the train tells me how to live…

I was half sleeping on the Metra train today for the entire ride. I was thinking mostly, so I didn’t take out a book this morning. My head was moving around in different directions and at one point I rested it upwards, so I was looking up at the train interior. There are barely any advertisements, which I think is a great thing. The train wasn’t designed in a manner for the passengers to have nothing to look at but the people infront of them or advertisements — Toronto public transportation is the exact opposite. There are a few (with terrible graphic design) ads for the Metra itself however. My eyes landed on one small ad above the entrance. It had a picture of a happy family standing there looking all happy and the main text read something like, take the train to where you want to go or something like that; it wasn’t significant enough for me to remember. The tagline however in the bottom right corner read I quote,

“Safety…A Way of Life”.

I couldn’t help but to keep staring at it and my head rested upwards for a few minutes longer while thinking about that message. I think it’ll take me another post to really reflect on that quote right there. It digs deep into all corners of my soul. Thanks for the ad Metra; you’ve just made a significant presence on my blog. (I’ll try to take a picture next time so we can visualize this together)

Filed under: chicago, humanity, life, philosophy, public transportation, train

cycling moral & the internship experience

I decided to make this entry a combination of both the moral of my bicycle posts as well as my reflection on the internship experience thus far because they are very much intertwined.

I continue where I left off about the fear of riding the bicycle hands-free. With my bike here in Chicago, this task seemed impossible. The bike was sixty dollars, used and old, but repaired and admirably functionable. In my mind, when I let go of the handles, I felt insecure. I felt that this bicycle was not reliable enough for me to let go. I felt foolish for even trying because my thoughts told me that there is no way I would be able to free my hands and move from the forward lean position to vertical sitting position; it was impossible, the bicycle wasn’t meant for it.

Why did I keep trying to do it? Because of the challenge. I liked the idea of risk. I kept practicing over and over on the same trail I took every day. Finally about two weeks ago, I did it! I let go completely and I sat straight and I pedalled. It was so easy that once I did it, I couldn’t see how I couldn’t do it before. It wasn’t scary at all! The bike goes completely straight, the steering bar doesn’t move and I sit right up without any worry that I will fall… at all.

This past week I’ve been doing it a lot more — maybe a third of the trail even. I open my arms; I feel the wind; I pedal to the right of the trail; I pedal to the left of the trail. How could I not do this before? Why was it that it was so difficult the first couple of weeks? Why did I fear letting go?

As for being here at one of the most well established design firms in Chicago — if not America — amongst a spectacular staff, inspiring team with an abundance of creativity and multiplicity of skill-sets, I still found myself unhappy until just last week. Well it wasn’t that I didn’t value where I was or what I was doing; it was because I couldn’t face my ego. I had not come to an acceptance that the situation I was in was just that — the situation…and I had to deal with it. I did say to myself that I have to deal with it, but I didn’t really live it. I wasn’t it. I didn’t know who I was when I was thinking so much in anger and defending my own thoughts as reality. I was working in a team (of interns) that really wasn’t working as a team. In my mind it wasn’t working because I was so different and I am sincere but my sincerity is not being acknowledged and I’m on the back burner at all times.

What did I do? I turned it around and I made it work. I didn’t turn reality around. Reality is what it is, as in, we are who we are but our relationship with people and things are what we learn from and conduct our actions based on our knowledge through these relationships. You learn to work with what you have and accept it for what it is, not for what you think it should be. Why be angry and spend my bike rides in thoughts of anger…or fear in the case of my bike inspiration. Fear and anger go and in hand. If we can’t face our thoughts of fear and anger and really be them, then there is no way we can learn from them. Facing them means to accept them for what they are and allowing them to open your mind to reality…in all it’s potential.

Thanks SM. Beautiful time in my life.

Filed under: cycling, experience, life, public transportation, work

lifecycle

One day in the early months of last year, when I was in Toronto, I decided I wanted to buy a bicycle. Why? I still can’t remember exactly how I got into it, but after I built on the momentum, a serious cyclist friend helped me pick out my five hundred dollar Trek3900 bike — the cheapest bike in the shop. I bought it from Duke’s Cycle on Queen West. We hopped around a few places but they were all pretty much out of my range. We went back, I spent all my investments for a vehicle and rode my killer twenty four speed mountain bike from the shop to my (now former) house. My friend wished me a safe trip and I was on my way uphill along Bathurst street for a ten mile hike… for the first time. Honestly, it really wasn’t that bad. I think I was sore for the next couple days but I really loved it. I traveled from home to downtown roundtrip, I’d say ten to fifteen times that summer. I found a bike path too, so I wasn’t on the dirty Bathurst street any more. There aren’t enough bike lanes in Toronto, what’s up with that? I’m glad people inspected all the rouds and found paths for cyclists, otherwise you have to find your way beside cars and the angry drivers.

So, cycling became my new sport. It was since I had left Iran that I hadn’t been on a bicycle. In Iran — oh my goodness, I don’t want to get to my childhood memories because I’ll cry — it was heaven. I had a wonderful childhood amongst nature, fruits and vegetables, large swimming pool and large family gatherings that will only exist in all our memories and reveal their documented beauty through photographs. Back there, I biked a lot, that was the point I was trying to get at.

I went down to Sarasota Florida (as some of you may know or have noticed) for a mobility/exchange program through my school in Toronto Canada. I lived there for five months without knowing a living soul. I met my roommate through craigslist on the phone and it turned out to be one of the most amazing experiences in my life. Anyway, again, the point is, I bought a bicycle the second day from a non-profit bike shop called the Alliance for Responsible Transportation (A.R.T). It was forty five dollars. I went everywhere with it. Biked to Lido Beach the first week, biked all around Sarasota and biked til I dropped. Florida is just natureful. It’s absolutely gorgeous. I loved the bird sounds, the palm trees, the aloe veras, the customized colourful houses and their mailboxes, and I absolutely loved the weather.

Getting back on track, so, now I’m here in Chicago doing an internship at samatamason; if you read the last post, you’ll know the details about my daily roundabouts, and if you read even before that you’ll know where I got it from.

The difference between my bike now and my previous two bikes, is that it’s a road bike. It has thin tires and you lean forward — it works your triceps a lot. It was quite a drastic difference between my other bikes. It’s really easy to pedal hands free with my Trek bike because the steering head doesn’t move and you can feel that it’s stirdy and secure. With this bike I couldn’t do it. It was way too risky and every time I took one hand off and then tried the other, I’d immediately go off balance and grabbed on to the steel. Must be the bike, I thought. Well, I’m going to write about the moral of the story after this entry, just so I can get all my thoughts together.

Filed under: city, cycling, experience, life, public transportation