After a few days away, I returned to exercising and biking while attempting to forge a new trail away from Lady Bird Lake. Since blogging about historic East Austin, I decided to ride through its less familiar parts.
One of the things about getting back on track is the body's adjustment to lifting, running, pushing, pulling, or haranguing by will or force through the exercise. If you were like me, I was a junior league, weekend warrior during my young adulthood and former high school and college athlete.
In my mind's eye, without fail, I still approach exercise as a warrior seeking the next fight . . . with myself. I want to challenge my body and approach each event like a climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro. This is the problem . . . : My body and mind do not work together. My mind pushes, but my body pulls.
So, as I hit each hill, my legs start pumping up the hill with my mind focused on cutting up the distance into pieces, creating mental markers, approaching each one, and doing a happy dance for each small accomplishment. As I finished the third or forth, maybe fifth East Side hill, I noticed my legs started sending messages back to the brain relaying the note from my muscles, "What the hell are you doing?"
As if my muscles decided to have a sit in and Occupy My Legs revolution, protesting inhumane treatment,
they failed to respond to my desire to make it up the next hill. So, I pressed on with gold plates weighing each leg down as I cycled through Mississippi mud.
For one or two miles, I struggled with my legs that seemed to have a mind of their own. I relished the down hill rest periods allowing my legs a quiet comfort and my breathing to return to normal. Around mile five, I was fortunate to find that a peace accord was agreed when as my legs returned. Unfortunately, I really could not feel them past the burning sensation that shot up across the top of my thighs.
On the last leg approaching my home, I rode in determined to remind my body who was in charge. Yes, I pushed my body a bit more than I should have, but I was not going to be a prisoner to legs unwilling to cooperate. So, I pushed it up another series of gradual hill that was about three miles nearly straight up.
I took a deep breathe, cleared my mind a bit reflecting on the mix of shotgun, modern, and classic southern homes throughout East Austin. I thought about how gentrification has allowed the prices of property to go out of the reach of many African and Hispanic American families unable to retain their homes or more willing to sell their properties for a profit, which would be hard to avoid accepting.
I thought also about my contribution to gentrification. I'd like to think of my role as positive gentrification, if there is such a thing. The truth is a high concentration of poverty is not good. Gentrification passively helps to bring a mix of incomes into one community to break up the high level of poverty.
Part of the problem is also people of color not being able to keep their properties in light of high taxes outside their ability to afford them. Next door to their older home is a new home twice the price with three stories, which makes their property value higher and out of their ability to pay.
Yes, old home property owners can make a profit by selling their home, but the problem is that the community of Black and Hispanic people leave their historic place after being forced to reside their decades prior. The businesses and East Side charm is replaced with outsiders coming in changing their community without any serious consideration to the needs or wants of the current residents. The challenge is that an increasing number of the residents are not Black or Hispanic. It's another change in tides.
I desire to remain as long as it satisfies my needs. While here, I'd like to make a positive contribution and be involved with each constituency that shares in the vitality of East Austin. I do wish more African and Hispanic Americans would seriously consider moving back or come to East Austin. The cost may be prohibitive to many; however, if you are willing to take advantage of close proximity of downtown and an urban experience contrary to the ideal of suburban ideals, then East Austin is the place to be.
On my porch, I stood for the first time on my bike, each leg was tired. I also felt good, a painful oh, so good feeling. I was glad to be out there. Walking was tentative as I weakly came to my bedroom. For a moment, I wasn't sure if I really did win. I did win, because I did something, got out there, and made it much further than I would have just weeks prior. I did win.
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