2017.03.21 Patience

It occurred to me a couple weeks ago while I was driving along Skyline boulevard that patience is a thing to cultivate.

A Sunday afternoon with some of the first sun of the season, the twisty ridge-top road was heavy with bikers out for a ride. I carefully made my way around each group, being mindful of the intimidating bulk of the van. But it was futile, there were simply too many of them to navigate past in a sufficiently conscientious manner.

Resigned, I docilely piloted along with the packs of bikers. The big groups were moving at quite a clip. Indeed, after a while, I realized that technically they were within shrugging distance of the speed limit most of the time. It was just that I was so accustomed to hurtling along that particular road at a furious pace due to its delightful corners, and was unused to being so relaxed along it. And the relaxing felt proper, as I was still exhausted from my own bike ride in Forest Park, from which I was returning all caked in mud.

An SUV shouldered its way up behind the van, and then passed with impatient disdain and clear indignation at having to share the road with the bikes. While trying to pass the big group of bikers in front of me around one of the endless blind corners, it only avoided a head-on collision due to the quick reflexes of the oncoming driver and a lot of sacrificial tire smoke. They roared away, hating life. The bikers were clearly unnerved, and doubtlessly feeling mortal.

The visceral fear I felt by proxy was still with me when we came up on one of the rare intersections along Skyline - a 4-way stop. As I rolled up with the bikes, most of them veered away so that it was just myself and a lone biker heading to cross the intersection. A car going across our path initiated its crossing from a stop, and it was our turn. I started forward, but not as quickly as the biker. This was unfortunate, because the vehicle behind the first vehicle to cross in front of us decided that it did not want to wait its turn and zoomed through. I stopped the schleppenwagen short instinctively, and the biker nearly went over their handlebars to avoid the impatient driver.

The biker and I shared a glance of mutual "what the fuck was that" and went on with life.

Skyline was empty for me now, and I resumed playing with the corners - though mindful of potential oncoming vehicles overtaking bikers. I contemplated the impatient bike-passer and path-crosser people. I suspected that had there been no bikers at all and I was following either vehicle, both would have been as much an inconvenient impairment of my pace as either the group of bikers or waiting their turn to cross was for them. Because I'm smug like that.

It wasn't until later that I recognized the impatience for what it was. At the time, I mostly just thought that they were shitty drivers - members of a majority of humanity who are typically shitty drivers. But eventually I could see that the impatience wasn't about them being shitty drivers, rather they were driving shitty because of simple selfishness. Selfishness, especially for my time, is something I am very familiar with. And it doesn't just make us look shitty - it causes us to be shitty.

I don't want to be shitty. I need to cultivate more patience to address that.