in spite of despair & bicycle face

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

- Anaïs Nin

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**The audio recording of this Morton Train is available to paid subscribers here.**

In the late 1800s, women in this country had limited rights and were physically constrained by corsets and ankle-length skirts. They were viewed as second class citizens in society and, for those who married, lived under the thumb of their husbands.

Then along came the bicycle craze.

Around 1890, the “safety bicycle” was invented, with a frame that accommodated women’s clothing. This sparked new fashions to be developed in order to even better accommodate the bicycle. Suddenly and remarkably, not only could a woman travel independently, she could do so wearing a looser corset, bloomers, and a calf-length skirt.

The suffragist icon, Susan B. Anthony, said of bicycling at the time: “I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel… the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”

Well guess what? A lot of men didn’t like that one bit. After all, a free woman was a threat to the status quo. So a scare tactic was developed to discourage women from daring to ride. Medical professionals (male, of course) warned women that they might develop a dangerously unattractive condition called “bicycle face.”

Because women, as they claimed, were “unfit for any exertion,” they were far more susceptible to bicycle face than men. A person with this horrible condition was described as "flushed, with an expression of weariness” and "characterized by a hard, clenched jaw and bulging eyes."

Not only could one’s face be permanently altered by riding, the bicycle was thought to overly sexualize and masculinize women, both considered abhorrent by polite society. And then came the mentions of a “mania” that “wheel women” developed, making them cruel and violent, “the result of the effect upon the nervous system of the intense exhilaration rapid riding brings about,” according to an 1897 article in the Los Angeles Herald.

These scare tactics did not ultimately succeed and the bicycle craze continued.

But I can’t help but wonder about those women, and there surely were many, who were scared away from riding, who believed the anti-bicycle propaganda, who didn’t dare assert themselves, as much as they may have wanted to.

I am especially in awe thinking about the women who believed the anti-bicycle propaganda but chose to ride anyway, the power of their desire surpassing the power of that fear.

***

Soon after turning 27, my heart broke when I wasn’t cast in a certain off-Broadway play. It was a job I really, really wanted, a job that I had come close to getting. This heartbreak followed a series of other such heartbreaks and catapulted me into the familiar despair that is particular to artists.

I remember sitting alone in my Brooklyn apartment and feeling such a strong need to exert my power over that despair. It was stubbornness, I suppose, but also curiosity. Like how could I, in that moment, prove to myself that I had agency over my life? Although I couldn’t choose to be in that play, I could choose to have a big exciting experience of some kind. I could choose to open up my world in some way.

That night I made a plan. I bought an Amtrak USA Rail Pass so that I could, when summer came along, travel the country by train. Sure, the fearful voices in me came up loudly: “This is irresponsible.” “You can’t afford this.” “You can’t do this alone.” “You’ll miss auditions and opportunities.” Etc. Etc. But my determination, thank goodness, was louder than the fear.

During that amazing six-week adventure, I spent some time in my hometown of Louisville. I spent a week with my grandmother in North Dakota. I visited California for the very first time, with friends showing me around both the Bay Area and Los Angeles. I trekked to another friend’s place in the mountains of New Mexico.

And in between the magnificent time spent with those people in those places, I sat alone on a moving train. Being anonymous and in motion, with my eyes on new vistas, I got to know myself - and see myself - in ways I hadn’t before.

Perhaps just like a woman riding on a bicycle did all those years ago.

***

In the movie Dead Poets Society, Professor Keating instructs the students in that very strict school to, one by one, hop up on his desk in order to get another view of the classroom. “We must constantly look at things in a different way,” he says. Some of the students are eager to take their turn on top of the desk and some are quite hesitant, afraid to break the unspoken rule that prohibits standing on furniture. But then they go and do it anyway.

***

It interests me where personal power and new perspectives come from. And how they can show up and surprise us when we least expect it. Even when we’re up against the dominating forces of propaganda and despair and unspoken rules.

Here we are now, in 2025, steeped in and surrounded by those dominating forces. Yet I’m noticing that individuals (and the collective) are discovering new powers and perspectives in spite of those forces.

You and I may not, on this particular day, hop on a bike or a train or up on a desk. But maybe by pondering some questions, we can set ourselves in motion, metaphorically or otherwise.

So here goes, some questions to ask ourselves:

• What is my version of bicycle face? Is their anything I believe to be true that might just be manipulative propaganda?

• What is my specific despair and what empowered actions can I take in spite of it?

• What unspoken rules do I follow and am I curious to break any of them?

• How can I actively seek a new perspective today?

I’ll leave you with those, dear reader.

Onward we go.

the open road somewhere | 2017