Because I Want To

 Yesterday I mentioned that I am leaving a job because I felt “it was time.” There was no specific moment or incident that precipitated my decision. Nor had I checked all of the boxes on a list of things I wanted to accomplish. I can’t even say that I was bored or needed a new challenge. 

Have you done something simply because of a want or need that you have because, well, you have it? Some people will feel superior and be condescending to you if you can’t give them a rational explanation—or, at least, one that fits into the ways they frame their own narratives. I spent decades as the round peg trying to fit info a square hole, or the square peg in the round hole, because I couldn’t explain, at least in ways family members, colleagues, authority figures why I didn’t couldn’t make the career, lifestyle or other choices they proscribed for me.

The funny thing is that, as often as not, they didn’t or couldn’t make the same choices they were trying to make for me, or they were miserable with them (example:  marrying and having childfen). Or had ideas about how I should be doing what I did, even if it was something they didn’t do themselves.  I have had completely sedentary people wonder why I ride my bike as much as I do, why I don’t ride more or why I’m in the saddle when it’s “too” cold or wet or whatever.

I admit I have my limits:  We had combinations of rain, sleet and snow through much of today.  I didn’t ride.  There wasn’t anyplace I had to be, so I didn’t go anywhere, except to the store next door and the cafe across the street to pick up my dinner. (Taco Tuesday!) I curled up with. Marlee in the middle of the afternoon. It was time for all of those things, and perhaps it will be time to ride again tomorrow. Only I can decide.

If I Want To

 

Woke up late yesterday. To those who live their lives measured out in coffee spoons, as per T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock, the results could’ve been anything from inconvenient to catastrophic: embarrassment on arriving late for mass or service, a missed appointment or a lost job. But as it was Sunday, and I haven’t gone to church in years, there was no place I had to be.

Now that I think of it, I “had” to be at church, or any place else, only to the extent that someone or some people expected me.  I guess most people have a moment—usually (or at least hopefully) well before midlife.  You can sleep in, make an omelet and go for a bike ride on Sunday, as I did yesterday. Or you can go to a gallery or museum (as I’ve done on other Sundays) for your own interests rather than some pedagogical agenda or to uphold some reputation you thought you had to uphold to whomever.  But then you realize you’re the only one who cares whether you rose with the sun or lay before yourself before the moon. Or whether you made yourself breakfast, went out for brunch or ordered takeout.

If I sound melancholy, well, perhaps I am. I enjoyed the ride, the omelet (with curried onions and red sweet peppers) and dinner with Sam and his girlfriend. Perhaps I am more affected by seasonal depression than I realize: Yesterday was the first day of winter. I didn’t mind the cold or even the wind when I was pedaling into it. I knew the sun would set—around 16:20–and night would fall earlier than on any other day of the year. But somehow the day seemed to end earlier still. 

Perhaps my feelings have to do with the other climate: the one ushered in part by the Fake Tan Führer’s return to (and defacement of) the White House.  When I told my friend Jay in France that I felt so calm in Japan, he suggested that I may simply have been happy to be out of the United States. He was right about that, but I also realized during that trip that I didn’t have to fulfill anyone else’s idea of what it “should” be: If I wanted to spend the day riding around and simply enjoying the sights; what whether I felt like spending my time in a temple or a thermal spring, it was my, and no one else’s time.  And I didn’t have to report to anyone.

Oh, and during the past week, on Thursday to be exact, I wrapped up my semester.  I submitted grades—for the last time, at least at where I’d been teaching since the Fall of 2021. (I lost my old job during the pandemic.) Another university is taking it over (but calling it a “merger), so my future there would’ve been uncertain. That isn’t  a reason I’m leaving, though.  Nor is my relationship with colleagues, which has been very good. The commute, longer than I expected after moving last year, has something to do with it. 

Really, I just felt it was time. I mentioned in an earlier post that I felt my trip to Japan is motivating me to make some life changes.  This is one but, I expect, a prelude. I worked to the best of my abilities. My department chair and a coordinator, whom I enjoyed working with, thanked me for my contributions.  And a student wrote to tell me how much she enjoyed her class. And I wrote back to tell her how much I liked working with her.

