother’s voice in your ear: not after dark . . . never alone. . . don’t you read the papers?  No one understands your restlessness. The suburbs suck. Your brothers get to go where they want, even at night. You get to go to your room. Because there’s nothing else to do you walk the black edge of the road, with each step daydreaming of woods, dogs that come every time you call, and strong, kind boys. A half moon winks through the trees. Then someone whistles. “Hey baby, you don’t have to walk.” You remember where you are. Stuck. The car doesn’t stop. What if I want to walk, you think. What then?

            Like many female adventurers, I’ve had to learn the hard way and I break society’s rules. I’ve struggled free from some of the traps western culture has set out to extirpate my instincts, and I feel lucky not to have lost a limb so far. Although a mouthy child, always be polite, was firmly ingrained by the time I became an adult. Attached to that was don’t make a scene. Following these rules makes it almost impossible for the civilized female to prevent a threatening encounter with a male, so caught up is she in giving him the benefit of the doubt until he has his hands on her, is forcing her into the car or on the ground.

            I laugh at the centuries-old message that civilization is created for and maintained by women. Civilization — that place with walls where humans deceive themselves about the extent of their control and buy into the myth of security. The only place, we’re told, where women can be safe. I am not less safe in the wild. Statistics show I’m at greater risk of attack in my house or on a city street, where unethical men may prowl the night, than I am miles away from a trailhead or parking lot. I don’t trust what civilization and culture tell me anymore. I trust my gut. Out alone, I look everyone in the eye once and then avert my gaze (but never, ever look down). I turn to face anyone coming up the trail from behind. I can look ornery and unapproachable in seconds. I don’t wear the shroud of fear and vulnerability I’m told is attractive, is feminine. I bare my aggression, like teeth. If a man does not understand how to respect my privacy — a kind of territory — then he deserves whatever growls he’s given.

            Two young women day-hiking ahead. One steps aside and as I pass, whispers: courageous.

            It breaks my heart.

             Someone rounds the turn below you. Something about his size, or that he’s alone, or the way he cocks his head sends a tremor up your back. There is a large boulder and you slip behind it. What about this person makes your ruff go up, makes you not even want to sniff out his intentions? It doesn’t matter. There are no walls here and disappearing is not hard. As he reaches the boulder and moves past, you’re crouched, ready to pretend you were peeing if he looks. He doesn’t look. Why would he? No one expects you to be here. A little amazed, you watch him march uphill, oblivious. A wren perched without moving in the bushes nearby meets your gaze.

            Men are animals. This is what I’ve been told countless times before driving cross-country or going camping by myself. Most often it’s male friends who have drummed this into my skull. I understand them to mean that men are driven by their dicks which pulse with instinct, not reason. They mean that men can act badly. Well, women are animals too — treated like such is the way many feel. And animals are animals. I leave civilization to be with animals and to be an animal, and surely I can allow men inside this definition in the same, less derogatory way I’m including myself. Most animals, especially the best killers, the blood-thirstiest, have ingrained inhibitions — both social and genetic — that keep deadly conflicts among members of a species to a minimum. Especially prevalent are the inhibitions males of these species (most birds and mammals) have that keep them from physically attacking a female. It seems our culture evolved too fast; our hereditary inhibitions couldn’t keep up.

            Or maybe the messages given females are social inhibitions devised by patriarchal culture rather than biological evolution. The messages: “You’re putting yourself in danger!” — as if women should never take risks or don’t want to; “You’re asking for it!”— the ”it” presumably the same as in “doing it”; and “Take someone with you!”— an especially problematic message for single women since more than 80% of sexual crimes are committed by someone we know.

            Women are domesticated through fear. We’re taught that we need — no, deserve —protection. A privilege that we enjoy like poodles who’re primped, dressed in bows, and carried around. I don’t want to be a decoration or a pet who waits for her husband to come home. My husband and I do things together — climb, hike, kayak, bike, read, debate. But we also do things separately. And when I go into the woods alone he has to defend both my decision and his to others (not to stay, but presumably to have let me go).

            Even in other primates, possibly the most social of animals, members take time by themselves. For some people, being alone in a crowded city street or bar is enough, or having the whole house to oneself. I need the woods, mountains, and rivers which remind me dirt and sweat aren’t undesirable, that I have muscles for a purpose. I need places without mirrors. In all their good intentions, people who’ve tried to keep me safe have helped keep me from discovering myself and exploring my creativity, my body, and the land. A room of one’s own? Yes, but an isolated canyon, peak, or valley occasionally is just as necessary. Let me go, I begged my mother. Let me go, I begged the voices in my head. I never would’ve married a man I had to beg this way.

            When you reach the lake it’s still sunny. You hurry, hoping to get in a quick dip while the sun is full-force. After scouting out a place in the steep granite walls that will let you camp above, unseen from the banks, you reclaim your pack and huff it up manzanita and scree to the flat. The wind, as if it’d been waiting, surges as you pitch the tent. You check from below to make sure it’s hidden. Once it’s weighted down with rocks in each corner and over the stakes, you explore the shoreline. All the hikers have left. Each time the sun’s consumed by a cloud you wonder, Is this it? Kingfishers rattle. You strain to hear the sounds of conversation carried a long way, relax when you determine it’s the wind-thrown water hitting logs and rocks. As a stellar jay cries and heads for the lone Jeffrey Pine, you settle in to listen to the voices.

