Though there’s no shortage of people here - someone is always around to talk to if you need it - it doesn’t mean it’s a person with whom I’d care to speak.
There is a painfully evident cultural gap between people here no matter the reason they are here, and not all of us are residents.
Many, like Sophie and I, live full-time in an RV. Others come and go in the manner that seasonal summer campers and transient laborers/skilled workers who live in campers do as their economic obligations require.
While these people live in their campers full time, the place they truly call home, “where the heart is,” is someplace else.
Their outlook on the place I and the other full-timers here call home naturally differs, and the reason is simple. Sophie and I are as transient to them as, well, they are to us.
And the fact remains that, among “us,” vast disparities exist. However, this doesn’t imply anything negative by any means.
Granted, some of these cultural differences go beyond traditional social or (fairly) superficial differences, such as liking country music more than rock music.
Or perhaps some might have humorous tendencies that lean more toward Larry the Cable Guy than they do any of the polished, male-dominated, shirt-and-tie late night network hosts. You get the idea.
For my part, I grew up listening to rock music. However, I can appreciate country music and all music, really, on its merits based on musicians’ technical skill, live performance quality and, yes, song lyrics and relevance to my life.
I also get Larry the Cable Guy’s humor, and humor from all over the spectrum, really, though I really do prefer slightly more sophisticated comics. After George Carlin died, any enjoyment of another comic’s vulgar observations went with him.
But I indulge myself with the above examples in other, probably very different ways than my neighbors.
For example, I prefer listening to jazz music at any time of the day, whether I’m waking up and making coffee or slip-sliding away to La-La Land at one a.m., after writing online content like this.
I also prefer watching video documentaries and, well, writing. I enjoy focusing on my blog and writing elsewhere about subjects of relevance to me.
But that doesn’t mean I haven’t had my share of crazy nights at basement parties where beer comes in kegs, and not cans or bottles.
And where “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em” was a silly phrase we’d shout out about (nicotine-I grew up in Pennsylvania!) cigarettes or, on special nights, cigars.
We played music at ear-splitting levels that, even back then, concerned me that I’d develop long-term hearing damage. I probably did.
The difference is that I got all of that out of my system as a teenager and, (possibly another difference) while as an undergrad.
Those days and nights are filed away in my mind as a fun time, to be occasionally revisited on warm, moonlight nights or when being surprised by an old song that triggers a fond memory.
But just as I knew then that the music was too loud and the cigarettes potentially (okay, probably) harmful to my body, I also knew it served a very important purpose.
“Blowing off steam” is the cutesie term we give it, but you know what I mean. Those parties back then, like the triathlons and the road bike riding and racing I did as an adult served the same purpose, decades later.
But here’s why I don’t find fault in my neighbors who, as parents of grade school kids, still smoke and drink, sometimes a bit too much:
With the exception of things once almost coming to blows here during one late Friday night piss-up, I grew up in a family where cigarettes and beer and sometimes other booze on occasion was not uncommon.
I’m not talking so much about bourbon, whiskey or even rum, but In fact, it was quite accepted, and I believe my parents, who are very simple people saw mixed drinks as a sort of sophisticated idea. “It’s what people who have money do,” they thought, though if the subject arose they’d be quick to state “I can’t stand those rich snobs,” and often worse.
When I was an impressionable kid I saw all of that, and when I was eighteen I even experimented with other, equally curious kids doing the same thing. It was a positive social experience. And, like the partygoer who’s had one too many and barfs on their shoes, or who’s endured their first hangover, we learned what can happen if we push our limits too far.
But I’m not judging anyone on the merits of pushing their limits too far. After all, I nearly died on a busy street one Friday night in my mid-40’s after having been so high and moving so fast I didn’t realize a car pulled out in front of me.
I didn’t have time to stop, and I slammed right into the car. In this case, however, I was enjoying an endorphin high; I was on a road bike training ride following a long day at the end of a long first week at a new job. To be sure, it’s not my lack of judgment that nearly got me killed but that of the motor vehicle driver.
