IT WAS SOME TIME IN THE 1980s--THAT MUCH I KNOW FOR SURE. As for recalling more specific details about the people, places and situations that occurred during this time in my life, I’m just not clear. In fact, when I think about it, if I were forced to enter a courtroom, take the witness stand, raise my right hand (with my left hand on the Bible) and swear to tell the truth and answer those annoyingly detailed, repetitive and myopic lawyer-type questions (the ones that usually begin with phrases like, “Where exactly were you …,” or “What time exactly was it when …,” or “Who spoke to you and what exactly did they say … ) about my own life from roughly 1980 to 1990, I would have to truthfully answer with the equally obligatory witness response of, “I don’t recall.” Frustrating, I know, to have lived an entire decade and not remember much of it, and yet now, all these years later, I’m somehow compelled to revisit that time—to try to puzzle together some semblance of meaning about what exactly did happen during those weirdly amorphous days and weeks and months and years.
San Diego, California, is a place where people come to visit and then stay far longer than they expected. Drive the local roads and highways and you will quickly notice the high number of out-of-state license plates, each one a sign of someone escaping something back home that they must think San Diego provides the remedy for. For most of these out-of-towners, the city’s number-one selling point is its famous climate—the year-round temperate coastal air and warm days are enough to lure any Midwesterner or East Coaster out of their snow covered confinement and outside onto a warm, sandy beach. But there has to be much more to a city than good weather and beaches to inspire someone to make it their new home—it has to have the right energy, it has to feel welcoming. But what many don’t realize is that beyond the predominant surf/beach culture that espouses a laid-back, simple and healthy lifestyle, San Diego also has a huge military presence that surrounds the city from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in the north coastal area, to the Miramar Marine Air Station east of La Jolla, to the Navy’s North Island Air Station in Coronado to the south. So it’s not unusual for a relaxing beach day or afternoon sailing on San Diego Bay to be periodically interrupted by a thundering streak of fighter jets or Osprey helicopters overhead. Here, like every city, contrasting elements make up the overall atmosphere of the place, and those contrasts have, to some degree, become instilled in me. On a more literal level, San Diego is simply the place where I was born and raised. It’s the place I often return to. And it’s the place where I somehow misplaced ten years of my life.
I’m sure that on the surface my view of reality during those ten years appeared stable, and was probably informed with a fairly vivid and real quality that would make it seem I was standing on firm ground, seeing the world with adequate clarity and with some sense of certainty about what my life was all about. I realize now this was definitely not the case. My experience from 1980 to 1990 became a giant blur not because I lost my capacity to remember my past, but because I decided I was going to see it this way. That is, I decided not to see it. Without really knowing what I was doing, I made the choice to completely obscure my experience because I must have thought it would be far easier to erase the details of this emotionally difficult time—bury them in the far-off and foggy recesses of my mind—than it would be to accept, face and feel what was happening right in front of me the entire time. And what was mostly happening in front of me were a series of confusing transitions many young people face: a family breaking apart, no real sense of direction, no means of support—and all of it fueled by internal feelings of anger and ambivalence, aimlessness and loneliness that I didn’t know how to properly deal with. What I thought I’d known about family and love and caring for one another had pretty much disappeared like my father, who one day packed up his belongings into several small and unmarked cardboard boxes, loaded them into his car (with me helping, loading more stuff into our family station wagon) and drove them to a small, rather depressing downtown apartment. I imagined 18 years of memories (I’m sure some happy and beautiful, others painful and sad) packed away in those boxes, and they were now in the process of being moved into some new, cold, uncaring empty space. This change was my father’s choice for his life. For me, I needed to make a change as well.
That was 1983, I think. A few years later, I found myself standing in the showroom floor of a bike shop in La Jolla, eyeballing a shiny Vitus 979 frameset, and discussing with the salesperson the possibility of buying a custom bike. I was told that the 979 was a comfortable, compliant aluminum frame, that Sean Kelly was successfully riding it in big races around the world, and that Vitus didn’t weld but glued the tubes together to create the perfect frame for me. I was also told that the build for the bike would include a Shimano 600 groupset with Shimano’s Biopace crank—the latest, greatest design innovation that supposedly would eliminate any “dead spots” in the pedal stroke—and Mavic MA40 rims that were up for any type of riding I wanted to do. I listened to the complete sales pitch and did my best to act like I knew what the guy was talking about, but the fact of the matter was that I really didn’t care about any of the technical aspects of the bike—the frame design or how it was built, the component tech data or which pros were riding the same frame in the pro peloton. My intention for riding was not focused on physical performance or to test myself to see how far or fast I could ride. I wasn’t going to race the bike. I also wasn’t going to use it as a commuter or to cruise the boardwalk between Crystal Pier and the Mission Beach Jetty, the area of town I was living in at the time. I just needed to get out, push myself and meditatively pedal. I bought the bike and that’s what I did.
