I love bicycles. From the sheer freedom of the ride to the aesthetic of a purposefully functional design, I’ve had a lifelong love affair with the two-wheeled glory.

With youthful memories of careening down lakeshore paths and sidewalks on a rusty red CCM, receiving my first non-hand-me-down bike with a banana seat and butterfly handlebars, and discovering increased acceleration with my first 10-speed (Apollo brand; a thing of beauty), each of my bikes has marked another stage of life.

The first poem I remember writing in grade school began with the line ‘Bicycles, tricycles, velocipedes’. I can’t recall the rest of the verse, but I do know it was written about the time I discovered the thesaurus.

It has always been more than transportation for me. As a teenager, the bike served as off-season training for a competitive alpine skier. There is also a certain romance to the bicycle, exemplified by a high school girlfriend who shared the same affinity. I remained true to the two wheels, even after several serious accidents, broken bones, and more than a few outbreaks of road rash.

I didn’t bring a bike with me when I moved from another province, but this summer may be time to get back in the saddle.

There is a tremendous circuit of bike trails and paths throughout Toronto, and soon to be more. Maybe. City council is debating a long stretch of pavement, unencumbered by streetcars, which will further link existing routes. Unfortunately, the plan also seriously reduces on-street parking in the area, and will hinder traffic at peak periods.

I believe in bike lanes. More so, I believe bike lanes are necessary in this car-centric city (or any urban environment on this continent). It is all about safety, and it has been a growing concern for decades. Years ago cars and bikes could inhabit the same roads, quite easily. Then both cars and bikes got faster, and the numbers increased. At some point the animosity grew between the two factions. We now have far too much road rage. It happens all the time, and happens year round.

Now I have a lot of respect for those committed cyclists who pass on the gas guzzling vehicles the majority of us rely on to get to and from work. Bless the bastards who shun the environmental hazards and ride through the sleet and snow, navigating the ruts and drifts of a snowstorm, thumbing a nose or waving a finger to inclement weather (bonus points to those Winnipeg cyclists who take on the -40 prairie temperatures).

But curse the confused; the riders who, without a light or helmet or common sense, weave through traffic on the icy roads at night with a bag of groceries on each handlebar. Damn the careless souls who give cyclists a bad name; those who exhibit little care about safety for themselves or others.

The bicycle lanes being proposed here, and in others cities, address the need for safety that planners of the modern roadways of North America have been blind to. Quite simply, cars and bikes cannot co-exist on the roads they way they exist right now. There needs to be lanes that give cyclists a place, and drivers the space, without concerns.

A lot of talk centers around the dangers a car presents to a bike, but there needs to be greater caution on the part of the cyclists as well. Yes, bicycles have the same rights to the road as a car, but they must also operate under the same rules. A rolling stop at an intersection is the same for a car as it is for bike; it is not a stop. It is, technically, illegal. As is weaving through traffic, or not signaling turns and lane changes (a problem with both bikes and cars).

Bike lanes, on so many points, go a long way towards reducing both concerns and the conflict. Yes, the lanes might slow traffic slightly, but they will keep people moving safely along the path.

It was only a bagel.

Well, not a real bagel; it wasn’t a Montreal boiled bagel, or one of my favorites from Winnipeg’s City Bread, but it was what was available. It was one of those franchise bagels, one of the many baked items available 24/7, from the outlets that dot this country.

It was ‘bagel-like’. It did have a hole in the middle (not to be confused with the many styles of donuts offered) and it was soft in that chewy sort of way, flecked with sesame seeds, toasted lightly, and slathered in cream cheese. Often a bagel is my breakfast or lunch default; a convenient item to take away hunger pangs.

I will pop into one of the outlets on my way to the office. It is convenient. It satisfies. It will do. It is, however, a continual source of irritation as it is never done quite right.

I usually order on the fly, with big cup of take-out coffee. You have to wait, yes, but not too long before they hand you a crisply folded paper bag. While waiting you even have the opportunity to watch the employee with food-safe plastic-glove-covered hands spread portion controlled cream cheese onto the bagel halves, close the top, cut, and then fold up the envelope in the tried and tested method trained to each employee.

Sometimes I’ll eat at one of the tables on location, occasionally in the car, but most often back at the office where I unwrap the well-wrapped item and sit with my coffee.

There the frustration begins, for as much as each step in preparing the bagel is seemingly followed precisely to franchise quality standards, they never (well hardly ever) cut the bagel properly.

Yes, it is sliced down the middle, but the cut never goes deep enough. One edge, or one piece of one side of the bagel, remains affixed to the other side, so when you go to pick up the half you intend to eat, the other side comes with it.