            Even with everyone gone, I have to concentrate on the sounds around me, make them familiar, before I can completely relax. The animals that live here know these sounds, but I’m new to this habitat. I’m used to rustling leaves and eastern rivers, not the irregular slapping of lake water on a rugged shore. Sun heats my face and I begin to strip, hoping it will hang around long enough for me to run into the cold, clear water. Then a cloud shoulders the warmth aside and, reluctantly, I pull my shirts back on. Am I being wise or wimpy, I wonder. Skinny dipping is an obsession of mine, even when it’s too cold to really swim. Immersing myself in natural waters is a conscious reminder that I don’t have control over things like temperature, depth, or what’s on the bottom. It’s a reverse-baptism, one that celebrates my body and mortality by baring myself to this beautiful, relentless creation. Two mallards come right up to where I’m filtering water, and I enviously lose myself in their antics and the iridescent blue, green and purple feathers up close. As they paddle away I screw the lid on my bottle.

            “Is that water potable?” I spin. The man has stopped a respectful distance away.

            “No, that’s why I have a filter,” I fumble. I didn’t hear him. I hadn’t heard him.

At first this is all I can think, but as a woman catches up with him I realize this time it’s okay. Maybe animals stalked from downwind feel this way when they finally get a sniff of a too-close stranger.

            “Sorry if I startled you. I didn’t expect to see anyone out here,” he’s saying. “You know there’s a winter storm watch. . .”

            I nod. I’ve categorized him as one of my kind — pleasant outdoor enthusiast who appreciates solitude. “The weather report called for snow down to 7,000 ft. That’s why I didn’t go any further in.”

            “5,500 is what I heard.”

            We all look toward the lake, imagine snow covering the shore, pines, and granite ledges. The hush of the next morning.

            After they leave I feel truly alone. It’s wonderful. The wind has picked up and I’ve started the stove even though I ate my sandwich only two hours ago. Like the other animals, I must scurry for food before the storm hits. In my case, hot food. The temperature is dropping fast. As creamy garlic pasta burps in the pot, I squat on a boulder to get a better view. Like an animal, I stayed when people fled to their cars. Like an animal, I’m not uneasy that a storm is coming. Perhaps, as for the other animals, this can be a kind of home. At least I feel at home, the way when the curtains are pulled you can walk around in your underwear, not caring if your hair’s combed or teeth brushed. Here, on this ridge, I’ve escaped society’s gaze.

            The steep scree and aspen slopes rise above on three sides. Could the black bears around here scramble up them? It’s hard to imagine. I stare at the nooks in the rock walls as I eat way more than I need, trying to hoard all the fat against a cold night. I compare each gust with the last and each one’s stronger. No bears pass through. The barometric lows before a major storm make animals lethargic, I recall. That and my full belly has me thinking it’s time to den.

            A few drops of rain convince you to take a last pee in the half-light. Something moves, a dark head bobs in and out of the tall manzanita. Your heart stops. They’ve come for you. More follow the first, but they’re in baseball caps. You look back and the bear becomes a guy whose navy sweatshirt hood is pulled tight around his head. You’re disappointed.

            And nervous. They came from another direction, off-trail, and head toward the high point of nearby rocks. They didn’t see me but can’t help but notice the tent from where they’re going. My brain says to zip up tight, avoid contact, but my body wants to stand ground. They know where I am; I want to see where they are, where they go, and when they leave. Can they tell I’m female? Probably not in my shell and hat. But if they come closer. . .?

            They’re not dressed for the weather that’s coming. They don’t even carry daypacks. What brings them out here? To my place? I remember how ethologists say an animal will be the most aggressive toward others of its species in familiar territory. The fact that I’ve settled in may be why I’m not interested in retreating. It doesn’t take long for them to wander out the back way they came, and I consider how I’d feel if I were holed up in the tent now. I wouldn’t know they were gone. Even if I peeked out and didn’t see them, I’d wonder if they were hidden. I’d worry all night. My body made the right decision.

            It’s started raining and I consider keeping the food bag in my tent. What animal will be out in this?  Or I could just stash it in the crook of a small tree. I mean, there aren’t many tall enough and all the lower branches on the pines are broken off so that . . . but my body is not listening.

            My hands grab the unwieldy clothesline and double-bagged food, while my feet and eyes hunt for a suitable spot. There is really only one option. The pine is on a steep, scrubby slope which makes it difficult to get into good position for an underhand throw. I didn’t often have to hang food where I’m from, but after a couple tries I lob the rock over the branch and the tied rope follows. Now I stand amidst juniper and rock. It’s only me, with no reinforcements, and I’m enough.

            Finally in the tent, wet gear off to the side, I think about how I came to doubt myself. Was it that I was born with a suburban spoon in my mouth which fed me all those white middle-class fairy tales about how great it is to have men do everything for you? Was it that in the seventies and eighties females were working hard to prove their competence in the male world of commerce, emphasizing their minds and masking their bodies? Was it that no women I knew sought solitude outdoors? In the metropolitan area of my youth, the wild was something only men were supposed to crave, and then only a few weekends a year when they tested their brawn against their pin-striped brains.

            You are five, racing around the front lawn behind your older brothers on the first really warm spring day. Your mother calls you aside and hands you a shirt. You start to cry and point at your brothers. “Little girls are different,” she says. “Little girls wear shirts.” But you cry harder and beg for one day more, one day, and she relents. No longer sure what the game is, you roll down the hill again and again. Grass sticks to your back and belly. Climbing the magnolia you pay special attention to how smooth the bark is as you hold the trunk. Your brothers go inside. It’s getting cool. Under the wisteria you tuck your knees to your bare chest for warmth, afraid to go indoors. Afraid of never being let out.

            With short hair and a penchant for dirt, I was always mistaken for a boy when little. I prided myself on being a tomboy and wore my brothers’ hand-me-downs until puberty dropped me into a vat of pink-glitter lip gloss. Luckily, once at college, the hippies got me comfortable with a clean face again, and the rednecks reminded me that flannel could be flattering.

