Lost And Literary

I'm thinking, again, about one of the many times I got "lost" in Rome last week.

In previous posts, I've said that sometimes I mount one of my bikes and let it decide where I ride.  For example, I might sling my leg over Arielle, my Mercian Audax, and without thinking about it, I find myself pedaling toward Connecticut or the North Shore.  Or I might slide my foot into a pedal of Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear and the next thing I know, I'm on my way to the Rockaways or Coney Island.

So, I think I can blame the bike I rode in Rome for leading me in circles and through far corners of the city--and even outside of it.  The pretty, shiny red bike I rented from Bici & Baci (which I recommend) led me, after my tour of the Catacombs, though some near suburbs and back into the city, albeit a far corner.  

You never know who you'll run into in such places:

Yes, the mayor New Yorkers love or hate has familial roots in the country that sent some of my ancestors to America.  Now, I'm all for a liberal immigration policy, but it might've been nice to have someone like Trump (Really? Did I just say that?) running the country, even if only for a day, when Rudy's parents were ready to get on the boat.  

Then again, it might've been nice to have Trump--or, at least, the immigration policy he just endorsed--when his grandfather was about to be deported from Germany. (I have to hand it to him:  It takes some doing to get yourself kicked out of the country in which you were born and raised!)  If this country hadn't let him in, he would've gone to...I dunno...Canada?  Australia?

Anyway, I won't speculate (at least, not now, anyway) about what New York City and the USA might be without Giuliani or Trump.  Just a couple of minutes after seeing that sign for Rudy's relatives, I wandered into a section of drab apartment buildings where the streets had some interesting names:

I know that all of them spent time in Italy:  In fact, James Joyce spent much of his adult life there.  He once remarked that although Italy, at the time, was plagued with poverty and mismanagement, it at least had a nice climate and lively intellectual atmosphere.  His native country of Ireland, he said, was Italy without those two things.

Even if his assessment were off, I couldn't blame him for living in Italy.  Could you?

Looking Up: A Tourist!

You can usually tell when someone is a tourist:  He or she is looking at all of the stuff (and, sometimes, people) the natives take for granted.

In downtown and midtown Manhattan, they are usually looking up--at the Empire State Building, Liberty Tower and other skyscrapers.  I haven't stopped noticing such things, but I think I've developed some sort of peripheral vision that allows me to look at the spires and other architectural features that are expressions of somebody's reach.

I realize now that in Italy, I must have been as obviously a tourist as someone from North Dakota or Oklahoma is while ambling along Broadway.  Or someone speaking Italian on Mott Street:  Little Italy is all but gone, so that person is more than likely from Milan.

Of course, I could've been taken for a tourist on my appearance alone.  The Italians usually greeted me with a friendly if somewhat deferential "signora", but they could not have seen me as one of their women:  I am taller and lighter than most of them.  Also, my Italian--such as it is--doesn't sound anything like what anyone speaks in "The Boot."  If anything, I probably sound like pure Bay Parkway by way of Asbury Park.

There is one other thing, though, that surely gave me away as a visitor--aside from the fact that I was consulting maps.  You see, I was like all of those gawkers I see in my home town:  I spent a lot of time looking upward.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that the skylights in the catacombs' chapels must have turned those early Christians' attentions skyward, i.e., toward the heavens.  I couldn't help but to thin that so much cathedral architecture--internal as well as external--was at least somewhat influenced by a memory, historical as well as visceral, of that:  Worshipers were usually looking up, whether at the altar (which was raised) or the stained glass windows or statues above.

Even when I wasn't in a basilica or some other such place, it seemed that I couldn't look anywhere but up.  And, yes, my gaze was often turned above me even as I was navigating those Roman streets and traffic circles.

Was Eddy Mercx thinking about something like that when he told George Mount that if he really wanted to learn about bike racing, he had to go to Italy?

A Ride Back

I will tell you more about my Great Italian Adventure, and post more photos of it, soon.  I promise!  

In this post, however, I want to talk about something that happened to me today.

The sky was mostly clear, the day warmer and humidity a bit higher than it's been since I got home, even if neither the heat nor moisture was oppressive.  So, of course, I went for a ride:  my first long(ish) trek since coming back.  At least, that's what I'd planned.

A familiar route down to the Rockaways and along the South Shore of Queens and Long Island took me to a familiar destination:  Point Lookout.  Since it's a flat ride and the wind blew lightly, I took out Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear.  

Even if the ride couldn't thrill me as much as pedaling up and down the Roman hills, it sure was nice to ride one of my own bikes again.  Of course, a fixie is going to be more responsive than an internal-geared hub, and a Mercian is going to feel more lively than a heavy utilitarian rental bike.  Still, the difference in "feel" was even greater than I anticipated.  

The ride was pleasant and completely uneventful; I felt good and nothing complicated that.  After I crossed the Veterans Memorial Bridge from Rockaway Beach back to the Queens "mainland", I stopped at a deli for something cold to drink.  While sipping on some combination of slush with cherry Jolly Rancher flavoring (I wanted a bit of a sugar rush), a man and woman pedaled in.  

He pointed to me.  "Where do I know you from?"

Turns out, we rode--occasionally the two of us, but usually with a group of other riders--in Prospect and Central Parks, and on some longer rides, back in the day.  He also worked in a couple of bike shops I frequented in those days.  We recalled those shops, some of the guys (yes, they were men) who rode with us, a few of whom also worked in those shops at one time or another.

He introduced the woman who accompanied him.  They married seven years ago, he said.  That wasn't the only surprise of our encounter.

For another, he was smiling.  I never, ever saw that in all of the time we rode "back in the day".  In fact, a few of us half-jokingly called him "El Exigente", whom he resembled in his facial hair and other physical features--including the seemingly-permanent scowl.   We all respected him as a rider; his forays into racing were certainly more successful than mine! 

In those days, we didn't actually talk much.  Some time ago--possibly in those days--I read a book by an anthropologist or some other researcher that said, among other things, that women form relationships by talking but men bond by doing things together.  Perhaps one could see that in our rides.  It also could be a reason why I always had the sense that he disapproved of me somewhat:   Someone once described me as an "extroverted introvert", meaning that even though I am more comfortable within myself than without, I am not averse to talking.  

Or, perhaps, I just insecure that I wasn't, and probably never would be, as strong or fast a rider as he was--or is.  

He certainly didn't care about that today, as I rode with him and his wife.  Their route home paralleled mine part of the way, but they invited me to follow them to their home, in Brooklyn, if I wanted to.  "Well, there's nowhere I have to be", I said.  Really, the only reason I had to get back to my place tonight was to feed my cats.

So my ride was a bit longer than I'd planned:  I reckon about 140 kilometers instead of 120. But I felt more nimble, more supple, as we wove through the building rush-hour traffic in the streets of East New York, Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant and their Flatbush neighborhood.

We all shook hands as we parted.  If he was surprised to see my red nail polish, he didn't show it.  She didn't register any surprise, as she didn't know me when I was Nick.

He knew me then.  But he took to my new and current name with no trouble.  We all promised to stay in touch and get together for another ride.

My ride home involved climbing a couple of long but gradual hills to Crown Heights and the east side of Prospect Park, past the Brooklyn Public Library toward the Navy Yard.  From there, I rode through Williamsburg and Greenpoint, easily passing riders who could have been my children and grandchildren, as if I were one of them.

Back when I was riding with him, I was.