There are a lot of reasons to take care of something — like a plant, or a car or a house. It can be a source of purpose or passion or peace or simple satisfaction. Today we’re exploring how taking care of something can be a form of self-care.

Host Anna Borges talks with Jené Etheridge — music producer, DJ, community organizer, and an avid cyclist — about how caring for her bike Butter feeds her mental health.

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Full Transcript

Anna Borges: There’s this old book that I’m willing to bet at least some of you found formative. It’s called The Care and Keeping of You.

MUSIC

And I hope some of you just went OH, THAT BOOK, but you know for the uninitiated, The Care and Keeping of You is this illustrated American Girl guidebook and it was the first real introduction a lot of us got to our bodies and how to take care of them. It covered everything from how to sit when inserting a tampon to you know proper armpit shaving technique.

Legions of preteens referred to that book like a user's manual, myself included. You know, learning as much as we could about maintaining these weird changing bodies that we did not know the first thing about. Understanding what was going on with my body and like the ins and outs in taking care of it made me feel — I mean I don’t want to oversell it but it did — it made me feel like confident and grown up and empowered, or at least more capable of handling the horrors of middle school such as like changing in the locker room and wondering why my boobs looked so much different than everyone else's.

These days, I’m kind of still chasing that high if I'm honest. Like shockingly, huh-huh, taking care of myself as an adult is hardly as satisfying as The Care and Keeping of You once had me believe.

MUSIC FADE OUT

But as I grew up, I did discover that there are a lot of other things that I can take care of, other than myself, and some of them even come with the step-by-step instructions that I was craving. And it turns out, the care and keeping of something else can be as satisfying as the care and keeping of us.

THEME MUSIC

Hey, I’m Anna Borges, and this is Mood Ring, a practical guide to feelings even when you’re feeling less than capable of taking care of yourself.

I’ve probably said “care” enough times for you to get that we’re talking about care today. Care for ourselves. Care for some thing. And caring for ourselves by way of caring for that something.

If you haven’t guessed, I’m on the lookout for something new to take care of because honestly I have not been that great of a job at taking care of myself lately. And sometimes, when we lose trust in our ability to take care of ourselves, I don't know, we need to find ways to prove to ourselves that we still can.

THEME MUSIC FADE OUT

At least, that’s where I'm at lately. There are a lot of reasons to take care of something for our mental health, whether it’s by giving ourselves a source of purpose or passion or peace or simple satisfaction.

So what are we taking care of?

There are the obvious suspects: things that rely on you for nourishment and support, like pets or plants or children. But we can also find meaning in caring for nonliving things too - things like our homes, cars, beaches, sneakers, closets — and in the case of our guest today, bikes.

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Our guest today is a woman of many talents. Jené Etheridge is a music producer, DJ, community organizer and an avid cyclist.

She tells us about her relationship with her bike, how she cares for it as she travels the world with it. And how it in turn feeds her mental health.

Anna: I would love to just hear how you got into cycling. I just never really got into it. It kind of scared me, but what's your story?

Jené: Yeah, so I was in college at The University of Washington in Seattle, and I just needed a way to get around. Also I had a friend um who rode with me like casually. We would go on casual rides and I told him I would have a new commute from U district to SoDo, which is like six miles.

And he was like, yeah, I don't think you can do it. And I was like, oh, you don't think I can do it? and basically I was like, I'm gonna do it. It was like motivation for me to, you know, prove him wrong.

Anna: My favorite type of origin story.

Jené: [laughter] Yeah. This is like a theme throughout my life. It's like, if people say I can't do it, I'm like, oh, okay…

Anna: Watch me.

Jené: [laughter] I'm Gonna do it then. Yeah. So I just started commuting to work to work, that's how I got started. I just, you know, just did it out of necessity to start and then it just grew from there.

And then when I moved to Portland, you know, it's like a really big cycling city, so it was really easy to get plugged in. And then I started learning more about Does this bike fit me? Like What kind of gearing works for the riding that I do? and, and things like that. So yeah.

Anna: When did it go from, cuz it sounded like it went from like transit to something you enjoyed pretty quickly with all the sight seeing, but when did it become your thing or one of your things?

Jené: I would say just you start craving it when you don't do it for a while.

Anna: Mmm

Jené: I also did have more community in Portland and I think that definitely helped me like realize it was my thing because it was mostly like women, trans femme, people of color in Portland who rode bikes, which is like a very small community, but they're very empowering and I would just be like, I don't know if I can do this. That sounds crazy. And they're like, yeah, you can. Why don’t, why do you think you can't do it? You know?

Anna: Absolutely. So speaking of the bike, tell me about your relationship with it.

Jené: Umm okay yeah it's cream colored. I named it Butter because um.

Anna: Ohhh

Jené: The first time I rode it, I'm like, this is so smooth. Like butter, like -

Anna: Perfect.

Anna: If you were to describe what Butter means to you, how would you describe that?

Jené: [laughter] Um I would say the feeling of like autonomy. Just being able to like leave and go whenever I want to.

Jené: I don't know, it becomes an extension of you when you only have one bike for like everything, you know, your body gets accustomed to it. [laughter]

Anna: I love the idea of like the bike is an extension of you.

Jené: Yeah I mean you really have to be aware and just like aware of your surroundings. And so I'm trusting like my body a lot

Anna: Yeah

Jené: And also my bike to get me through like just to get to the destination. [laughter]

Anna: Oh man. I relate to that in exactly one small way. Cause before this, I was talking to my producer about how, I had an opportunity to get ages ago, um, a motorcycle license and I thought it'd be like a cool thing to do.

And I almost didn't pass the test because to swerve, you have to like throw yourself to the side. Like you're gonna like throw yourself down to the ground.

And then like yank it back up. And so you can kind of like jump around whatever you're swerving around. And like I did not have that trust.

Jené: Yeah

Anna: I did not have that trust in myself to pull myself back up. I did not have trust in the bike to not just like—poooffffff

Jené: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You have to like lean your way into it. Like you really have to like trust. Your capabilities and the capabilities of the bike too, to just like get through these situations.

But I don't know. It's like when you, um, do something kind of scary or dangerous and then you make it out and you're like, oh, okay. Like I know, um, I know that wasn't as bad as it looked or at least like I know a little more about how to, you know, handle the bike better next time. So I feel safer. That's a good feeling.

Anna: I love that. So it’s — now I'm just like Oh, you grow with your bike! I get, I get like, feels about like literally anything.

Jené: [laughter]

Anna: So, don't mind me just sitting here, like with heart eyes. But let's talk about care then.

Like how do you care like how do you take care of your bike?

Jené: Okay. Well, I mean like there's normal bike maintenance, right? Like you take it to the shop, you just make sure like the chain is looped up and all the, you know, components are working rig...