            Today I’m still caught off guard by the people — both males and females — who describe me as butch. When single, I learned it was easier to move around in social circles if I grew my hair long. A man I’d been working with for over a year and whom I admired, asked if I knew how much taking up knitting had changed my image (why do people assume lesbians don’t knit?). This man and I took high schoolers on hikes and longer trips. In the woods I felt no qualms about spitting if I had to, competed in belching contests, and — like the male leaders — didn’t suppress any gastric emissions caused by the rice and bean diet. Not my behavior in a restaurant, but they didn’t necessarily know that. It now occurs to me that those actions construed as manly are really me at my most animal.

            How did it happen that men get the freedom to act as animals? Do we really think they can’t help it, or, rather, that we can help it more than they can? Maybe it’s feared that women who let themselves be a little wild will, like the woman who married a bear in Northwest Indian tales, choose not to turn back. I don’t know if that’s still a possibility anywhere in the world, but it’s not one I’d choose. Still, I’ll claw and kick for the chance to temporarily drop as far out of human society as possible. And to spit when I need to.

         The wind is crazy now, pushing your tent’s dome from all sides, bending the poles concave at times. You hear each gust gather in another valley and grow to the great growl of Urset that charges over the ridge and shakes your den. Maybe you are trespassing. Your full bladder whines insistently so you slip out of your bag and into rain gear. Outside it’s dark, as if the earth rolled into a cave. The cold rain stings your butt with its quills. Shadows everywhere shift and settle. Remember what the elders say: if you meet a bear, open your coat and show that you’re a woman.

            Back in my sleeping bag trying to warm up, I wallow in memories of sun on my skin: hiking the Cumberland Island beaches on my first backpack trip, all of us naked except for what we carried; stripping my shirt off every lunch stop during desert day hikes; standing nude, shin deep in the Colorado River, admiring the rich colors of the Grand Canyon while a breeze slips between my legs; celebrating Independence Day by skinny dipping solo in the Rio Grande, stroking back and forth from America to Mexico.

            I’ve always wanted to get rid of barriers between me and the earth, but it wasn’t until my freshman year in college that I finally returned to the outdoors as the little girl I was before impending breasts and periods separated me from boys and nature. I remember nervously approaching the reservoir’s edge with others for a dip to wash off all the grease and stress of the restaurant’s late shift. I said I’d go but wouldn’t strip. No one cared. When I’d almost reached the water, others were just starting to splash into the shallows. The dark swallowed the details and suddenly I felt more self-conscious in underwear. The next instant I was wading to where the black water could slide over my chest.

            What do we lose when we become afraid to ever bare ourselves, emotionally or physically? When we’re uncomfortable being naked except to make love or wash? The distrust of our bodies is crippling. As girls, we’re told they beguile ceaselessly and cruelly, so we clothe ourselves to hide or accent them. We’re told they’re weak and can’t protect us, so we cower. Then, sometime when we’re older, we hear from women who’ve found their voices, who have begun to expose these lies. They tell us together we can fight to make the world safe someday. I know their work has made it easier for me to shape my life, and I’m grateful. But I don’t believe the world will ever be completely safe for anyone. And I’m glad because a safe world has no room for wildness.

            At midnight the rain slaps the nylon even harder, unlikely to ever gentle into snow. Can this cheap tent hold up for six or seven more hours of this? I feel certain a pole will snap or nylon tear. As it is I’m riding on the raft of my Thermarest, the decomposed granite outside unable to absorb this much water. It’s pooled underneath my groundcloth and the tent floats between where the corners are staked. The fly doesn’t even cover the back of the tent where the full force of the storm has soaked the wall. I imagine trying to hike the steepness in these gusts with a full pack in the dark. I don’t think I could get down the manzanita slope, let alone keep from getting blown off the narrow cliff-edged trail. For a few minutes I stare anxiously at the nylon sides pressing in on me. Then I remember why I’m here. No animal would stay awake worrying about what might happen. It’d just react if something did. Abruptly I release the tension in my body. The reality is I don’t want to have to deal with a busted tent or stashing my pack so I can get to the car in the dark, but I know I could. Now I concentrate on the noise and let it drown out the cultural messages my brain tries to send. The storm distracts me from pointless human worry, and I welcome it.         

           You’re on the borderline between awake and asleep, afloat in a deep pool of belonging. Your heart reaches out to other creatures burrowed in this place, enduring the same forces. To creatures nested in places you’ll never know, living lives you can’t imagine. In their world the expectations are simple. You sense that their world is your world but without the lies. You release those lies, which turn into ravens calling and winging above the dark valley. You have not taken back the night.

            Better, you are sharing it.

The Litchfields, Lynda Barreto

 

  

 

Machine

      My cousin asks about the ride I just did in New York City.  I tell him it was great.  I take a sip of beer, “70 miles and I got to bike through the Lincoln Tunnel and over the George Washington Bridge.  The tunnel was the best part, all the yellow lights spaced 6 feet from one another.  Everyone was surrounded by a web of their own shadows, all we heard were the echoes of other cyclists screaming; I cawed like a crow.  I would’ve liked the bridge more if a razor blade hadn’t found its way into my rear wheel, but that’s New York for you.” 

Condensation slides down the bottle and drips off my fingers; I make patterns on the orange tiles poolside.  “There were a few professional riders there.”  He nods but looks a little distracted.  “I kept up with them for the first 30 miles, was even in front at one point.”  I don’t mention that it didn’t last.  The winds on the Westside Highway were crazy; I felt like I was going backwards.  With all the people passing me, it probably looked that way too.

My cousin, the state trooper, seems hesitant but curious.  “Let me ask you something.”  He looks around to see if anyone else can hear, as if I’m about to tell him something secret.  “Why are all these cyclists doping?” 

I laugh then shrug; the answer I don’t give him is that they take drugs for the same reason I stopped. 

