Yoga-Envy, Bike-Smug & How to Salt Food

There’s something serene, along with a sprinkling of smug, about people who practice yoga. They laud the benefits—“Doing yoga has saved my back.” “I’m no longer stressed.”

Self Portrait With Bike

Self Portrait With Bike

If I had the patience to do yoga, I’d also have the attention span to meditate, read the New Yorker and maybe even drive more.

On the other hand, I’m like the yoga folks when it comes to bicycling. I too often wax smugly about the thrill of breezes in my face and never having to deal with rush hour traffic or the search for a parking space. I stay fit and it takes barely more time to get anywhere by bike compared to auto, sometimes less.

Admittedly, biking requires a degree of flexibility about arriving at your destination with wet circles on the underarms of your shirt.

In the winter, when the temperature is in single digits, many bikers hang up their handlebars and I find myself among a reduced population of peddalers.

“I don’t get it,” I say. “You would ski in this weather as well as sit motionless on a ski lift.”

Chill, not chilled, on a ski lift

Chill, not chilled, on a ski lift

As for environmental benefits of biking, I accept praise for my smaller footprint, though I confess it has much to do with my disdain for the experience of being behind the wheel of my car, whose battery dies and underbody rusts as a result of remaining stationary in front of my house.

The only drivers I can sort of relate to are those who have soothing rides during which they listen to books on tape.

But I then I remember I have no patience for keeping track of a book’s multiple cd’s or even uploading cd’s to my iPod and then figuring out how to find where I last left off.

Instead, while biking, I listen to NPR and learn things like, you should salt your food right before eating for maximum flavor, because salt releases aroma that enhances taste. If you salt while cooking that aroma disperses into the air rather than into your olfactory senses.

How did I get to salt from where I started with smug yogis and biking? It’s like that game where you start with a word, say, “bike.” And you change one letter at a time—bile, bale, sale—and end up with “salt.”

I used to phone my mom while biking. We’d chatter during a 40-minute ride about the news, the family, Oprah and books, while I pedaled home up a long dark hill after making dinner for my friend whose leg was shattered when a car knocked her off her bicycle in broad daylight.

Sometimes I call a friend while biking, who says, “You shouldn’t talk on the phone while biking.”

I’m careful, I say, I ride on the sidewalk and I pause to look both ways at driveways. Plus my bike and I are a Christmas tree of reflectors and blinking lights.

If I think about how I could get hit by a car while biking, my stomach flips, but once I mount the seat I feel as calm and free as a yogi.

How do you achieve a biker’s high, a yogi’s calm?

Mother’s Day is May 12 . . . Here’s a gift idea:

LOTS ABOUT MARRIAGE, RELATIONSHIPS AND MORE IN MY NEW MEMOIR . . .

Confessions of a Worrywart: Husbands, Lovers, Mothers, and Others                                                  Check it out on Amazon.com, Kindle, and Smashwords

Here’s one of many Amazon 5-star reviews (admittedly the below is from my first boyfriend–in ninth grade):

I couldn’t wait to read this book. Susan [Fishman] Orlins was my first girlfriend. I knew that if this book was anything like her, it would be funny, honest, offbeat, clever, and unpredictable. It was all this and more not to mention artfully written. Towards the end she sees herself channeling Auntie Mame , to me, it reads more like Nora Ephron channeling Sarah Silverman…A witty writer telling about a wickedly funny and irrepressible character. Lest the phobic and neurotics out there think they are buying this book for the comfort of reading about one of themselves…this book is an inspiration to ignore your hangups and grab life by the horns [even if you have to wipe them down with clorox wipes first] and going for it. In the end she finds herself in search of Susan Fishman. From what I can see she’s still there and always was. She’s the girl from junior high school [albeit minus one hip]…the same unforgettable unique character that men or women will love reading about. Go Suzie!

 

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