Winter in Vancouver can make even the most enthusiastic Vancouverite question their decision to live in what is admittedly – a rainforest. Endless rain. Short, sunless days turn us pale and vampiric. We become a bit like sun-starved zombies who thirst for sunlight like vampires crave blood. Even our eyes become sensitive to light when the rainclouds dissipate slightly long enough for the slightest brightness to shine through the greyness. One day, in the midst of one of these classic dreary, grey, Vancouver days; I experienced a little bit of everyday magic that makes life beautiful. Let me tell you a tale about my Angry Guardian Angel and the lesson it taught me about perception.
One December evening, I was riding my bike and my rear bike tire slipped into one of the sketchy old rail tracks that crisscrossed one of the city streets. Down I went. The fall wasn’t too bad, my left hip and right palm (somehow) took the brunt of the impact. Given it seemed like a fairly harmless fall, most people just went along their way as I got up and tried to right my bike. A single car stopped and the driver got out to check on me. I was 20% disoriented and 200% embarrassed by my fall, and insisted that I was fine, and could manage. Embarrassingly, I was too flustered to be able to right my bike quickly enough to avoid the stranger coming to help me get out of the way of traffic – so I grudgingly accepted his help. I took a closer look at the person trying to help me and I realized I had met him months earlier, in entirely different circumstances.
About two months earlier, I was riding in the same area, and I didn’t have my bike lights. It was autumn, and I had forgotten how quickly it got dark at night. I passed a car as a man in a safety vest was getting out, and he started to yell at me about how I wasn’t visible and took off his safety vest and shook it at me asking me if I wanted to take it. I was very taken aback. The man sounded angry, and I was worried that he was one of those people who had an ideological problem with cyclists. I did not pause to find out. I rode away as quickly as I could. I later vented to Jens about how upset I was about the confrontation. Jens joked that maybe the guy really did want to give me his safety vest. I thought about it for a second but I was like – no way. Who would actually do that?
Flash forward two months, as I stood in the headlights of the man’s vehicle I immediately recognized him, and I realized that he recognized me as well. I could not believe what was happening. This man, who two months before I believed to have been accosting me on my bicycle was here helping me. There was only kindness and concern, after he helped me right my bike, pick up my bike light (which got knocked off during the fall – thankfully, I was fully illuminated this time) and asked me a few questions to make sure I was ok. Then he then took off his safety vest and handed it to me and told me he had seen me riding around and I should really take the vest. I couldn’t believe it. He actually DID want to give me the safety vest off his back last time. He was likely upset last time because he actually was concerned about my safety last time – me – a total stranger!
I normally would never accept anything from a stranger – but given this was the second time he has tried to give me his safety vest – and if only to commemorate the serendipitous nature of this encounter, I decided to take the man up on his offer and take the safety vest this time. As I went on my way, I couldn’t help but think about the magic of what I had just experienced, and catalog some lessons too. Firstly, I vowed to wear the safety vest as much as possible when riding my bicycle. Maybe meeting this man twice – was a sign from the universe that I ought to be more cognisant of visibility when I ride my bike. I also took the vest to commemorate this series of events. Every time I wear the vest, I’ll not only be safer, but I’ll also remember the story behind how I got the vest, and remember not to be so quick to judge others; to remember that there are genuinely good people out there; and to remember what a blessed life I live that even someone I had thought was upset at me, was actually upset at me because they were worried about my safety, and actually wanted to help me.
I rode home on a high that night, even though my hip and hand smarted. What are the chances I would have seen this person again and that I would be proven so happily wrong about my initial impressions about him? Even more so, how lucky am I to encounter him this second time, finding him to lending a helping hand – which I admittedly needed – and yes, also a bright orange and yellow safety vest – as an olive branch of human kindness. Even on the greyest days, and in the most embarrassing of circumstances, life can create episodes of magic.