It’s just after 10 p.m.  I come home from work angry, frustrated or disgusted; I heat a frozen pizza and smoke a bowl.  My friends are either out of town or occupied for the night.  I sit and think about the store and the customers; I wish I had a new job, but I’d settle for a punching bag.  My mind recycles the day’s stupid questions, stupid answers – the annoyances of a meaningless job.  I smoke another bowl then decide to go for a walk.

Outside, the air is cool and heavy and damp.  It recently stopped raining and I like the sheen of the wet roads under moonlight.  I look at my bike, chained and waiting to take me to work the next day.  I grimace in disgust and decide not to go for the walk; I decide to take the bike somewhere other than work.

I go up Hamilton Street and find myself out of breath at the top of the hill.  For some reason, instead of coasting down the other side I get out of the saddle, stand on my pedals and kick each leg down.  I push harder with each stroke, trying to build instead of maintain momentum.  At the corner of George Street I take a left and ride through the College Avenue campus: buildings I studied in, a spot where I used to sit and read; I ride past 4 different apartments and dorms I lived in and dozens that friends have moved out of.  I find the entrance to a walkway along the Route 18 Bridge and ride to Busch Campus, past classrooms I failed out of, more familiar dorms. 

I feel sweat, cool in a dark breeze – it clings to my hair, it slides along my jawbone and drips from my chin to my shirt.  I feel free, like a little kid riding to his friend’s house. 

The streetlights bounce off the road.  No cars in sight.  I ride through the nature preserve and a family of deer runs parallel to me, 20 feet off my side.  They pass a small trail I turn onto.  It leads down to some park I don’t know about.  It’s flooded from the rain, sunk under the muck of the Raritan.  I stop where the path slips into the water.  Across river, the lights of New Brunswick fill houses and flood the streets.  From a distance they seem less offensive, less like crack houses and roads full of balled up underwear, banana peals, and torn bits of paper.

I’m curious to find out what I can make my body do.  I’ve been riding daily; I don’t get tired from 12 miles so I decide to push up to thirty.  There is no way I would’ve thought about doing this a month ago.  

Early morning I take to the street with three liters of water on my back and an empty stomach.  I’ve never ridden this far, but I think food might cause me to cramp up.  88 degrees, 15 mph; I’m sweating, but not as much as I need to.  20 miles into the ride I run out of water; I stop to refill my CamelBak at a water fountain.  I start cramping up on my way back home and finish off the 30 coasting at five mph

I pull up in front of my apartment and climb off my bike.  My knees weak, but not quite buckling.  I wonder if I should’ve stopped at the 20 mile mark or at 25 when my legs went numb.  I lift the bike onto my shoulder and walk up the stairs to the door of my apartment building.  My arms are shaking.  The key is in my hand but I can’t get it into the lock.  I put the bike down, hold my right arm with my left and thread the key.  I struggle to turn the lock, but eventually pry the door open. 

With the bike back on my shoulder, I climb 3 flights of stairs.  In my apartment I throw some mac and cheese in the microwave and get into the shower with my clothes on.  I hang the wet clothes on the shower rod and towel off.  I can’t believe how hungry I am. 

A shaking finger pops open the microwave and I grab a fork.  One bite and I’m in the bathroom.  Four liters of water spill out my mouth.  At the time I think I just pushed my body too far too soon, that it’s overexertion, that my legs are being vindictive, my body pulled thin.  My stomach locks. 

I leave the bowl of food beside my bed and pass out for two hours.  Dehydration is dangerous; over hydrating is a different kind of terrible.  Water intoxication, (hyponatremia) looks like dehydration and comes with the confusion, nausea, and fatigue.  An excessive amount of water floods the body, dilutes a person’s salt content.  The blood contains fewer minerals; eventually muscles, the brain, the heart, everything weakens.  Some get sick, some shift into a coma, some die. 

After the 30 mile ride I wonder what was worse for me, the extra 18 miles or the four liters of water.  I assume it was the water, choosing stupidity over lack of ability; after all, I want to ride further, I don’t care if I drink that much again. 

 “You really could’ve fucked yourself like that.”  I’m at a party talking to a friend about what happened; he laughs at me.  The loud music, our conversation, the sweat packed bodies – it seems like we should be talking about liquor instead of water.  I ask him some questions about bikes, long rides and repair.  He doesn’t know anything either, “But someone was telling me about a bike library over near Commercial Avenue.” 

The Bike Library is more of a bicycle graveyard.  It’s raining the first time I see it.  Dozens of bike frames, random parts and several piles of tires and inner tubes.  Nobody is there so I try again the next week; my rear wheel is bent so it rubs against my break pads with every rotation; it’s making my rides a lot harder, at least my legs are getting built up. 

 “That’s not safe,” this is a kid named Ryan talking to me.  I’m immediately skeptical of anyone who shares my name.  He’s got a thin red beard that works down to the middle of his chest; he’s got a canteen hanging by his side and clipped to it is a set of camping utensils.  The knife and spork bang together as he diagnoses my bike. 

“You broke a few spokes.” He illustrates this by prying several of them away from the wheel.  He also points to a dent in the frame, “Hit by a car?”  I tell him I bought the bike used, I’m not sure.  I find out that aluminum is unsafe if there’s a breach in the integrity of the frame.  He tells me that it’ll probably be fine to ride for a while, but there’s no way to know when it’s going to split open.  I imagine riding downhill and hearing a snap, seeing the ground come closer and my face sliding down the street.  Helmets can only do so much. 

I spend the afternoon scavenging the piles for the right size wheel, a tube that will hold air, and a new tire since mine was ruined from a blowout.  Ryan shows me how to true a wheel and I spend the better part of an hour twisting the spokes of my new wheel with a wrench; finally the rim is straight, or straight enough.  I put a new tube and tire on the wheel; it takes another hour.  He helps me adjust my front and rear derailleur so my chain can shift gears smoothly on the new set of cogs. 