She will have other professors in other courses.  A colleague or, maybe, a new hire will teach the courses I’d been teaching. Or the university that’s taking over might cancel them. Whatever happens, will happen, whether or not I am there. Perhaps the only person, place or thing—animal, mineral or vegetable—that absolutely depended on me was:

He scampered up and let me stroke him as I was leaving.  I left him a can of Friskies Mariner’s catch and shed tears, for him as I mounted La-Vande, my King of Mercia, and pedaled away.

Perhaps I will return—for him, perhaps for some colleagues, but mainly if I want to. 

Fame (No, Not The David Bowie Song)

 About 20 years ago, I was talking with a fellow faculty member who, like me, had written about sports for a local newspaper.  Somehow the length of professional athletes’ careers became a topic.  He pointed out that while Joe Di Maggio lived 84 years, we know him for what he did for only 13 of them. I am referring, of course, to his time playing for the Yankees, which was interrupted by World War II. Ironically, his career as a commercial spokesman for various products and businesses, such as the Mr. Coffee and Emigrant Bank, lasted nearly twice as long as his baseball tenure.

Why am I thinking about that now? Well, although I am in—ahem—midlife, I am still a good bit younger than Joe was when he passed. And I have worked in a career even longer than he spent making TV commercials, let alone playing center field. Even so, my time as a university instructor and writer (I still have a hard time calling myself “professor,” even if it comes easily to my students!) constitutes only a fraction of my life. That will be the case even if I continue for another decade or more.

That work won’t make me famous, nor should it. And one of the few things that I’ve done for longer won’t, either (unless you count the readership of this blog as fame): cycling.

It’s funny, though, that being off my bike for most of the past week seems like an eternity.  And I know, intellectually, that I’ll be back in the saddle once my pain subsides.  But it’s still odd, and troubling, not to be doing, however temporarily, something I’ve done just about all of my life.

I wonder whether Joe Di Maggio—or, for that matter, Eddy Merckx, whose professional cycling career spanned as many years as Joe’s with the Yankees—ever thought about how short a segment of their lives so defined them.

Since I have mentioned two famous male athletes, I can’t help but to think that almost all who have been able to live off their exploits on the road, track, court, field, rink or other athletic arena have been men, I wonder how many great female athletes—say, Caitlyn Clark or Simone Biles—will have the same privilege, or will be so thoroughly defined by the relatively brief part of their lives when they could dominate and elevate their sports. 

An Early White Christmas

 I haven’t owned a mountain bike since I gave my Cannondale M300 to someone who worked in an emergency room during the COVID lockdown.

Do I wish I still had it, now that we’ve just experienced our first real snowfall in a couple of years?

Well, I guess I could put knobby tires on one of my bikes.

They Told Me There’d Be Days—Weeks—Like This

 When you’re young, people in midlife tell you about things you dismiss as “old people stuff.” They include what most grown-ups do: work mundane jobs, pay bills and navigate adult relationships, including those with the family you’re born into or create.  

Then there are the changes in your body.  Dieting and exercising but still gaining weight? Hair growing in places you didn’t know it could—or falling off the places you want to keep it? And discovering you need glasses to read books and menus?

Then there are those “mysterious aches and pains.” You know, when a limb, joint or some other part of your body hurts for no apparent reason. Did I land too hard when I stepped off a curb? Reach for something without using a step-stool or ladder? Put too much weight on one side when I got out of bed? Bump into something a little harder than I thought I did? Or is some injury I brushed off decades ago coming back to nag  me?

Of course, my cycling always gets the benefit of the doubt. I never want to blame it for any of my aches and pains, especially since it’s accounted for most of my physical conditioning and, along with my cats, nearly all of my mental health.

So what, exactly, caused that ache in and around my left ankle:  the one that’s kept me off my bike for most of this week?

I can live with mysteries about the big questions:  you know, the meaning of life, whether there’s anything after this one and why JFK, RFK, Martin, Malcolm and John were murdered. (Actually, I know who…wait, is that a sniper on the roof?!) But, dammit, I want to know why my body develops more glitches than my workplace IT system or breaks down like a Yugo when I think I’m doing everything right.

They warned me there’d be days—weeks—like this. But they never told me why, except that it’s part of “getting older.”  But as a wise old philosopher said, “I ain’t dead yet”: I am in midlife.  And I want to keep on cycling.

Why Won’t I Go There?

