“Hatred is always a sin. … One drop of hatred in your soul will spread and discolour everything like a drop of black ink in white milk.”
Marietta to her daughter Euphemia in the short story, The Progress of Love by Alice Munro.
Perhaps some of you will find the colours in this simile unsettling, but I didn’t want to alter the original quote. It’s been a difficult few weeks and my discomfort with my own silence is no longer endurable. And while I am a grateful immigrant who became a Canadian citizen in the seventies, this is the first year that I felt uneasy about Canada Day celebrations that ignore the realities of a racist and colonial past.
Yes, we do have racism and a policing problem in Canada. There is no room for our anti-American smugness here. We have our own post-colonial issues to deal with. I’ve read more about killology in American police training and what defunding the police may mean. I learned what a wellness check is. I donated money to Black Lives Matter, Vancouver. I am continuing to learn how to be an anti-racist, acknowledging my implicit biases. ( see November 2019 Blog) I am looking out for any minority voices in my community that I can amplify. I am capitalizing Black and White in the context of racial descriptions. I can see the racial caste system that exists in North America.
Suggestions for reading
Ibraham Kendi’s, How to be an Anti-Racist.
Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility (this book has been critisied for diverting attention from Black issues to White issues)
Buy and read more books by Canadian Indigenous Writers and Black Canadians. Buy and read creative works from any minorities. Some of my recent reads include works by David Chariandry, Alicia Elliot, Richard Wagamese, Eden Robinson and Jordan Abel.
And on a lighter note…
Here is a non-fiction piece, wrote a few years ago about my first road biking event.
Fast and Safe – A story of a Fondo.
I’m descending, bumping, and banking along the curves down the road to Okanagan Falls. I’ve safely pedalled the seventy kilometres to the rest station without stopping. There are still twenty more kilometres to ride before I finish the race.
I’m high, euphoric – it’s the endorphins. Team Hawaii, the volunteers decked-out in Hawaiian shirts and leis wave madly at us as the riders gasp into the rest station. Both my water bottles are empty and I really need to pee. I have to get off my bike. The echoing slams of the fibreglass Porta-Potty doors guide me to the facilities. I pant through my mouth to lessen the reek resenting the time it is taking to disassemble myself as I peel my bike shorts off my sticky body and relieve myself.
“Don’t look down, don’t drop anything and don’t slip on the pee-soaked floor.”
I am competing in the ninety-kilometre road biking event in Penticton. In my five previous Fondo events, I had ridden for fun, for completion. This year, however, I am now sixty and I am one of more youthful competitors the sixty to sixty-nine-year-old age group. Maybe I have a chance to do well? My serious athletic friends at work suggest a coach, Paul. I hire him and now I have a new part-time job, training fifteen hours a week or more. I discuss this with myself. Yes, it is selfish. No, my actions will not serve a larger purpose. No, I am not taking into account the needs of others. Yes, I am doing it simply because I want to.
Paul teaches me about riding using gadgets that measure heart rate, speed, the cadence, and the pinnacle parameter, power. It’s high school physics, right here on my bike. I focus on scheduling, performing, completing and recovering from the workouts. I don’t finish a single session successfully. I don’t really belong in this group of experienced athletes.
Why am I competing in this ride at sixty? I’m barely a recreational rider. Am I frightened of my ageing? Am I still angry with my doubting and disbelieving mother, a woman who knew that females should not participate in sports? She didn’t understand the value of sport for anyone of any gender.
“Go-out-hard,” Paul says.
If I go-out-hard, drafting behind stronger and faster riders will make me go faster. I worry. I always worry. If I go-out-hard, will it be safe for me among those stronger more experienced riders?
“You need to ride non-stop to the seventy-kilometre station. You will be able to do the race in about three hours.”
Riding seventy kilometres without stopping? Without peeing? I ask myself.
The official name of my event is the Medio Fondo – the shorter ninety-two-kilometre distance. There are over three hundred and fifty women in my event. Thirty-eight of these women are in my group, women over sixty years old. I wonder what my mother would think about that. And then I wonder why I am still thinking about what my mother would have thought. She’s dead and you’re sixty for God’s sake.
