The Squiggle of Our Discontent

In response to the debate in Burbank, California, regarding our local bike path and whether to govern it more strictly:

The kids are arguing because one got a free giveaway ball from the dry cleaner and the other didn’t. The one without claims that I don’t love her as much as her sister. The dry cleaner ruined my favorite shirt. I broke my glasses. The wife is mad at me for spraying sunscreen in the girls’ eyes (again). Fox News is already blaming Obama for all the country’s woes.

And I am out of Prilosec.
Only one thing to do. Take a ride.

Last Christmas, my wife surprised me with a new bicycle. As a simple man in his early 40s, I choose to believe that this gift has more to do with the price of gas and my carbon footprint than the profundity of my midsection. Whatever her motive, the bike has become the best gift she has ever given to me outside of her love, her patience, her cute little bod and our two children. I’ve been a reluctant and unregimented exerciser my whole adult life, and for the first time ever I find myself craving the peace, meditation and physical output of my bike rides.

I set out one recent morning just before sunrise and made my way to Forest Lawn Drive at Barham. Along the way I encountered stoplights and traffic; there was much road work along the way, detouring me down busier streets than I would like. Half-filled and overfilled potholes made the ride bumpier as well.

Once I hit the bike lane at the top of Forest Lawn, I began my ride south. I felt a great sense of relief having finally made it to the path. I work hard, provide for my family, pay my taxes, go to church regularly, buy cookies from girls outside the supermarket and generally try to be a responsible member of society. Finally, as I began what I hoped would be a nice, long, relaxing cruise, I was getting what I deserved. Peace. Is that too much to ask for?

Then one truck and another passed by me so close as to nearly knock me from my bike. Quick, dodge that dead opossum! (Wasn’t that here last week, too?) Broken glass and other debris pushed me out into the road where I narrowly escaped becoming a hood ornament for people too eager to get to their office and surf the Web. There were odors I would rather not know, bugs, dust and exhaust that I couldn’t help but inhale. Grave sites checkered the hillside and gave me caution and pause. Even the wind pushing against me seemed to beg my frustration.

This wasn’t working, so I veered off Forest Lawn through the quiet streets of the Rancho and headed for home unfulfilled. As I passed the park with a giant purple dinosaur for a slide, I saw balloons trapped in the telephone wires, remnants of some child’s birthday party. I sympathized with those balloons. As I approached home, I felt gypped. I tried to escape for just a little while, find some peace, and could not get there. So, I continued right past my house and headed through more sleepy streets, avoiding main roads like Buena Vista and Olive. My goal: the Chandler Bikeway.

I’d say it was about 6:30 a.m. when I finally hit the path and started my journey to the east. The San Fernando Mountains seemed oddly majestic and awe-inspiring in the morning haze. I’ve seen this before at the base of the Sierra Nevada or the Rockies. I’d just never seen our local mountains look like this before.

There was an early-morning dew on the grass and plants all around. A soft mist blanketed everything. The dawning sun just cresting the hills ahead of me sparkled fresh light off the landscape like floating crystals. The light reflected especially brightly off the painted lines of the bike path marking the lanes.

I knew that in a few minutes, the sun would move on and the particular intensity of the refracting sunlight would disappear, perhaps never to be seen exactly like this ever again.

I looked around and saw bikers and walkers and dog-walkers, fast, slow and stationary, making their way along this bright path. And I was struck by something I had never realized before. The Chandler Bikeway is crooked.

It is a scribble, a squiggle if you will, through our city. Not a straight and perfect path that I guess I had always envisioned it was. And in that imperfection, I found a kind of perfect peace.

Isn’t it interesting how we can cruise along in life thinking one thing, and in an instant, have that preconception shattered? Perhaps that “too good to be true” mortgage you may have gotten into a couple of years ago?

That smell in Griffith Park is feces. Manure. But what makes that is ponies. Ponies! And ponies make little kids smile and laugh, which makes me smile and laugh. That may be a dead and flattened opossum ahead, but overhead is a flock of exotic parakeets — yes, wild parakeets in Burbank! Their collective chirping sounds like a thousand marbles colliding.

Sometimes there is road work and potholes and exhaust along our ride, walkers in the bike lane and bikers in the walk lane. But there will always be that one old man with his walker, slowly making his way along the path at his own pace, stopping to chat with anyone and everyone willing to take a moment and enjoy good company. He looks like he has more stories to tell than I do mistakes in my life.

Beyond the smells, the garbage and the traffic, there will always be carousels, fountains, ponies and good people willing to share a crooked path with one another.

The straight path to a comfortable and happy life, the straight shot to heaven or salvation or just plain contentedness is real. And it is easy, but only in the decision to actually take the path. In practice, the path is not straight or easy.

There will be obstacles, stumbling blocks, broken glass, dead opossums and foul odors. Sin, if that’s your bag. We can choose only to see obstacles or we can choose to see hope. We can choose to slow down a little, walk together or move out of one another’s way politely. We can choose to do in our hearts what we know is right rather than alienate and demonize one another with rhetoric, rules and restrictions.

Choose to argue or choose to get along. It is not a straight path. But it is our only path.