Of course, then it gets messy as you take the other hand, the one you hadn’t intended on using — the one that is often brandishing a pencil or steadying the page of a book — and you have to use it to pull the item into two pieces. It never comes apart easily, often the top half will slide off or the cream cheese dabs a finger, and you need to pull harder with each hand and the bagel splits into three pieces. Or four.

It is no longer convenient, nor as appetizing, as you have to lick any stray cream cheese off each digit, or wipe it away with the conveniently provided napkin. What a waste.

Now, the knife used to cut the bagel has to be sharp enough, the other 7/8ths of the slice is near perfect. And the employee doing said slicing seemed to do it right; steadying the bagel with one glove-covered hand, assuming the firm ‘gotta-slice-this-correctly’ posture, and then committing to a full motion slice. But it never (well hardly ever) works.

It’s not until you sit down to eat that you realize the slicer was simply going through the motions, and the job is not complete. It’s not one particular employee that does this, for I have been to several locations, which leads me to believe it is a systemic company-wide issue. It’s like they are so busy getting on to the next order that they rush through all that needs to be done. In this case it does not get done, not completely. It’s like the goal of providing a quality product dies on the cutting table.

I know many of us multi-task, and we often have so many things on our plate at the same time, but I also know that if the tasks at hand are not done properly, there are always ramifications.

We can’t simply go through the motions and expect our inadequacies will go unnoticed. If something is important enough to do, it should be done right, or well . . . or not at all. It should be up to the expected standards, but mostly up to the standards expected of oneself.

It’s only right. It is about taking pride in what you do. Whether you are working in a donut shop, installing windows in a magnificent glass and steel condominium, producing copy for your website, or selling stocks and bonds to a valued client list, you’ve got to care more about what you produce. Doing something right, or just rushing through a task, is the difference between quality and inferiority. It is only right to do the best you can do with what you are doing.

There is a major difference between something done right, and leaving something almost done. It might be a case of not formatting something correctly, or leaving that last little bit for later and then never getting around to it. We all know what it is like to rush through something.

We all should slow down, just a bit. Sometimes you only have one chance to make it right. If not carried out properly, you will be remembered not for how good you were, but for how difficult you can be.

© 2016 j.g. lewis
“A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristics of Quality”
                                                                                                                                                      ― Robert M. Pirsig
                                                                                                                                     Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

          When does a wave become a wave and when
                       is it only water                    When does a thought
             become an idea or                   when is it simply fodder for            creations and goals
                      is it only a dream                 when is          what is
                                       just as it seems
                                 If you know          what you know         and still can’t see through
                do you wait and    only wonder if there is more       you       can       do
                                       Where are the signs you have got it all wrong
                if you think through the process         and it seems too far gone
                             Who can decide if you can’t see your self
                   What can you say when there is no one        to tell
                           Does blood in the vein know you exist
                 will the heart continue beating          beyond the eclipse         Can August as
                              we know it         ever spill into June
                                          and how can forever       feel       like it is soon
                                 How could we tell through the sun-drenched illusions
                         Why would I stop you
                                                                 from jumping
                                                                                      to conclusions
                        When does a breath become a sharp gasp                and how
                                                   will you know if it will be your last
                                  So little is written                   and so much is said
                                      you can’t pull it together        nor find a thread         of truth
                                beyond passion                    a sole purpose you know
                                                 How can you be sure when you say it is so
                                           Do you take words at face value         can you
                                                     know what they mean
                                                you speak them so often                  just like it seems
                    science keeps trying to convince us                     the sun will get hotter
                          Will it bring us more waves             or
                                                                                         bring us
                                                                                   more water
                                                                                             ?

© 2016 j.g. lewis

                                                        