When I’m about to leave I ask if I’ve done everything properly.  Kevin shrugs, “If you put the tube on wrong it’ll blow in a block or two.”  Feeling uneasy I take the first few streets slowly.  Despite the fear of an exploding tire, I can’t help but smile.  I understand more about my bike; it’s less foreign and more a part of me. 

I start to read a book on bicycle repair and buy a spoke wrench and some other tools.  I wonder how far I could go by bike.  It’s going to be another month before I start to hear back from graduate schools.  I’ve made a short list of things I want to do or attempt and fail.  I think about cycling, what to attempt that sounds crazy, that I wouldn’t have dreamed of last week, or last month.  I think of On the Road and want it to be better, closer to the asphalt.  I convince myself that I can cross the country on my own if I ride every day for the next year.  I think of after school specials about bulimia and how the girls say they felt powerless in their lives, that they just wanted to control their bodies. 

On the phone, I’m telling a friend about the idea of riding to California.  He says, “I know a guy who’s doing that right now.”  Before I know anything about Bill Garrett, he’s already my hero.  “He’s been gone for less than a week.” And I’m told that he’s already gone from New Jersey, through Pennsylvania, up to New York and then come back through Pennsylvania.  Not only is he biking to the west coast, but he’s going out of his way to see friends and family.  Knowing that a person is already riding my impossible trip makes me want to go even more.  Bill sends daily emails from his tent; my friend forwards them all to me.  In one of the first messages I read, Bill says, “I got up during the night to go to the bathroom and was astounded by the sky.  Clear, dark, and spectacular.  The stars were so clear and bright.  The big dipper was right in front of me, almost on the horizon.  Back in NJ I’ve never seen it that low.”  Jealous, I start training constantly.

On a day off of work I get back from a long ride; I shower then eat and drink continually.  The Giants/Eagles game is on.  A player is down on the field; he tries to get up, but his right leg buckles.  They show the sidelines and the teammate who just ran back a punt is taking oxygen.  They fade to a commercial break and I flip around and find that the Tour De France is on. Nobody knows that this year’s winner will have his jersey taken away for doping.  Right now I’m wondering if someday all cyclists will ride wearing oxygen masks.  I take a bite of my sandwich, my ride dwarfed by the screen.  As I’m watching the cyclists, the injured player is taken off the football field.

Between plays, I watch the race.  At the final sprint, the riders shake their bikes from side to side to maximize the pressure of each pedal stroke.  For the final mile they push harder than the 120 that precede it.  Tomorrow they’ll do it again; tomorrow I’ll put 30 miles in after work.  This is less inspiring than crushing. 

Rather than watch the day’s highlights, I turn back to football, a sport I have no intentions of playing.  The Giants are on defense and one of the players has sacked the Eagles quarterback.  It’s the guy who was carted off the field earlier; the pain and inflammation had been too much, but with the help of a cortisone shot he came back to the game. 

I don’t get tired after biking anymore, but I vary my week with short and long rides.  The longer ones are around 30 miles.  I push myself, but remember to keep the rest of the ride in mind.  I make sure to pace my water intake.  My shorter rides are still between 10 and 15 miles.  They’re heart choking sprints with no breaks in a lungless body numbing motion.  The former is for endurance, the latter for speed.  I’ve gone from 12 miles to 30, from 10 mph to 15.  At first the speed and endurance grew rapidly, then I leveled off.  After a few weeks on this plateau I’m frustrated.  I start to rotate days off into my schedule.  Even with the rest, my legs don’t push my numbers any higher.  I wonder what I can do to push my body further. 

One day I get back from a sprint.  My lungs burn, my throat is raw, fingertips numb.  I make a quesadilla; I sit on my bed eating, drinking Kool-aid and smoking a bowl.  I think about my lungs, my distance rides, my speed.  I decide to start eating better.  More fruit, less of cookies, chips and ice cream.  More cooked meals, fewer boxes.  I email my friend from college and tell her I’m going to stop smoking pot so I can ride further faster. 

The next day I get home from work and open the drawer that contains my pot, pipes and lighters.  I remember my flat speed.  I close the drawer and grab my bike for a 12 miles sprint.  A few hours after I get back I forget, go to the drawer and end up back on my bike.  I have the following day off and end up in the park at least 6 different times.  A week later I’ve forgotten about the drawer but I keep up the pace.  Two weeks later I average a steady 17.  At the end of the month I’m over 18.

The numbers keep me going.  In fact, I’ve been writing 4000 on my left hand with a marker, rewriting it a few times a week when the ink fades.  4000 is roughly the number of miles I’ll need to ride to get to California.  4000 is what I look at when I’m daydreaming at work or on my rides. 

20 miles into the day I think, “This is half a percent of my way across the country.”  I find this more motivating than discouraging.  I’ve saved my right hand for hills.  No numbers, but I have an arrow drawn on it.  The arrow aims straight ahead, always aligned with my body the same way regardless of whether I’m going up hills, down them or coasting on flats.  I follow the arrow and ignore elevation; it’s all just in front of me, waiting to be pushed into the past. 

With my new passion for ignoring hills I decide to visit my parents’ place for the weekend.  There’s a highway near their house that is cycling friendly.  9W runs right to the George Washington Bridge.  There are no flats; at the top of every hill you see the top of another one in front of you; every turn leads to a steady drop or a sharp climb.  More impressive than the hills are the bikes.  A friend from New Brunswick tells me, “Hot shot Wall Street bankers ride there.” 

I pass a group of Sunday cyclists, some bike club’s weekend ride.  Three people have the same $1600 Specialized, one guy has a $3000 Cannondale.  My CamelBak is leaking water or I actually drool when I see a black on black Trek listed at $6000.  My bike has at least 16 years on all of them.  Raleigh Technium 440; unfortunately age doesn’t mean experience.  My rusty chain alerts them of my presence and I pass them, eyeing their bikes as we climb a hill.

