Discomfort

On Tuesday morning, I woke at 5:55 to the optimistic chiming of iPhone. I rose from bed, stepped over my laundry basket, turned on the bathroom lights, took a steamy shower, dressed, looked at my hands as I tied my tie and avoided looking at my sleepy and aging eyes, ate yogurt and frozen blueberries, decided against making coffee, packed a bag for the gym, checked that the backdoor was locked, checked that all the lights were off, opened the front door, locked the front door, felt (but did not notice) comfortably adventureless in my Routine, and turned around to begin the day when I suddenly noticed an absence. Where there should have been her wheels, there was wet, leave-leaden concrete. Where the rain should have hit her slender top, it fell through. Where there should have been my 1998 Honda Civic, Esmeralda, there was air.

The first thing I did was chuckle, double-took. Then I walked down the porch steps, stepped into her absence, looked up and down the street for any sign of her. Perhaps I didn't set the emergency brake, I thought, but I didn't see her. I chuckled again. I went back up the porch waited a minute for maybe her return, a personified "Surprise! Here I am!" but it did not happen. From my porch I called the police to report my stolen car and I called my boss to report a late arrival. I overlooked the neighborhood. I watched some neighbors leave their homes, locking the doors, walking down their steps, playing out their own Routines. Runners turned the corner at 24th and Spokane. Exhaust oozed out of just-started cars. I looked over at Jefferson Golf Course, the silent green fairway soaked. The dark morning had turned light. I went back into my home, closed the door. I made coffee and drank it while looking out to the Cascades, imagining my students now boisterously just getting to school, excited to begin this new day in their young lives.

I did not feel anger. I did not envision young punks smoking dope in her seats. I did not suddenly want to own a gun and teach some lessons. I did not feel "violated," as my sympathizers later told me they did when they found their cars stolen. I didn't feel anxious or nervous or paranoid. Though I have personified my car, a childish habit I have with all my modes of transportation, I did not have nightmarish visions of Esmeralda being ripped apart in a chop shop. I felt 60% strangely indifferent, 20% excited to see how life changes now, 10% free, and 10% excited to tell people of this ill that had befallen me. (Rarely do ills befall me and when they do, it's usually my own doing.)

I texted my girlfriend with almost a feeling of joy, "My car has been stolen!" I looked forward to arriving to work late and telling the other teachers, "My day was going great...until my car was stolen!" If I hadn't taken a self-mandated month-reprieve from Facebook, I would have declared to my 210 friends, "No! No! They've taken Esmeralda!" and I would answer their clarifying questions with witty banter.

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We have that adage: At first you own your things, but then they start to own you. What an implicating notion in such a materialistic society! (In a recent letter, my friend included an ad by Jeep. It states: "The things we make make us." Ahhhhhh! What do we make in this country again? Jets and search engines? Fancy cupcakes and bailed-out cars? What about all the things that others make for us? What's that do to us?) I suddenly could feel how my beloved Esmeralda owned me, that she (and now the personification made sense!) dictated my use of gas, she dictated the growth of my fat ass, that she played her cards right for me to ignore poor Vigo, my basement-bound bicycle, my subterranean Quasimodo. My habits, my softness, had become--it felt--no longer a choice, but a fact; the Routine of Car had become lock-step. And so Esmeralda's sudden absence had a taste of freedom to it, like the Fates (who are so mild now in this country, in this century) halfheartedly said, "Alright, Human. React to this."

Which I did for a few hours. I was forced to walk down quiet and autumnal Cheasty Blvd. to the Light Rail, to travel with the Common Masses, to wait at the corner outside the station for 15 minutes for the office manager to pick me up. I began to plan for long walks to transportation stations; I had to think back to where I stored my cold-weather gear for cycling. Very very minor inconveniences, of course, and it all felt a little exciting. I felt ready for new challenges and new adventure.

But the adventure didn't last even 12 hours because by the end of the day my steadfast insurance company provided me a rental car during this "difficult time"; by 4:00 I had a Chevy and Routine had already, victoriously, cockily returned. His return was seamless. Suddenly I was back in a driver's seat going 65 on 509. Furthermore, the next day the police found Esmeralda in a wealthy neighborhood on Queen Anne; she had been co-opted for robbing other cars, nicer cars, and now I--I was told--I could find her at Lincoln Towing at 122nd and Aurora. (I learned in this process that police cars have a scanner that checks the licensee plate of every single car it passes! Thus, identification of reported missing cars or plates of suspended drivers, etc. is a simple task of just driving around.) The ignition would be fixed, no problem, the insurance said; the car repair shop will even vacuum her. All told, I will have to pay $300, my deductible and I should have her back by the end of this week and Routine will have not even have missed a step.

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Part of me very much wants to generalize from this anecdote that few real disastrous events transpire now in America because systems of maintenance and recovery are in place and function well. These events, these tragedies (a word whose overuse negatively affects those who tragically experience real pain Routinely) are not emergencies, per se, but rather ingrained institutionalized inequities and habits that gradually and distinctly wear people down, and gradually and distinctly we assume are normal to have. I want to say, "Only sudden disasters, only things that cannot be put back together again, lead to significant and healthy change, but now when ills befall us, the goal is to return to the life before, and it seems we can do almost too easily." I want to write, "I'm surprised Obama's statement of 'Change has come to America' resonated because it seems to me we're all profoundly afraid of changing the system of American life, as it is. We can handle the change of presidential skin color, but not real change to energy policy or drug policy or the war on the poor. It seems like our goal is to maintain the status quo, and it's not just because we love the status quo, but because it's just so easy to get back to. It's familiar; it's known." I want to say we're not as adventurous or as progressive as we thought we'd be during the youth of our country, during our own physical youth.

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I'm going to end with an anecdote.

This Sunday morning I went bowling with one of my best friends and his family. The bowling alley is about a mile away; the temperature today is in the mid-30s. If I had my car I would certainly drive it, but I don't--I returned my rental early--so I'm carless. I decided to bike.

I put on a t-shirt, a long-sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt. I put on my earwarmers and my gloves. I checked my tire pressure and put lube on the chain. In my pannier, I put library books I'd later return. I took my bike out the front door, passed through Esmeralda's absence, and started pedaling. In 20 seconds I was descending 23rd at 30 miles per hours. The cold burned my eyes; tears streaked from their corners to my ears. Cars impatiently puttered behind me or revved past me, but I felt like I was flying. The road twisted and I twisted with it, and I felt so cool doing so!

When I got to the bowling alley, my body was frozen. An hour and a half later, finished with bowling (high score of 141), I pedaled up the hill I had descended. The cold burned my lungs and the exertion burned my thighs. I stood up on my pedals and barreled forward. It was a battle up and in that battle I felt my body suddenly; it was no longer absent. I became Pistons; I became Power. In my discomfort, I shed Routine, finally, and as my as eyes scanned the concrete that was passing under me, I felt I owned it. I owned the concrete and I owned the road. I owned the sidewalks and I owned this neighborhood. I owned this city.

I was possessing the land, and I was earning it.