                                   Rhythm and pattern easily obscured, it’s what you feel,
                                   not what is heard. Polyphonic syncopation,                     bass line
      holds the inspiration                 well before anticipation, a rush of melody pushes
            to the fore                              you hear it again, but never have before.
                        Rim shot crack
            cymbals crash,
                    the beat is burning, and falls
                    like ash.                                      It marches and it swings,
                                                                         like laughter, it is tears.
                          Emotionally charged, by no means irreverent, it suddenly switches gears.
             History more than the future, a time though, never passed.
             As definite as prayer,
             cool as a sweaty glass.                             Full moon rising
                                                                                  heroin highs
                                                                                  the music lives on
                                                                                  the player only dies.
Straight up from the psyche, deep down in the core, no matter the decade,
more than less though less is more.                                Solo piano
                   full of vigor                            the notes interpret all you have known.
                   Time signature changes, on a dime, or rolled up bill, the rhythm method,
                   it comes from the gut
                   no matter how it is played or how it is cut.                        Free form.
It is life, it is living, it is solid, it is forgiving. As simple or as complex as a saxophone riff,
no four-chord progressions.                         Never boring.                                  Never stiff.
Wholly original, as much as it is copied, and studied, sweated over, with notes cast asunder, improvisation,              muddied by emotion
                                        perpetual motion,          realization, over and under.
                  Though practiced                 it is free, it is glossy, and messed up, so dirty it is clean.
Quietly you dream, completely obsessed.                           A blue note cries out
                                                                                                       to lovers
                                                                                                       and all the others,
calmer, smoother sounds, longer linear melodic lines, you don’t listen as much
               as you go for a ride.                           Off the charts,
it’s art and it’s plastered with culture,
a contradiction not comprehensible, it is not responsible
                                              should you dream a life totally possessed.
More about attitude than instrument of choice, the minor keys and major chords create it’s own noise. Structured silence played oh-so-slow in parts of deep reflection, blood rushing through the vein, it steps back then it rises up, triumphantly, again. Again
and again, and again.
                         Only a genre is to say night is just darkness, or a day is but a year,
        it goes down easy with dinner, or a six pack of beer, seedy downtown club
        or a scratchy vinyl disc
it comes with a purpose, arrives full of risk. It nourishes the soul from a rhythm, whatever it has,                  whatever it be
                                                     we should all live like jazz.

© 2016 j.g. lewis

 

l

Circumstance may take you there,      though time
will not wait. Music louder today than yesterday,
its velocity peeling off the walls,
a madness only eighties metal can muster.
Cocksure and belligerent, intended for simple minds
with little reason and less soul.
Barely enough bodies to suck up the sound,
less people and a lesser me. Less alcohol,
shades of last night’s dose amplify the
sounds. Smells like teen spirit, or even my youth.
This bar, once familiar, hosts that wretched stench.
Been here more the last two days, than the past two decades.
The rhythm is the same, the mood the same, it feels the same.
I felt it. For a moment, last night, as some wickedly-fit kid
spit out lyrics of love, regret, or injustice and yearning,
chocking the guitar like he meant it.
The vengeance of the volume did not go unnoticed.
I was here. So was she.
Last night. And back today.
Seen her more the past two days than the last two decades.
Or three. It was nothing then, as nothing goes,
and nothing now. 
Nothing changes if nothing changes.
I have. She had. Changed.
The hourglass figure running out
of time. Eyes black as revenge, a voice now bitter.
You can only reminisce so long, then talk about
nothing and how it has changed. The music was loud,
louder than it was. Then.
Music, fashionable as it was before now.
Nothing changes.

ll

We talked, between songs, or shouted
and laughed an unfamiliar laugh. When we could.
Not a lot to do but listen and drink, and curse.
Dance. Or sweat.
This place smelled just like then: beer-stained carpet
and generations of perfume, cheap dope,
hormones, and industrial-strength cleaner.
Dirty
rock and roll. 
She came back tonight. Like it was all
she had to do. Like it meant something.
Last night we danced.
Nothing else to do, but drink
and sweat, and dance.
We last danced 33 years ago, she whispered.
Decades ago.
She danced the same, her scent the same, it
wasn’t the same. I wasn’t the same.
My T-shirt no longer ripped, or cheap. It stuck to me.
We talked, or shouted.
She moved. Closer. As she did
she whispered, or shouted
to be heard. She had
to be heard.
I knew nothing of
where she had been or what
she had done.
She knew
more about me, than I admitted
I knew
about her.

lll

Decades on.
Heavy eyes, dark shadows like her hair. Like
she always dyed her hair,
before for fashion, now to hide the reality.
The unquiet circling her eyes only hinted
of her time
or her temptations.
She danced, she pressed closer,
ignoring the noise, confronting the noise,
then said
take anything you want from me.
Or something like that.
Or it sounded like that,
or it might have been a song
in my head. It might have been
what I wanted to hear. It was loud.
I couldn’t take. Not from her,
not what I wanted.
Already she had been taken,
too many times.
Taken advantage of, taken
for a ride or for a fool, taken for granted.
I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. 
Three decades
takes a lot to forget, more to remember.
I went back tonight. So did she.
The place smelled just like always, stale with time, the rot
of ten-million cigarettes, and carpet soaked with memory.
I have been here more than I care to remember.
Take anything you want.
It takes a lot to forget.

© 2014 j.g. lewis