Another rise, another turn.  The riders behind me are gone, but there are two others ahead of me.  A turn later I’m close enough to read their cross bars.  A Trek 1000 and, “Holy shit, that’s a nice bike.”  He smiles back at me, “Thanks.”  It’s a vintage Pinarello aluminum frame, sexy yellow paint job and at least $2000 of high end components.  He even took out the aluminum fork and replaced it with carbon fiber.  The handlebars have carbon SRAM gear shifters infinitely more expensive than my whole bike. 

I pass the pair and a few more cyclists before I hit the 20 mile mark.  I look at my hand and think, if I could do that 199 more times, I’d be across the country. 

I turn around and make my way back home.  I’m amazed at how many hills I still have to climb.  It felt like the ride out had been all uphill, but unless the topography changed things were split pretty evenly.  I follow my arrow through another hill and think of Bill out west, going up a mountain pass.

I get home from work; 9:45.  Still 15 minutes till my sister is on the phone with her boyfriend.  I call her and she tells me that she’s worrying about our parents’ health.  I check to see if any schools have posted a decision yet, one has.  She asks if I got in, but the page is still loading. 

“Well?”  I’m silent long enough for her to know. When I finally speak, I just tell her I have to go.  I know one place I won’t be next year. 

I change, attach some lights to my wheels and carry the bike down the stairs.  I ride to the park.  It’s too dark to use the paths so I just circle around the perimeter, front wheel spinning red, rear wheel spinning blue.  I wait for my legs to burn, my lungs to claw at my chest.  I find silence.  I can’t see my hand, but I know the number is there.  Bill’s latest email came right before he went to sleep, “The tent is set up.  I’m overlooking tree-covered ridges and have birds singing around me.  I will sleep well tonight.” 

I take a long breath in through my nose, hold it two seconds, out through my mouth, wait two seconds and repeat.  The pauses, the pattern, they slow down my heart; I speak and my body listens. 

It’s dark even on the roads around the park.  I’m blind to my cyclometer, but can feel the pace in my chest slow as the wind comes faster.  I pretend to hear the birds outside my tent.    

My body tells me that I’ve improved as a cyclist.  My thighs are thicker and more toned each month; I breathe easily even though my rides are longer and my speed is faster.  But faster than what?  Further than what?  I don’t know if my improvement has moved me from bad to good, bad to okay, or bad to less bad.  When I see a flyer for an organized ride in Lambertville, I send in my registration.  It’s 40 miles of “rolling hills” and it starts and ends at a brewery.  Lambertville is only 33 miles from New Brunswick; I went there and rode home on a day off a few weeks earlier.  I get excited because for the first time I won’t be riding in a vacuum, I’ll have other riders to help gauge my abilities.

Check in at seven; the ride starts at eight; everyone clips into their pedals and we begin. I’m in the middle of the group looking at 60 sets of bike shorts; this in itself is motivation to move up. 

I work my way towards the front of the pack by the end of the second mile.  Six riders with matching jerseys are directly in front of me, drafting off of one another.  At the fifth mile they shuffle positions.  I keep my distance; I say that drafting is a cop out.  You can go the same speed with nearly half the energy.  Of course, I’d probably do it if I weren’t afraid of crashing into someone when they stop short. 

At mile 10 we round a corner, “No fucking way,” I’m looking up the steepest climb I’ve ever faced.  Already defeated, I shift into the second lowest gear leaving myself one last resort that isn’t walking my bike up the hill.  The peloton ahead of me shatters; they’re all out of their saddles, pushing their bodies, piston legs and heaving chests; slowly, we grind our way up the hill.  At the half way point the grade gets steeper, I pass everyone, not going faster, just less slowly. 

“On your left.”  I go to look over my shoulder, but before I get my head around- red spandex flies past me at a speed my body can’t fathom.

Purple face, shaking hands, pounding chest; frustrated, I get to the top of the hill in time to see the red jersey disappear around a corner about half a mile down the country road.  I shame myself.  This is a hill; I’ll need to climb mountains when I go cross country.  Bill just crossed the Cascades, three passes in one day.  I gear up, rise out of my seat and give my pedals three hard strokes before coasting for a tenth of a mile. 

Disappointed in my early fatigue, I reach for my water bottle.  My legs and lungs savor the rest and resume their cadence when my odometer clicks .1. 

The next 5 miles I’m alone aside from the cows I pass.  Nobody in front, nobody behind.  It’s not until I’m in the midst of some of those rolling hills that I hear, “to your left”. 

All black outfit, shining Cannondale, Oakleys and a friendly smile.  “Are you in front?”  I tell him that there’s one more person ahead of us.  “What’s your name?”  He’s Paul.  This rider, obscured by glasses and a helmet; in my mind, he looks like my old boss, same name so they share a face.  This is my first high speed conversation.

We turn onto a small country highway.  He asks why I’m riding and laughs when I say, “for the crotch numbing fun of it”.  His longest ride was a metric century and his favorite stat is top speed; he hit 53 on a nearby highway.  I’ve only gotten up to 37.  He checks his left shoulder, “Car back.” He drops behind me until a Civic passes us.  Paul pulls back beside me, “37?  There’s a hill coming up in a little while, you should be able to get 40.”  I hit 43; the hill did most of the work.  I felt better going 6 on that first climb.

