I was very angry when I was younger.  For some reason I thought I had to save the world.  I thought that an injustice against one was an injustice against me and I walked around with a chip on my shoulder.  I had a rage that burned inside when something would seem unfair, and beyond reason or argument that rage would flare up with such force I was no longer able to argue with words.  All I could do was have a fight in my head and screaming inside my heart, but what actually came out were just tears.  I was always too angry to speak, and would storm off in frustration.

Fortunately, I have grown up a little since then; I am still passionate but I don’t personalize everything.  So for example, a discussion on my son’s misbehavior by his teacher is not an attack on my parenting skills but rather an attempt to help a child through something that is bothering him.

Anger is the other side of the coin of fear, and once I let go of the fear then anger has no place … no cause.   I used to be extraordinarily fearful.  Fearful of what you thought of me.  Was I funny enough, smart enough, pretty enough?  Was I what you wanted me to be so you could like me?  To hide these fears, anger came in like a cozy blanket that could cover all of that up.  Fortunately, I grew up here too … and my fears tend to be based more on reality than on what someone else thinks of me.

Yet I must admit that as I get involved with bike advocacy in my community, these tendencies sneak up on me.  I am not well versed in engineering, traffic management, community organization and don’t feel like I am necessarily a great rider.  But I do want to do something to affect change in my community when it comes to cycling.  You can read about it here.  I took a step, I chose to be active on this front and it is becoming a wonderful opportunity for growth.I am working on an initiative called Bike Key Biscayne .  The purpose of this initiative is to designate my community, Key Biscayne, a bike friendly community by the League of American Bicyclists who state: A Bicycle Friendly Community welcomes cyclists by providing safe accommodation for cycling and encouraging people to bike for transportation and recreation. Simple enough.  Yet this simple, innocuous goal puts me directly in a firing line.  On the one hand, there are those who tell me that would mean that THEY as residents of Key Biscayne have to change their habits or ACCOMMODATE who they deem as “arrogant cyclists” that pour onto the Key during the weekends.  On the other, there are those who tell me that THEY, the cyclists, have every right to ride in Key Biscayne and the Rickenbacker Causeway and people should just deal with that.  Frankly, neither attitude is helpful, and here is where my growing up has to show up.

I take a step back and realize this is not about me.  I am not in the business of defending “THEM” to “YOU” or “YOU” to “THEM” and I have to learn how to not get sucked into that role.  What I am in the business of is creating a WE and connecting these seemingly opposing groups who, if they would just be a tad more open minded, would see there is more in common than not.

In the end, we all want the same things.

Any wonder why people want to ride here? Everyone wants to be safer and feel less threatened on the road.  Everyone wants to be able to drive or ride with relative ease.  Everyone wants the law to be respected.   This a great starting point if we only let go of that self-righteous US and THEM tag we carry as identifiers.In the end, we all have a right to be here and we all have a responsibility to follow the rules that keep us all safe.

In order to navigate the commentary unscathed, I have to remember that I am not an expert on any of this nor do I intend to be.  I can ask questions without the fear of sounding ignorant, because there are a lot of things I don’t know.  Things that might sound obviously preposterous to you, may not be so obvious to me.  If I let go of the fear of what you think of me then I won’t get angry trying to protect myself.

I don’t have a solution to the bike safety issues in Key Biscayne that I am advocating for and wanting you to buy into.  The engineering and legal issues are complex and people who are much more knowledgeable than me are working on it.  Designating Key Biscayne as a Bike Friendly Community should not be such a contentious issue.  It is about how we view cycling and if you walk around here, you see kids going to school, people commuting, families going to restaurants, all on their bikes.  It does not mean giving into THEM the cyclists, it doesn’t mean losing some imaginary battle that has been going on for years.  We can all be equally territorial, arrogant, and self-righteous.  We can all be equally angry and fearful.  Or we can all equally have the guts to change and broaden our vision to a future that is healthier and safer for all.