Pure Spring

Perhaps I should have taken this day more seriously.

After all, on this date exactly 140 years ago, more than 300,000 workers in the US—50,000 in Chicago alone—went on strike for an eight-hour workday. The walkout in the Windy City led to the Haymarket Riot.

In other countries, this date—May Day—is observed, formally or informally, as Labor Day was in the US before it became an occasion for “last chance” summer parties and sales on stuff nobody needs.

Today, though, it was easy to forget how solemn this day could be. The sky was bright, the air clear (for NYC anyway) and brisk and the colors bold. It wasn’t like days in late March or early April that carry memories of a brutal, seemingly endless Winter that one has somehow survived, nor did it mirror or echo hints of Summer heat. It was Pure Spring.

So what did I do? I took Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear bike, for a spin among blossoming magnolias and beds of red, white, yellow and violet tulips on Randall’s Island.

And when I got home, I turned on music. Tchaikovsky’s “Rites of Spring?” Not quite. The Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun?” Not even. Rather, I clicked onto a YouTube video of pure bubble gum:  The Monkees’ “I’m A Believer.” 

It may not be deep, but it expresses a moment when someone loses his cynicism—in this case, about finding love. Perhaps I chose it because the first time I can recall hearing it was on a day like this: Shadows of the past (of which, to be fair, I was too young to have very much of) did not cling to it; if a darker future lay ahead, I had no hint of it.

It was the first Pure Spring day I can remember. Others followed; perhaps more will come. I can only follow the journey, I can only ride through and with it.

What Are The Chances?

 People have claimed to see their entire lives flash before their eyes.  I am glad not to have had  (I think) such an experience. But during the past week and a half or so, I feel as if I’ve seen parts of my past unfolding in slow motion.

I believe it began when I had the dream about a high-school classmate I hadn’t seen since graduation and hadn’t thought about for almost as long.  I Googled her name and found it on the “In Memoriam” list of my high school reunion webpage. 

Since then, I have encountered three people I hadn’t seen, collectively, for about 50 years. One of those meetings was planned, with a former colleague and, I realized, friend . The other  two I met during bike rides because I deviated from my originally-planned routes. 

 One gave me a temporary job during Citibike’s first year, when riders and the program’s coordinators and mechanics were discovering the bikes’ “bugs.” I fixed some of them (for good, I hope).  Now she’s running the “bike library” in Shirley Chisholm State Park, where my ride took me when I decided to turn left from 84th Street in Howard Beach onto the Shore Parkway Greenway instead of going straight ahead to the Rockaways. 

The other chance encounter happened when I crossed 167th Street at Bryant Avenue. I was about to turn right so I could access the path that runs through Concrete Plant Park. Instead,I pedaled straight through the intersection toward the Bruckner Bike Lane. “Pro-fessor Jus-time!” A student I had about a dozen years ago but with whom I’d been in touch only on Facebook since then ran up to me. Turns out, she’s running a youth program in the neighborhood.  

Some might say there was a reason for all of those meetings and that dream. Perhaps they will be part of a journey—or ride.

Don’t Stop!

 If you ride, or have ridden, a fixed-gear bike with no brakes, this video might remind you of your first, or only, attempt.