I want to ask Paul about the other hills when he says “Big car back.”  I look over my shoulder and see an 18 wheeler.  Paul goes in front of me.  As the truck is beside us he points his right hand to the ground and shakes it so I know that loose gravel is coming up.  Just after the truck passes us I stare at the trailer and all I can think of is currents of air, we could probably get into the 30s drafting behind it.  Instead I squeeze my breaks until the gravel is behind me, then I shift into a higher gear to catch up with Paul.  I look over my shoulder; no cars coming up so I pull beside him.  He asks when I last saw the rider in front.  I check my odometer and I’ve been lagging for ten miles.  What makes my body incapable of doing what the red cyclist did?

Paul takes his hands off the handlebars and reaches into the back pocket of his jersey.  I see him take out an energy shot, a mixture of caffeine, protein and herbs that looks like thick fruit punch.  He downs it and puts the packet back into the pocket.  

Everything is hidden but his mouth, he’s grinning when he asks if I feel like catching the guy.  We don’t talk for the next five miles to save our oxygen for the ride. 

We lean into a turn; on the other side we see the jersey at the same time.  There’s a long hill in front of us, not as steep as the first, but roughly the same vertical gain.  Paul is a faster climber than I am, but I refuse to give in to my legs.  I keep my bike in the highest gear I can manage and follow Paul to the top.  A mile down the road we take a left and pull beside the man in red, Mike. 

“How the hell did you take that first hill so fast?”  He lives in the area, “I can’t leave my driveway without climbing a hill.”  I think of my rides in New Brunswick, long and flat.  I might be jealous. 

At the next rest stop, Paul and Mike refill their bottles.  I still have a liter so I keep going, “I’ll see you guys in a few miles.”  I figure they’ll probably chase me down sooner than that, but they never do.  I ride the last 15 miles with phantoms right behind me.  My cyclometer keeps telling me to go faster.  I follow the arrow on my right hand but every hill slows down my speed on the flats: this is unacceptable.  I think about cycling cross country, I think about breathing, I look at the 4000, ignore my legs and the number on my handlebar approves.

When I finish the ride, there’s a celebratory picnic and I’m told to help myself.  “You’re the first one back; how do you feel?”  I’m happy I don’t have to wait in line for food. 

Midway through my second plate of grilled chicken, Paul and Mike sit next to me.  “We got lost, ended up riding an extra 5 miles.”  And I’d been thinking my endurance overcame speed.  We eat and talk about the ride; we watch the line grow longer.  This wasn’t a race, but neither is chasing down a car or a person riding in the distance.  I’ve never known a cyclist to be content behind someone else. 

I point to the line and say, “That guy is my idol.”  Sideburns so grizzly they can only be called muttonchops, cigarette in hand, oil-stained t-shirt underneath a leather vest and jean shorts so jagged I’m not sure if they were cut or worn until the bottom half fell off.  Paul tells me, “I saw him smoking on the ride.” 

I wonder how he made it up the first hill.  For the most part, everyone here is in skintight spandex; they cut down drag, but I think that near-naked shame factors in to the increase of speed.  No one can see your face if you go fast enough.

I wonder if Muttonchops cares that he could’ve gone faster with the absurd attire, without the cigarettes.  I saw some people riding mountain bikes and wonder if they tell themselves, “I’d be in the front if I had thin, no tread tires, if I had rams-head handlebars, if my fork were carbon fiber.”  If someone on $4000 carbon bike passes me, I can’t help but to ask myself if it’s the rider or his bike that’s faster.

Half my transition from 10 mph to 20 mph and 10 miles to 50 was eating better, riding several times a day and giving my resin coated lungs a well earned break from smoke.  The other half was equipment. 

Riding a bike in flip-flops has liberating feel – hovering over the ground practically barefoot, surrounded by the wind, images rushing to be blurred in peripherals.  When I bought cycling cleats, there was a strange transition.  The shoes have a metal plate at the bottom that locks into the pedal.  Aside from providing the opportunity to break one’s ankle in a bike crash, they give you the ability to pull up on the pedals in addition to pushing down. 

After I bought the shoes I went home and changed the pedals on my bike and went for my daily ride.  My liberated feet were now locked down; very physically, I had become a moving piece of the bike; every pedal stroke made me think of the churning pistons powering an engine.  My average mph was 1.2 faster than normal. 

A fear of the inevitable collapse of my aluminum frame got me thinking about buying a new bike, when I realized that if I rode cross country I needed a touring bike to carry my gear, I made the purchase.  It looks like a racing bike, but it’s built with heavier metal so it’s more for reliability than speed.  Steel over carbon fiber and aluminum; but the 20 years of technology that separate my old and new road bike more than compensate for the additional eight pounds. Gear shifters that are built into the break levers and a more efficient drive train give me an extra two mph on my rides.  

Then there’s the spandex.  The wind is worse than hills are, less tangible, less visible, less predictable.  No evidence of what you struggled against.  When I’ve worn loose t-shirts and baggy shorts they fill with the rushing air.  I become more of a wheel-bound sailboat and less of a blade slipping through the wind.  The cycling clothes help with the wind, but place any pit stops or errands out of the realm of public decency. 

By far the most important piece of equipment I own is my cyclometer.  A magnet on the wheel, a sensor, and a computer the size of a wrist watch that straps onto my handlebars.  I don’t know how fast I went before I owned this little device, but the day I bought it was the same day I started taking cycling seriously.  The numbers push me when nobody is riding in the park.  They tell me I’ve gone faster before; they say I should be going that speed now.  Most of my riding is a struggle to go further, to go faster, but I’m left to wonder, how much of my success is because of my body, and how much is because of my gear. 

I want to ask Mike if he had to buy a new bike to ride the local hills or if he already had one.  I think of Muttonchops and wonder what he’d do on my bike.  The sky is getting cloudy so I say goodbye to my new friends; they ask why I’m putting my helmet back on.  I don’t own a car. 

I find the phone pole I left my bike lock on.  The 10 pounds of steel chain links get draped over my shoulder and I start my post-ride ride back to the house I stayed at last night. 

