(click ’em to big ’em)
When the Riverwest 24, also known as The People’s Holiday, happened in late July, I hung out beneath the Marsupial Bridge, taking photos of the bikers as they passed. I shot many pics, a few turned out, and one or two stood out. I posted one of those pics, and luckily, someone who saw it, tagged the person depicted. That person, Sunniva, or “Sunny”, went on to win the women’s first place in the endurance race (and held the overall first place for a few hours, too!).
After that initial Instagram post, I asked if she’d be willing to sit down for an interview and portrait with me. We met on a sunny afternoon in Milwaukee’s Pere Marquette Park and talked about biking, yoga, mindfulness, and how to live your best life.
The park was fairly populated, there was a concert going on across the river, and the wind was blowing steadily. I mentioned this to Sunny, saying I hoped it wouldn’t be too much of an issue, having her do some yoga poses for my camera, with all this chatter going on. Her reply seemed a pretty good expression of who she seems to be: “…you learn to incorporate everything into your practice, no matter where I am,…everything is part of the practice.”
She then related, speaking to my voice-recorder about being nervous over being interviewed, “You can’t see this, but I’m blushing,” and told me about having encountered this totally cute guy while bike-messenging that afternoon, and “oh my gosh, I get >paid< to do this?” Sunny seems to be good at staying in the moment, but also smoothly moving from one moment to the next.
Sunny’s been a bike-messenger about two years, and only actively biking for about 3-4 years. She got into biking while attending college in Missouri on a Division One full-ride soccer scholarship. She didn’t want to pay for parking, and a friend got her rolling on two wheels. She quickly developed an affection for the mechanics of how bikes work (and worked in a bike-shop), and then really came to love the “bike culture.” She was part of a small group of people in her town who actively biked, but it was big enough that she and some friends started a bike-polo group!
After graduating with a degree in anthropology and a minor in French (she’s fluent in both French and Spanish), Sunny came back to where she was born and raised, Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood. Earlier this year though, she moved down to Bay View to live with her grandparents, who needed some extra help after her grandfather had suffered a serious illness. “I offered to, I wanted to do it..I wasn’t very close with him and since, well…what way to get closer to somebody than to live with them?”
Riverwest 24
As mentioned earlier, Sunniva won first place for the women at the Riverwest 24 bike race. Her planning for the race was, uh, not what you might think. In my mind, I pictured a training calendar, middle-of-the-night strength-building rides, protein shakes…
“This was my first year in the race. I volunteered last year, and (growing up in Riverwest) was always around the race. But yeah, last year I was a volunteer, so registration was free, so yeah, I thought it would be neat to try and do.
Six months ago, I was all ‘I’m gonna train, I’m gonna prepare’…and then the race just showed up! And then I messengered all day – I’d forgotten to take the day off from work – so I messengered from 9a-5p that day, then rode to registration, which closed at 6 and got there just in time…so when you ask me if I was prepared, nope, not at all.”
In my own experience, I set personal goals, but am not the most competitive person around. With Sunniva’s casual approach to things, I didn’t imagine she’d to be too competitive, but I was wrong on that account: “I was definitely trying to do well, I didn’t know what to expect, but I wanted to win, I wanted to win. I went in wanting to win…I knew there were a lot of really awesome riders, but I didn’t necessarily know what I was getting into.”
Though she was feeling good about her riding, she didn’t have too full of comprehension of how well she was actually doing. Sunny did recall a moment, around the hallways point, “…Robert, this guy who volunteers every year at Checkpoint 2 – it’s >his< checkpoint, he was like “you’re gonna win!”, and then I was ‘dang, I can’t let Robert down!” By the time she reached the last few hours of the race, recognition began to set in. Her dad and aunt, who were both also racing, recognized her race-position, too, and wanted to crew for her, and get her whatever she needed to keep going.
And yep, Sunny won first place in the solo women’s division.
YOGA
Like with biking, yoga is a relatively low-key practice for Sunniva, but one she’s taken to confidently and happily. She’s been practicing for the purpose of “developing a spiritual base for a pretty long time”, but has only come into doing more advanced poses and sharing photos of those poses about a year ago. Yoga was a “this stuff keeps me healthy” practice that grew into a “let’s explore these other poses, too!”
There’s no vanity in her sharing her yoga pics on Instagram, instead she does it because through the feedback she’s gotten, Sunny’s seen how the pics have inspired her friends. “I think I do for my friends. I do it to encourage other people.”
I mentioned that some folks see the posting of selfies as some sort of self-centeredness, as a vanity thing, but Sunny doesn’t necessarily see it that: “if it makes you feel good, let’s you build confidence, then do it – if it contributes to your happiness, yeah, you’re good.”
Sunny does other forms of meditation, too: qi gong reiki, long baths, hikes. I suggest that it’s beginning to sound like “anything” could be a meditation and she replies, “I mean, well, meditation is more a mindset than a physical practice,…so, if it’s a good day, then theoretically, everything I do is helping make me a better person…”
ONE LAST QUESTION
What would you tell someone who asks you, “How do I live a good life, Sunny?”
“Uh…’ask the next guy?!’ I would probably honestly look at them and say “that’s not my place to give you an answer.” I mean, it sounds like the first step is that you probably need to spend some time alone. You gotta listen to your thoughts. I think, I think everyone is wiser than they think. If you just sit by yourself for a while, and suck it up…you’ll figure out so much. It sucks, I mean, it’s not easy, it sucks, but…what constitutes a “good life” for me may not be at all what constitutes a good life for someone else. If someone is asking that question, that tells me right there that they need to spend some time with their thoughts.”
