Are You Living It?

We recently did a limited run of Live Your Passion headsweats visors that were so popular at the Pacific Grove Triathlon that mounted police in riot gear showed up to quell the angry mob.  Here’s a grainy photo of one taken by the security camera in my coat closet:

Well, I love my visor (they are hard to come by, but if you want one, send me a confidential email and I will make some phone calls to see what I can do), but I do need to issue a warning.  I suppose it applies to all visors:

Visors can impede your vision of objects directly in front of and above your head, and can blur your perception of the distance that said objects are away from your head.

Case in point:

Last night, 7:04pm.  Running through the trees along the many dirt trails on the north side of Golden Gate Park:

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Loping along, feeling pretty good, music blaring in my ears, I emerged from one of the woodsy sections and prepared to cross the road before me. My visor was snugly absorbing sweat from my head–I like to wear it pulled down lower than how your typical visor-wearer might don it (a habit I am now willing to reconsider). Ten yards from the roadside there were still a few trees to dodge, but it was clear enough to see that no cars were coming from either direction. I accelerated to cross but then noticed a young couple approaching from my left on the sidewalk. I did a quick vector analysis and realized we would collide if I didn’t correct my course.

I veered right to safely go in front of them before running into the road.

The dark gray blankness above a visor-wearer’s line of sight becomes a visual nether-region, a void in which anything can happen to a visor-wearer who ignores the possibilities. It was in this nether-region that the final tree’s lowest limb struck my forehead.

The blow stunned me and stopped me in my tracks no more than three or four feet from the startled man and woman. I sort of doubled over, not from pain, but in the way you might after being randomly cold-cocked by a grocery store clerk. I sensed the two leaning forward to inquire as to my welfare, but I couldn’t see them because of my visor, now forced even further down on my head and covering my eyes.

I straightened up and raised my visor so I could see their faces. The woman mouthed something, something concerned yet cautious, the way you ask a total stranger if they’re “okay?” But I couldn’t hear her because the music from my earbuds was much too loud, so loud that I’m sure they could easily identify the band and the song, in fact I know they could.

(This part about the music adds something to the story, some humor I suppose, but I’m not yet ready to go into detail because of the embarrassment. I could see the look of recognition on these Good Samaritans’ faces as the music registered in their minds, even though I reckon it was from before their time. The album debuted during my eighth grade year and at the time really appealed to my burgeoning ‘appetite for destruction.’ Apparently it still does.)

I wasn’t hurt. But they didn’t know that, so I needed to assure them and let them go about their evening stroll. With my visor now properly adjusted, the music still blaring in my ears, I smiled sheepishly and looked them in their eyes. “I’m fine,” I said. Only problem was that the ruckus had so thrown me off that I broke the cardinal rule of listening to music through earphones… adjust your speaking volume

Apparently I yelled, “I’M FINE!!!” because they both recoiled a bit, glanced quickly at each other, and then walked around me, offering a wider than normal berth.

There I stood. It was one of those moments where there was no question or shadow of doubt as to the magnitude of fool I had made of myself. I laughed, pushed the forward button on my iPod a few times, and ran across the street, back into the woods.

by James Schaffer