I am The Ellis Island of Odd

Bring me your weird, your wacky, your "why did they even make this?" I cannot resist things that are so bizarre people will not believe they exist unless I can show evidence. Sometimes it's a chance encounter in my random travels, sometimes they are gifts (I am not always sure if the gift-giver is aware how unlikely their gift's existence should be). I've decided to open a sort of digital museum of the lunacy I attract. Here is one of my most prized possessions, originally bought by my older brother as a gift for a 4 year old.....

Yes, you read that right, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Kubla Khan - The Pop Up Edition!

With pop ups befitting the poem

Images sure to stay with one's inner child for a lifetime

The recipient of this gift did grow up to be a very talented artist. His concentration piece for his portfolio was an illustrated interpretation of Dante's Inferno.

Hello, My Name is Hypocrisy

I just finished a training course with an organization I volunteer for. It is always interesting when a cross-section of the population from different cities get together, especially when discussions about helping “different communities” are involved. Today, as I listened and smirked at suggestions for dealing with certain cultures, I was smacked in the face with my own prejudices about what a “prejudiced” person looks like. When I think of intolerance, I automatically picture a white male from a rural community and by doing so I am just as guilty of stereotyping as the people I pretend to be more enlightened than.

We all quote the platitude that “everyone has prejudices” though in my head I add the qualifier “else” between “everyone” and “has”, but it is not true. I am a ruralist, I stereotype people by their proximity to urban centers. I also stereotype people by their level of education (ridiculous, too, as I am well aware that education does not correlate to intelligence and vice versa), and I judge people by their interests.  If, for example, someone tells me they like NASCAR, I make all kinds of assumptions about their lifestyle and it’s wrong. It is just as wrong as suggesting all people of a particular culture share the same political beliefs or that all people of a certain sexual orientation have the same dating patterns.

It is human nature to classify things. That’s what we do. We have built an entire area of science around the practice. At the time, there was probably a need, but as we move toward globalization, demographics become less important. I am far from advocating for the homogenization of humanity (though it is happening whether I advocate it or not). Quite the opposite, I believe diversity adds to the richness of humanity. I also understand that it can lead to barriers between people. At this moment, I want to put aside the cultural awareness I so prided myself on and start trying to understand individuals on a case-by-case basis, but I am lazy and classification makes things easier, so it may be just a matter of time until I revert. I hope not.

Fell In Love With a Road

Well, I'm back from a one woman mini-training camp. Having some time off, and sensing my "vacation" plans about to fall through and become day-trip activities around the city I was trying to get the hell away from, I shut off my mobile, left the laptop, packed up the bike and headed for the hills. Oh those hills. 

I had always disliked certain areas of this vast province I live in. Judgments based on both over exposure and non-exposure at the same time. Sometimes, when something is too familiar to you, you take it for granted. I opened my mind, traveled several hours out of the city to places that were a prominent feature of my childhood and put my tires to the tarmac; testing myself on the toughest climbs in the area. Then it happened, I fell in love with a place I used to hate because I finally really saw it for the first time.

This was a very transformative training camp for me. In recent years I had spent more time on my mountain bike because riding my road bike brought up a lot of bitter-sweet, sad memories. All that was stripped away layer by layer, climb by climb, and beneath I found the little girl who first fell in love with the freedom, the challenge and the wonder of riding a bike. I was reborn as a cyclist out on those climbs. Along with a lot of sweat, I left behind all the negative associations that had piled up around my bike and realized they didn't have anything to do with my riding. I was riding a bike long before any of the negative stuff ever happened.

Grinning like a maniac, I attacked twisting, snaking descents with a fearlessness I haven't felt in a long time. Climbing the toughest hill I have faced to date, I was overcome with a strange experience. First my arms, then my face started to tingle; not in a pins and needles sort of manner, but in a feel-good euphoric sort of way one would generally only experience if they were very fortunate during an entirely different type of cardiovascular activity. It was wild. It was definitely a cycling first for me, and I want more....

Whatever it is you used to love to do, before it became not fun anymore, before life or disappointment or negative associations got in the way, I hope you rekindle that spark and fall in love all over again. It's magical!

Doing my bike courier impersonation at the train station