The stores, the restaurants and the sidewalks of Penticton are clotted with athletes, their friends and their families. The streets are filled with small groups of riders that have that specific road biking body, tall and lean, the natural body shape of an athlete with a high strength to weight ratio. Me, I’m a shorter mesomorph, a more chunky type. We are all marked with the sign of the cult, the plastic wristband with the race number on it. I stare at it and wonder if my mother was right, maybe I don’t belong.
It’s race day. The streets are filled with cyclists coursing between the buildings to the cordoned-off start areas. The loudspeakers fill the air with dance music and enthusiastic observations from the announcer. The singing crowd proudly performs the national anthem and the electric atmosphere intensifies.
The countdown to the start begins. The low murmuring of the quieting crowd is extinguished by a wave of metallic clicking washing down the street, the sound of the two thousand riders mounting their biking shoes into the pedal clips. The river of riders oozes forward like cold molasses.
“Be safe, be safe, please be safe.”
“Go out hard on the climb.” I hear Paul’s words.
My heart is thudding, I’m panting and my front gear cable is slipping. The chain jumps on the small ring and stays on. I’m struggling to keep up with the paceline I’m in.
“Safe and fast. Fast and safe. Safe and fast.”
This is my mantra.
Cyclists swarm over the width of the road, the faster cyclists dart around the slower ones. I sprint along the section to Summerland, swept along in the draft behind a very steady rider. I’m feeling fast and safe. I wonder if the rider is an event host. He is loaded with extra repair equipment including a tire. I feel him glancing back at me to see if I am keeping up if I am still on his wheel. There is this ethereal connection between us, he is my angel or am I just imagining things? I am being delivered to the steep climb in Summerland.
“Safe and fast, fast and safe.”
There is a long climb. I emerge at the top and begin the beautiful winding descent back to the highway along the side of Okanagan Lake. I luck into a paceline of twenty riders or so. We weave in and out as a unit, a machine, slipping past the other riders. The hum from our race wheels and the balletic unison of the clicking from our gear changes unites us. It is magical. The light crosswind has turned into a tailwind. We dance down the East side of Skaha Lake enjoying the view of the glistening lake and the West Bank.
We reach the turnoff to the next climb at Maclean’s Road. I dig in, climbing up the hills and huffing past the wafting scents of hay and manure from the picture book farms and barns. I am sticking it to the sections with the steep grades. I nail the winding descent into OK Falls.
After stopping to refill my water bottles, I pass the fork in the road and the waving volunteer showing the route for the longer rides. Perhaps next year, I think.
“Push, pull. Push, pull. Push, pull. Left-Right, Left-Right”
I’m puffing, panting and sweating up the hill on the West side of Skaha Lake. No help here. I am on my own.
“Stay on the bike. Keep turning the crank.”
A stiff headwind greets me at the top of the climb but I manage to catch up to another rider. I’m guessing she is about forty and from her style, strong and steady, a triathlete, used to working alone. But today, we pull each other along, taking turns leading and eventually catching up with two other guys. All that’s left of this ride is the big descent. We surge forward together.
“Push, push, push. Leave it on the road.”
“Fast and safe, safe and fast.”
We cross the finish line together. It’s over. I am glowing, pulsing and vibrating with excess adrenaline, adrenaline I no longer need. I’m safe and fast, faster than last year anyway.
The clouds have lifted and the day is transformed into a hot July morning with the promise of watermelon, beer and a grease-laden hamburger. I’m feeling all of relief, pride and exhaustion, the complicated and potent potion of emotions like those I experienced after delivering each of my two babies. I sift through my thoughts and get stuck at disappointment. I’m struggling with the admonishing voice of my mother. If it’s worth doing it’s worth doing well. Maybe I could have done better? I’m confused. The sweat crusts on my skin and my muscles stiffen.
I’m crashed on the bed in the motel when my phone beeps – a text from my friend, Heidi. What? I have won in my age group for the event? I scroll madly on my phone to read the results for myself. It’s true. I did it! I have won, that is to say, I’ve won in my age group and gender categories! I allow myself a moment of satisfaction.
I was safe enough and fast enough for today. I wonder if my mum was still living whether I would have the courage show her the picture of myself in the red polka dot jersey that I won. Would I have invited her to listen to my story and to share in my feelings of triumph? And then, I realize I haven’t really won at all.
