by Dr. David Fialkoff, Editor / Publisher

People who see me bicycling around town loaded with cargo as if I were in SE Asia are surprised to learn that I own a car. I understand that personal/lifestyle choices, including my driving my car, account for only 25-30% of carbon dioxide emissions, but ecological as I am, I feel better living lightly. Plus, a bicycle is better exercise, easier to park and often quicker than driving a car.

Then, bicycle riding makes me feel young and adventurous. Like motorcycling, there is the thrill of rolling along in the open air. And beyond that, there is the accomplishment of arriving somewhere under your own power.

True, bicycling over cobblestones is a bumpy affair, especially at low speeds when your wheels descend into each valley rather than skipping from height to height. But then, cycling over cobblestones is unquestionably a much more balanced, safer locomotion than is walking over them, where with each and every step your foot lands at a different, odd, impossible-to-predict angle.

Pedaling around town is also safer in San Miguel in that car traffic here is largely calm and courteous. Every road feels almost like a bicycle lane. When some driver is in a rush, the odds are they are from out of town. I myself have calmed down over the decade and a half of my residency here, but earlier, when someone honked their horn at me as I bicycled along, I would turn my helmeted head and yell over my shoulder, "¡Chilango!" (a resident of Mexico City).

In fact, I just got back from a ride.

Calzada de Aurora
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Yesterday, Rabbi Daniel called and asked me if I would come to synagogue this morning to be counted as part of the prayer quorum required to say certain communal prayers. In towns with more active Jewish congregations communal prayers are said at synagogue every morning and evening, twice each day. But here in San Miguel, normally, a quorum is only constituted on holidays and Saturday/Sabbath mornings. Today's prayer service was a special event as someone wanted to recite kaddish, the memorial prayer, for his father, whose death anniversary is today.

I agreed to attend. It's an unfit analogy, but if ten people needed an eleventh to play soccer, I would join the team. And, of course, I am so much more on board when the "team" is, not sprinting up and down a playing field, but getting together to acknowledge the miraculous nature of existence. These days science embraces the idea that there is a Cosmic Mind which is the foundation and substance of everything, albeit often in some very inhuman way.

Recently I wrote about my mental-emotional instability, that is, my not knowing what is really going on. Neuroscience has proven conclusively that none of us really knows what is going on, that we do not see "the truth," but only, at best, some shorthand version of it.

With that unknowingness in mind, I will confess that although, once, for seven years, I was a true believer, I do not now follow all, or even most, of the rules of orthodox Judaism. However, my "apostasy" is at least somewhat defensible in that the rabbis themselves admit that heart-felt "shortcuts" might be preferred to thoughtless adherence to the letter of the law.

Still, formal religion can be a beautiful theater to remember and act out our relation to the Divine: "act" being the operative word, considering that without religious observance, the alternative, even for most "spiritual" people, is to not act, to actually do nothing at all. And the kabbalists insist that, counterintuitively, the physical plane has great spiritual advantages. So, light a candle, please.

Tienda de Gil
*

This morning, then, protected on this physical plane from the fierceness of May's sun by the early hour, 8:40, and by a liberal cloud cover, I set off on my bicycle, descending from the heights of colonia Insurgentes (above San Luis Rey) to the rotary that marks one end of Calzada de Aurora, whose level, full length I rode before descending again along Calzada de la Luz, then pedaled my way a few doors up the hill of Avenida Independencia to where is the Chabad House.

After prayers... and a communal breakfast, my return trip followed the same route in reverse, with uphills instead of down. But I took it easy. After summiting Calzada de la Luz, I stopped at Gil's Tienda to buy some yogurt, and so caught my breath. Then, at the end of Calzada de la Aurora, where the road ascends into the rotary and continues uphill on the way into San Luis Rey, I stopped again, sitting for ten minutes there at Parque Zeferino on a wall in the shade of a tree. Then again, after arriving in the center of San Luis Rey, coming up another gradual but extended rise, I stopped to buy some fruit and chat with the man who runs the food cart outside the verdulería.

At first, almost two years ago, moving from colonia San Antonio to this northern outskirt of town, felt like exile. Everything (with the exception of the Fábrica Aurora) was farther away. I still spend a lot more time at home than before I moved, but much of that not getting around is due to a psychological barrier.

With the recent crashing of my website, I was forced to relax. And now, a month after my digital world was fully restored, I'm still taking it easy. I discovered a new, relaxed sense of time, and I'm leaning into it, resting more in general. My not pushing myself as much is reflected in my new attitude to bicycling. Bicycling, and everything else, is much easier when I stop and catch my breath on or after the hills.

Parque Zeferino
*

These revelations all come at the right moment. I've been presented with an opportunity to move again. My dear friend Verónica is moving back to Chile and I could take her house. It's a nice spacious place. I've spent a lot of time there, both visiting her and pet-sitting her critters for weeks at a time. As I like the neighborhood (Manantial, colonia Allende), and it is much closer to things, I've seriously considered moving.

But, the quiet here in Insurgentes, on the far northern edge of town, is a great richness. And, another great richness, perched up on this hill, every room in my second-floor apartment (there are only four) has its own special view.

Practically, this means that seated here at this table in the forward corner of the living room, when I look up from this keyboard and screen, my view is out through a wide, floor to ceiling window system, southward over an extensive panorama of the city. And if I stand and step up closer to the window, westward, Ventana Golf Club lies green in the foreground and the Guanajuato Mountains stretch purple in the distance. Then, out back, northward from my kitchen window, I have a bird's eye view of where, one street over, the houses abruptly end and the countryside all at once begins. And, of course, nature is another great richness, especially in an urban environment.

Walking my bicycle up the last hill this morning, my feet negotiating the very irregular cobblestones of my street, and passing into my front patio, I bent down to collect some sweet lemons that had fallen fully yellow from the tree. After almost two years of living here, I only just started squeezing these into the water I drink; they make it so much more flavorful. Which other of life's gifts am I failing to pick up on?

So, no, I won't be moving. The changes I need are inner, not outer. With my more relaxed attitude towards bicycling, the city has become more accessible. Now, I just need to give myself permission to drive my car more, to indulge myself, get out more and live a little richer. After all, suddenly I have all this free time, and I have to do something to fill it up.

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Dr. David Fialkoff presents Lokkal, public internet, building community, strengthening the local economy. If you can, please do contribute content, or your hard-earned cash, to support Lokkal, SMA's Voice. Use the orange, Paypal donate button below. Thank you.

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