From A Blocked Path To Latimer's House And Gatsby's Shore

Sometimes art imitates life...

and journalism really conveys what's going on in the world

or your bike ride.

The Post article I referenced in yesterday's post talked about bike lanes that hadn't been plowed. Sure enough, I encountered one. 

What's worse, though, than finding an impassable path (Is that an oxymoron?) is to ride the path for, say, a kilometer or two before it tells you, "Vous ne passerez pas!"

At least I am accustomed enough to riding on streets--and familiar enough with the street in question (20th Avenue, Astoria) that switching over to the roadway felt like a return to normalcy. (Yes, such a thing is actually possible in 2020!)  Even finding snow piled between the parking and traffic lane--which, of course, gives you no room to maneuver--was a return to the status quo of winter riding as I've known it.

All right, I'll stop complaining.  Although the afternoon was the warmest we've had in nearly a week, it was still raw, with overcast skies and damp air.  I actually like riding in such conditions, just as I enjoy riding along the sea through chilly winds, under gray skies:  Few people are out; there is just me, my bike and my ride.

Even after so many years of riding in this city, there are still streets I've rarely or never seen.  I ventured down one, near the Whitestone Bridge and chanced upon this:

I'd heard of  Lewis Latimer  and knew something of his work with Thomas Edison, but I didn't realize he lived in the neighborhood.  It's too bad the house was closed, probably because of COVID.  But I'll return one day.  While people normally associate African American New Yorkers with Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant, there have been many others who, like    (and Malcolm X, John Coltrane and Duke Ellington) who lived in Queens.

Some may have even spent time

in Fort Totten Park was, until the 1980s, an active Army base.  Today, parts of it are used for Army Reserve, NYPD and NYFD training, but the rest is a park.

Its part of Queens--Bayside--is near the western end of Long Island's North Shore:  Gatsby country.  If you had one of those terrible English teachers who beat the symbolism of the green light to death, I apologize.  Such a teacher might've taught you that the novel is about the desire to reinvent one's self--and the question of whether or not such a thing is truly possible.  Or, perhaps, you realized as much yourself.  More than a few writers and scholars have argued that raising such a question makes it the "quintessential American novel."

Perhaps it is, but for a different reason.  When I re-read the novel a few years ago, I couldn't help but to feel that it was conveying a profound loneliness. Nick Caraway, the narrator, expresses it, intentionally or not.  Jay Gatsby, the title character, embodies it; other characters are enacting it--unconsciously, I believe.

Perhaps this is the light they were following, even if they were looking for another kind:

Me, that light suits me fine.  At least, it feels about right, for this day, for the times we've been living--and I rode--through.