I have cycled to and through places that stirred up seemingly-conflicting emotions in me. For instance, during my recent trip to Japan, I pedaled to temples, shrines, gardens and other places with great beauty and terrifying histories. The Nijo Castle in Kyoto was one such spot: It is wonderful to behold and can teach so much about Japanese culture and history, including the fierce battles and brutal ways in which rival families and groups vied for, and held, power.  I also felt awe and terror all over Osaka, which the Allies bombed heavily during World War II. (Kyoto, in contrast, wasn’t as much of a target because it didn’t have the military-related industries found in other Japanese cities.)

I similarly felt awed by the beauty and devastation of Cambodia and Laos where, as a legacy of the Vietnam War, there is said to be more unexploded ordnance per square mile, kilometer or whatever unit of measurement you choose, than anywhere else on Earth.

And I could write more posts, possibly even a book, about former battlefields of France and other European countries I saw during my bike trips, not to mention the Place de la Concorde: Today it’s one of the most elegant public squares in the world, but contemporary accounts describe “rivers” of blood flowing from the guillotines stationed there during the Reign of Terror.

I got to thinking about that today. While not an official holiday, this date—“Pearl Harbor Day”—was, until fairly recently, marked by parades and other commemorations to the attack on the American naval base.

 While such memorials still take place, they aren’t as numerous or prominent as they were, say, in 1991 (the 50th anniversary) or even twenty years ago because there are so few survivors of the attack or World War II generally.

From what I have read, there is a very popular bike lane that passes the attack site and offers beautiful views of mountains, ocean and rain forest.  Were I to ride it, I probably would have a similar combination of thoughts and feelings to what I experienced in Japan, Southeast Asia, France, Belgium, Italy and even some sites (the World Trade Center, anyone?) in and around New York City, where I live.

But I probably won’t ride the Pearl Harbor bike lane because I have never had any desire to go to Hawai’i. Any time I’ve ever embarked upon a journey (Doesn’t that sound quaint?) to some faraway place, one of my friends insists that I should go to Aloha land. I can’t explain why I’ve not only never had any wish to step off a plane in Honolulu; I have actively resisted going there. Something about it just scares and repels me. ( It has nothing to do with Pearl Harbor.) I understand that Anthony Bourdain had a similar feeling about Switzerland, where he never set foot in spite of spending considerable time—and hosting episodes of his show—in the surrounding countries (France, Italy, Germany and Austria). Could I, one day, find that I’ve cycled all around the Pacific Rim while skipping Hawai’i?

Till Rides Do Us Apart—Or Not

 

Photo by Everton Vila

Yesterday, during my bike commute, I saw a man and woman—he, on a Canyon, she, on a Cannondale—pedaling down Creston Avenue, a narrow Bronx thoroughfare that parallels the Grand Concourse. They seemed about as equally matched in their pace and durability as their bikes: one didn’t seem to outpace the other.

Later, I got to thinking about how rare, at least ini my observation, such cycling couples are. When I have ridden with clubs, it seemed that cyclists’ spouses or partners rode with family or some other group that wasn’t connected to the club—or not all.  In fact, I can recall only three or four “marriages” (whether de jure or de facto) in which both members participated in the same rides and kept apace of each other. That I didn’t see same-sex couples may’ve been a consequence of the times and places in which I joined club rides.

I have never trekked, trained or raced with a boyfriend or other intimate male partner. But I have been accompanied by girlfriends and long-term partners. Only one—Tammy, my last romantic partner before I started my gender affirmation—did much cycling before we met. And I suspect she is the only one who continued after we broke up.

One long-ago paramour, Jeanne, gave her bike away after we split up.  I suspect she wanted to get rid of it because it brought us together in the first place: I fitted it to her when she bought it from Highland Park (NJ) Cyclery, where I worked.

 I wouldn’t be surprised if the other girls/women similarly parted with—or discarded or sold—bikes I gave them.  Upset as I may have been, I can understand why, apart from not wanting things that would remind them of me, they didn’t want to keep the Motobecanes, Miyatas and other machines I gifted them. Before meeting me, they did little or no riding once they got their driver’s licenses, and perhaps not much before then.

Did I pressure them into riding with me? I don’t like to think I did (of course not!) but it would be fair to say that at least one thought she should ride with me, even though she obviously wasn’t enjoying it. I’m not sure of whether she simply didn’t care for bike riding or she was frustrated because she couldn’t ride as long or fast as I did.

I have long enjoyed riding solo. But I couldn’t help but to wonder whether I will some day ride in a romantic liaison with someone-of whatever gender identity or expression—who is my equal, or even better.