It’s weird how the passing of time has a tendency to bring to light an awareness of our most vital and important connections in life—connections that are, at the time of experiencing them, invisible to us. I didn’t know at the time why I was always drawn to ride to two specific places—the top of Mount Soledad and to the Cabrillo National Monument at the tip of an area of San Diego known as Point Loma—but after years of reflection, I’ve realized these were the roads I needed to ride more than any others.
Approached from the south, the climb to the top of Mount Soledad rises in stair-step fashion, making it a perfect beginner’s challenge as short moments of rest on flat sections interrupt the actual work of going up. And at an elevation of 823 feet over the course of a few miles, Soledad will never rival more storied climbs around California, but as the road rises to the top and views of San Diego emerge—west to the ocean and La Jolla Shores, south to Mission Bay and further on to the Coronado Bridge and into Mexico, and east to the hotter, dryer regions of Escondido and beyond—you begin to see the landmark on top of the mountain come into view: a 43-foot-high white concrete cross. I of course knew the cross was there—it was, after all, the main destination point for my ride—but I didn’t really see it with any sense of significance as a symbol of faith and hope and love. I was just trying to get to the top of the climb a little faster and a little easier than the previous time I rode Soledad, so the idea that I was actually riding toward something significant—that there was actual meaning to the ride I was on—was totally lost on me at the time. All I saw was a road to climb, and I wanted to feel something physically, because the fact of the matter was I was numb to everything else. In time, as I continued to revisit the top of Mount Soledad and stop to look down at the surrounding view—the place where my life was taking shape—I began to see that cross more and more clearly—not in a religious way but simply as a symbol of belief. This, it turns out, is what I was really riding toward.
On other days, I would choose to ride a small strip of road that rises gradually through the picturesque setting of Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery and dead ends at the Cabrillo National Monument and the Old Point Loma Lighthouse, built in 1855, that watches over San Diego Bay. History says the lighthouse was only used for 36 years because it was located too high on the cliff and so often covered in low clouds and fog that incoming ships could not see its light. Initially on my rides I had the feeling of being fogged in as well, not knowing or caring to know the meaning of the road I was on. I would ride to the top, occasionally glancing to the left to capture the views of the bay and city below and off in the distance, not stopping to remember that I was actually passing the tombstones of my grandfather and an uncle I never knew (he died shortly after I was born) who are laid to rest on those green windswept slopes overlooking the water—the very water where that same grandfather worked as a tuna fisherman, built and owned his own boats and made a successful life for himself and his family. I would just ride by all of it, not realizing that I was again unconsciously riding toward something of utmost importance: myself.
It turned out that I didn’t need psychotherapy or a weekly group meeting or pot or a shaman or acupuncture or some form of craniosacral therapy to clear my head. What I needed was a different feeling, a feeling that I could produce on my own, without relying on anyone or anything outside of myself to do it for me. I needed to experience the sensation of lightness, of floating, because, given the reality of my day-to-day existence for those ten years between 1980 and 1990, I felt way too grounded (and I don’t mean “grounded” in the usual, positive sense of the word, suggesting someone who is “in touch with reality” or “well balanced”), literally weighted down, stuck in place with a heaviness that was at times debilitating. That ’85 Vitus 979 was the key to my shift from almost complete unconsciousness to some kind of awareness. It pointed me in a direction that literally made me stop, think, see and feel not only what was going on right in front of me but inside me as well. It may have taken 30 years for the meaning to finally emerge, but I see now how a bicycle can be like a wise counselor who only listens and never speaks, allowing you to figure out whatever it is you need to figure out, at your own pace and on your own path.
I’ve since passed my old Vitus on to my nephew, who is now at the age I was when I began to ride. Will it help bring him into better awareness of himself and his surroundings? As long as he’s willing to put in a bit of physical effort, take time and really see what’s in front of him, the bike—like any bike—will always answer the call.
peloton, Issue 28