I’m more confident that I could make it to the west coast if I keep pushing myself.  I get distracted imagining the scenery Bill describes, “lots of farm country — fields of corn and soybeans.  Saw one field of small sunflowers.”  I wonder if I’ll be paying attention to the fields or if my body will be too tired, my mind too set on the road ahead of me. 

From the side of the highway I see a familiar bike on a car roof.  With the down grade, I’m going 27 mph, but the car is doubling my speed, I feel sluggish.  I wonder how much I’d slow down if I had a car and didn’t ride several times a day.  Traveling 30 miles to see friends, getting groceries, going to work, my everyday life is conditioning.  To get food to eat I need to practice. 

I’m on French Street and the right half of the road is bordered by parked cars; I take the lane.  It’s narrow so I’m centered between the yellow line and the row of cars.  The last thing I want is a door to swing open and clothesline me. 

A horn blares.  Over my shoulder I see a mini-van; inside, the driver is thrashing his arms around.  I pass a sign, speed limit 25, I’m at 23.  Screw him.  The horn comes again.  He must’ve rolled down his window, “…off the road.” 

A few blocks away, the metered parking stops, there are no cars.  I wait until this area to ride closer to the curb; the mini-van rides his horn the whole way.  As soon as I’m leaning to the right I hear his engine rev; I barely have time to get out of the way before he’s beside me.  Inside the van, he’s fidgeting with some buttons on his door and the passenger window comes down.  With the wind in my face I hear, “Hey Lance Armstrong, get the fuck off the road.”  I could tell this man that roads were first paved for bicyclists but I don’t think he’d care.  He’s streaming profanity, occasionally interjecting sentence fragments, “…hit you with my car.” 

I’m still riding beside the van when I ask the driver of this two-ton weapon, “Have you ever gotten your ass kicked by a man in spandex?”  He looks blank, curses a little more and speeds ahead to a red light.  I pull beside him with a smile that says fuck you. 

I watch the light for the side street: it turns yellow, no cars coming; I take off a few seconds before he gets the green.  The slope of the road gets steeper; I gear up and kick my pedals past 30, till I can’t keep up with the hill. 

I pull up in front of my apartment; my legs and hands are shaking.  My body, stoked with adrenaline.  I barely think about going inside to sit down.  With my cyclometer reset, I ride to the park and put in another 20 miles.  My legs don’t tire, my lungs don’t ache.  When I return, I write down my average mph and it’s 1.5 over normal.  I laugh when I read Bill’s message, “Roads are not busy.  Most everybody waves as they pass.  Farmers out working always wave.” 

I see the same faces on my rides.  Some stick to mornings, others come after work, but most people ride on Sundays.  I pick out distant objects, the cyclists.  I check the minutes and seconds on my cyclometer and pick a time to pass the person by.  I never know how long the person has been here, what mile they’re on.  It’s not a race with the person, just a question as to whether or not I can pass an object. 

One day I’m riding back through the park after a campus loop.  I decide to get ten more miles out of the park.  I see a member of the Rutgers cycling team in the parking lot.  His bike is flipped over and he’s changing a tire.  When I double back for the last three miles I can see him pulling onto the road.  He’s a few hundred feet away when I decide to chase him down.  I pace myself at first, creeping up slowly.  When I’m 20 feet back I check my speedometer, 18 flickering up to 18.5.  I’ve been riding a little over 90 minutes.  I have another mile of road left in the park.  I gear up and push myself up to 19; I’m grinding my teeth as I pass him.  I push harder but hover at 19.  With the corner of my eye I check my shoulder and I don’t see the kid.  I ease back down to 18.  He swerves to my left and blows past.  I don’t bother chasing, my legs are shot.  I turn onto the street and speed past the cars at red lights. 

I check my email and read the final forwarded message from Bill, “I have reached the Pacific Ocean.  I wish I could say I had profound thoughts at the time, that I could write something that will be remembered, but I can’t.  It just happened.”  Rereading the message, I peel a clementine and eat the sections one at a time.  Daydreams come of long empty roads cutting through cornfields and rain coming down mountain passes. I wonder if I’ll think of anything when my feet touch the Pacific and I feel the salty breeze, when I hear birds calling one another as they scatter across the setting sun.

Some photographers

paint with their cameras … 

… Others just paint them

Weegee & Speed Graflex

The Colorful Camera Series

By Larry Hamill

I began collecting old cameras about ten years ago and starting painting them as decorative objects to place around my studio.  In June 2009, I photographed Jonathan Putnam, an actor with the Columbus based Contemporary American Theatre Company, posed with a silver painted Brownie camera.  I then superimposed him over a 3-D Bryce computer generated image. And thus began the Colorful Camera Series.

 I perused camera stores, flea markets and Goodwill stores for old cameras, painting each with spray paint. Since then, I have asked various members of the community to pose with the  painted cameras – exaggerating the camera in each portrait by using an ultra-wide angle lens. Each subject was then superimposed over an image from my library of manipulated images — a process I call “photilation”.

 Current plans for the Colorful Camera Series include a 2010 calendar and possibly an I-Book, with the hopes of an exhibit of prints to follow.

Far Out Camera

Red Brownie

Banana Colored Camera

Roger Williams

 

 

Arnett Howard & Blue Camera

 

 

 

Colored Pano Camera

 

  

Fluorescent Yellow Camera

Editor’s note:

GUEST CURATOR

Columbus, Ohio, photographer Larry Hamill is guest curator for photography for the  November-December 2009 update of ragazine.cc. Selections of work by his friends and colleagues Kojo Kamau and Chas Ray Krider appear in Photography posts.

 

Hamill is a frequent contributor to ragazine.cc. More of his work and contact information can be found at: www.larryhamill.com and www.larryhamillphotography.wordpress.com