You Should Maybe Change Your Socks

This piece appeared in Hokem Magazine, Issue 06.

Our heads were in our asses, clearly.

We sat on our bicycle seats and on recycled yoga mats and on city buses, thinking we were strong and maybe even spiritual and sipping at disposable coffee cups.

But there was a time when we worried about our socks. Were they too short? Were they too tall? They weren’t right. We knew they weren’t right. And then we’d remember we weren’t supposed to worry about our socks, because that’s stupid, and then we’d go back to worrying about our socks.

When you live in a constrictive culture, these are the things that occupy your mind.

Did you remember to move the arms of your glasses outside your helmet straps? You’d let a hand stray up from the bars to check. You’d close the gap, hold the line, take a reasonable pull on the front. You’d try to do it all right, because you were told there was a right way to do this thing.

The really insidious part is that we took these narrownesses we’d been given and inflicted them on others. We judged them as they rode by. We said snide shit to our friends.

In a constrictive culture, ironically, you want to be on the inside. Being on the inside is maybe the most important thing. It’s safe in there. You can relax into the not relaxing, bathe in the conformity. You might even try being smug.

Oh, but we were all so cute in our matching socks, with the arms of our glasses on the right side of our helmet straps, locked into pacelines of virtuous belonging.

And then reality, like your ‘70s dad behind the steering wheel, leaned back and said, “Cut the shit, or I’ll give you something existential to cry about.” The further irony, at least for me, is that all this started with a shiny new BMX in front of the Christmas tree, perched on its kickstand, the best toy ever. All of this shit over the right way to play with a toy.

While the world burns.