*Note:
It’s not a crime to ride a bicycle or drive a car, for that matter, while under the “influence” of endorphins any more than it would be to drive under the influence of a funny comic’s jokes or a sad audiobook played on the car stereo. Safety is what’s paramount in any case, for everyone out there on the streets.
I was 110% involved in road bicycle racing then and at my mental and physical peak. Never was I stronger or sharper and, on that evening, I’d done some hill climbing intervals I never could believe I was strong enough to perform.
It was a fabulous endorphin high, unlike any before or since. And, given cycling’s innately positive fitness benefits, I’d no reason to believe I was in any danger. After all, I’d done it a million times before, so what could go wrong?
Talk about learning lessons about limits and what can happen if/when we push them too far! No matter what I learned about myself as an impetuous kid, nothing would have prepared me for the decision I had to make out on the road that evening.
In that accident, I lost my arm and nearly my life. Since then, because of my limited ability to train at such a high level I usually just walk in the hills with Sophie for exercise now.
Sometimes I get an abbreviated mountain bike ride in, much to the amazement of some of my neighbors. “I can’t believe you can do that,” they tell me.
But my cycling skills are tenuous at best, for my memory is very state-dependent. Once I throw a leg over the saddle again, I’m transported to that wonderful space my mind and body once occupied there, just before my accident.
Off the bike, I can come across as matter-of-fact about the loss of endurance cycling as the one activity that defined me above all others.
But I believe this nonchalance is a survival mechanism that keeps me from being swept away by the grief that can only come from the loss of this magnitude of importance.
Less cardio training, for me anyways, has led to a dramatic drop in my (epilepsy) seizure threshold and an increase in ccside effects from my medication.
While I have long adapted to my new life-the accident was only five years ago-I’ll always miss the “old me.” How could I not?
But I’m learning that my real challenge is, just as with my teenage party years, to also put all of those marvelous blowing-off-steam moments of my adulthood into a safe space of their own.
Moving forward, I’ve found heroes befitting of my new physical status. As an able-bodied cyclist, I was merely one of a zillion guys my age in peak physical condition, even with all the strength I had then.
The man I am on a bicycle today, even with only half the strength I had back then, will give me more power than I would ever have imagined.
People have approached me simply to tell me how amazing they think it is that I can still ride, and I agree. Disabled athletes in general inspire me, and they always have.
I’m sure that I had my moments as an able-bodied cyclist when I’d see a disabled cyclist (differently-abled, thank you very much) and think “I don’t think I could ever…”
Having been back in the saddle again, despite the emotional and physical confusion that accompanies the sheer joy I can still while riding, I’ve changed my thinking.
When I consider differently-abled cyclists like myself I now think “I know I can…”
Today, I still may shed a tear or two when I see other men out riding; they can remind me of the strong man I once was as an able-bodied rider. Even so, I’m confident in the knowledge that I can feel that again, anytime.
The only thing I have to embrace about it-which has proven to be the most difficult of all-is that, this time, IT’S DIFFERENT.
Given all I’ve shared in this post I think you can understand why I sometimes feel a little lonely here. Not many others can share similar experiences involving endurance sports, or understand the joy it once brought and the grief I can still feel.
Many folks here are retired, and most others are hard-working, salt-of-the-earth types. Almost all of them would help me out with any thing, any time, for they are good people that way. I’d like to think I could do the same for them. It is, in itself, a good feeling I’d never have foreseen ten years ago.
Still, some time, some how, I wish I could have a moment or two over with old friends. To savor the moment of just being on the bike, on a training ride in the middle of nowhere or a race course in downtown Longmont or Louisville or Boulder, etc.
Selfish thinking, to be sure, even more so when I consider how I wish I could discuss these things with my neighbors here. But man, are they good at what they do know and, being largely good people, I’ll always be grateful for their neighborly friendship.
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