The Wiggle
You don't have to be exceptionally strong. You just have to know how to wiggle along.
“How hard is the climbing?” I asked the guide. I tried to sound casual, which is my default mode when I am about to undertake an athletic adventure for which I feel underqualified (e.g. all of them).
Steve and I had signed up for a bike tour of San Francisco, from Bay to Observatory and beyond, and I was nervous. After all, San Francisco’s whole brand identity is steep, and since my core brand identity is slow, I was having serious performance anxiety. I kept picturing me and my bike stranded on Lombard Street, panting and wheezing, while jocks in spandex snorted at me from the top of the climb and Steve reconsidered his marital choices.
Bike tours have always been our favorite way to explore new terrain. I love the adventure and the athleticism, the way that you’re working hard but moving fast, and you can stop in an instant to look at any wild thing you want. But my love for cycling is always in competition with my fear that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the crowd, that I would expose or shame myself in some way. It’s a constant conflict for me: I love adventures but I am eternally worried that my enthusiasm has outstripped my ability.
This wasn’t true when I was a kid. When I was a kid, I threw myself into everything with total joy. I was always the first one to try a zipline, or sign up for Outward Bound on my week off from work, or move to New York City after college knowing a grand total of one (1) person.
But as I got older, I got more nervous about taking risks. In this way, I am like everyone; the part of our brain that can tolerate risk taking shrinks as we get older (this is science); and the part of our brain that obsesses over potential shame and suffering gets much larger (this is my personal experience).
I was becoming a person who fretted constantly over being ashamed, over failing. And those two sides of me were in constant conflict. It was holding me back.
A story had taken root in my mind, and it was a story that played on a constant loop whenever I tried something new.
You’re probably going to suffer a lot.
You’re quite likely going to embarrass yourself.
What makes you think you’re strong enough for this?
“The climbing isn’t that hard at all,” said the guide, but he was twenty something, six foot four, and he rode bicycles across San Francisco for a living. I didn’t trust him, and my expression probably showed that.
“No, really,” he said, with a grin. “There’s a secret. Wait and see.”
I didn’t understand how he could have come up with a secret that changed geography, but I resigned myself to suffering and public shame, and off we went.
I bicycled all the way around San Francisco from the Triangle Fire to Ghiradelli’s Chocolate to the Gay Rights Monument to the Full House opening credit sequence where we were invited to stop and take a picture of ourselves frolicking on the grass, and I realized how old my husband is when he was like what now?
I bicycled all that way and never once felt out of breath. Never once felt like I was struggling. Never once suffered.
What’s the secret?
It’s called the Wiggle.
The Easy Way Up
The Wiggle is a bike path that runs through the center of San Francisco. It is a magic path, designed to guide the cyclist from ocean to summit with nothing more than a steady gentle climb. The Wiggle is used by thousands of cyclists every day, from tourists like me to regular commuters.
The guide told me the very simple premise behind the Wiggle, the way you could follow it even without a sign.
“Whenever you get to an intersection,” he said, “You just move in the gentlest possible direction. Take the easiest way up.”
What I find particularly interesting is the origin of the Wiggle.
The Wiggle was originated by the Indigenous women in the region, who had to walk it daily: over the mountain to the Bay, to gather and return water. These women followed the natural curve of the mountain, and wore a trail that naturally followed the gentlest route to the top.
Whenever the terrain shifted sharp uphill, they shifted course, and took a gentler path. This is how most trails are formed, by the way. The best roads are the ones that follow the natural course of the terrain, and you know who you can trust to find the course most effectively?
Cows.
In a research project where a computer algorithm designed a trail network over a terrain that had previously been mapped by cattle, the cattle trail was found to be more efficient and naturally sustainable. The cows were smarter than the computers, because the cows followed one simple rule: what is the gentlest next step to take?
Cows, horses, ants, all animals, over time, will naturally find the most sustainable, intelligent trail to follow. And animals will always, naturally, look for the easiest way up. The terrain in life, it turns out, will often be more amenable than we think, if we follow its natural course.
The Wiggle changed my story about adventures, and other things too.
How To Wiggle
Since the Wiggle, Steve and I have had so many adventures, cycling and other kinds, too. We’ve ridden through Diagon Alley in London, and we’ve nearly caused a security incident by forgetting a backpack at the fence of Kensington Palace. We’ve ridden over a mountain pass in the Lofoten Islands of Norway in the rain, stayed in old cod fisherman cabins, and made the waiter laugh by asking if the fish soup was fresh.
I’m still slow. I will always be slow. I still get passed by runners on long hard climbs. I’m still going to be the one who falls down at first opportunity. This is just part of my cycling story.
But I’ve come to accept that it’s not the only part of my cycling story. I love adventures, and I don’t want to be too scared to have them anymore. It’s also true that while I am slow, I am resilient. You’ll never hear me complain about how long the climb is taking
(I do admit to occasionally planning Steve’s death, quietly in my head, when I think he has led me astray, like the time he took me on a new trail called Homestead and promised it was easy and to this day that trail is known in our house as Hardstead and I never walk on it without laughing.)
But I try, even in these pages I am reminding myself to try, to not let the fear of failure hold me back from all the adventures that the world has to offer, on the bicycle and in other places.
I am trying to remember how simple it is, how simple it has always been, to flourish, no matter what.
I am trying to remember, I am always trying to remember, that when you’re tackling something really hard, whether or not you’re on a bike, you might psych yourself out if you think about how steep it’s going to be, and how much you’re going to suffer. Because sometimes life is steep, and sometimes you suffer, but much more often than you think, when you’re standing at a crossroads and you aren’t sure which way to go, you just have to follow the advice from the guide, and the Indigenous women who carried the water, and the animals who followed the natural terrain.
Which is the gentlest way up?
Which way is the terrain inviting me to travel?
Sometimes, to flourish, no matter what, it’s that simple. Point your bike in the direction you're longing to go, and wiggle.
I am impressed that you would even attempt to do it! You are much braver than me.
And you were talking about changing as we get older and I was thinking that was because we finally got some common sense. I know that was very true for me because when I was young, I would do so many dangerous things. 😂
I LOVE this! I often ask myself, “What’s the worst that can happen?” and, realistically, the potential benefits usually far outweigh the potential risks. Keep on peddling!! ❤️