Now before you laugh, let me draw some threads through my theory here. In one respect (the respect most recently experienced), people tend to stare. If you have never seen a one legged before, it kind of catches your eye. If you have never seen a fully loaded bicycle or its rider before, you will be intrigued and probably take a second look.
I have, in the last 7 years of one-legged-ness, gotten used to gawkers; its kind of just comes with the territory. There's not really much I can do at this point to stop them besides grow it back (I'm working on this). However, that does not mean it does not affect me. A double take from a passer-by is one thing, but when people stop what they're doing to watch me, when they run into other people because they are no longer looking in front of them, when they very clearly gawk and still don't come up and talk to me, it kind of makes me feel like an animal in a zoo.
I really don't mind if people look. Its a thing to look at. Its actually a pretty weird and crazy thing. I cannot fault anyone for simply looking.
Again, its something that I have gotten used to, but it does tend to eat away at you after a while. Some days, I want to ask some of these people what the hell they think they are staring at. I am a human being, too, and I can probably quell some of your curiosity if you only come talk to me. I don't bite. I obviously know you have been looking at me: you aren't the first person to ever ask me about my leg. Its much more uncomfortable to have the elephant in the room.
Ross and I have been feeling like this lately in our recent National Park extravaganza. In the last week, we have been to Zion NP, Grand Staircase NM, Glen Canyon NRA, and Grand Canyon NP. Judging by what the people we have seen are looking at, we were the biggest attraction at all these places. In Death Valley, people stuck their entire upper bodies out of the windows of their RVs to take pictures of us biking through. At Grand Canyon, I counted at least 5 people who stopped to take pictures of our bikes when we weren't on them. Everybody points, I always see them, they always pretend they weren't pointing.
Again, its kind of a weird and crazy thing; for many people, it is a completely novel idea. Some can't even comprehend it. They ask ridiculous questions: "What do you do if it rains?" I get wet. "Do you sleep on the ground?" No, I have a tent and a sleeping bag. "What do you eat?" Sticks and rocks. What did you think? Real food, maybe? We are such an alien concept to some people that they truely treat us like aliens.
A look here or there is ok and expected. I cannot fault anyone for their curiosity (except the cat; always remember the cat, you curious people). But after a while, the constant gawking and visibile, thick, tense distance that strangers fabricate between us takes its toll. It strips your humanity away, little by little. When so many people treat you as a strange, foriegn, not-to-be-approached thing, it starts to get to you.
Now, I am a strong willed individual and people gawking at me for any number of strange things about me has never stopped me from doing them. I try to tell people this about my leg, and also, these days, about bicycle touring: we are people too. Even if we don't act like you or eat like you or look like you, even if we don't see eye to eye politically or vehicularly, even if we smell really bad from not showering, we are still people and we have feelings.
As per my last post, this is true of everyone, not just bicycle tourers and one-leggeds. We all have something to say. To think that some people could be somehow different enough as to be unapproachable is the greatest tragedy of modern society.
Talk to us. We probably have a lot to say about a lot of different things. We may enlighten you or challenge you or even prove ourselves ignorant of worldly truths in your eyes. But we will always at least return a "hello."
Itinerar-ily, we arrived in Flagstaff, AZ, on Novermber 2. Despite our best efforts to avoid winter, it caught up with us in the form of 6 inches of snow last night, with more potentially on the way. We are warm and dry for now, but the next few days pose interesting challenges. Tomorrow we will head south, with gumption. Sedona, the artist's community of Jerome, Lake Roosevelt and the warm promises of Phoenix and Tuscon are some of our next stops. We may even sneak over the boarder into Mexico and try to get some low wage labor.
New pictures are always being loaded, usually more often than I blog, so remember to look here.
Until next time, keep the greasy side down.
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