Motivation?

 

I love Marlee. But there is one thing I can’t share with him. He’s given me every imaginable excuse as to why he can’t ride a bike.

I’ll make him watch this video. Perhaps it will change his mind. What do you think?

 

A Ride In Autumn Light

 I have no idea of how many miles I rode today. I know that I followed a combination of familiar streets and paths. And my bike—Dee-Lilah, my Mercian Vincitore, sang in tune with the autumn breeze, and me.

That last part is what I will remember. And the light that coruscated through the leaves:

Is that—what I will recall—the difference between cycling in midlife and those rides where counted miles?

I Went, And It Was Gone

 Today, after pedaling Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike, down through the Bronx, Harlem and the Hudson River Greenway to Battery Park, I decided to zig-zag through Lower Manhattan. I chanced upon a bike lane I hadn’t seen before because I was in a part of town where I hadn’t been in a while: the eastern end of Grand Street, in an old part of the Lower East Side.

I knew that the neighborhood, like so much of the city, has been changing rapidly. Still, I wasn’t prepared to see this:

When I first moved back to New York, I lived a few minutes (by bike) away. So, naturally, I went there when I needed, I believe, a tire. The man who helped me—as it turns out, the proprietor himself, Frank Arroyo—was friendly in the way of someone meeting a new neighbor and chatted with me about my bike (I was riding my Peugeot PX-10, if i recall correctly), bikes in general, the neighborhood and “what brought you here’; he wasn’t referring only to his shop. 

 I continued to patronize, or simply visit, his shop for, among other things, a reason I understood only much later: We were both building our lives in the city. For him, it meant starting a business that became, I dare say, an important part of the community. Kids got tneir first bikes and adults bought their first grown-up bikes there. Tourists and participants in events like the Five Boro Bike Tour rented from him. And countless people brought in repairs or bought used bikes from him.

That is why his shop closing—due to his passing late last year, as it turns out—is so sad. I’d heard that he contributed to a neighborhood theater and various charities, volunteered at all sorts of events, and encouraged his employees to do the same. And he managed to do it all, from that location, for nearly half a century: He started when hardly anyone else wanted to be in the neighborhood and became one of its mainstays. At the time he opened the shop, children and grandchildren of poor Jewish and Italian immigrants squeezed into the blocks between the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges gave way to Puerto Ricans (like him), artists and, later, young professionals, all trying to gain a foothold in this city and country.

As I lived in the city—especially during the year I worked as a messenger—I learned about other shops. Frank never seemed upset that I was patronizing places like Bicycle Habitat, Toga and Stuyvesant:  He knew he was running a family- and community-oriented business, not a “pro” shop. (It was an authorized Schwinn dealership.) Still, I would stop in and buy something, on principle, whenever I was over that way.

The closing of Frank’s is, therefore, not only the end of a bicycle shop and repair business. It also represents what is being lost in this city, especially in Manhattan: small, independent businesses that serve communities, whether in the sense of geography or shared interests (I think now of the Gotham Book Mart, which I still miss), started by a member of that community and stayed through thick and thin. While I hope it doesn’t happen, I expect that the space will be rented to some business of which the world doesn’t need another (like a boutique or over-priced coffee shop). Or, perhaps, when the neighboring businesses leave, whether or not voluntarily, the buildings will be converted or torn down for condos or co-ops unaffordable for the kinds of people who start businesses and build neighborhood institutions the way Frank did.

You’re Not From Da’Hill

 Sometimes someone can just tell, “You’re not from here!”

Here in New York, if someone asks how to get to “Hew-stun” street, we know that person is a tourist, or just moved here. That downtown thoroughfare shares a name with Texas’ largest city. Or so it appears. Actually, it’s named for William Houstoun, a member of the Continental Congress and 1787 Constitutional Convention. He was the son-in-law of Nicholas Bayard III, who owned a farm (!) that covered much of what is now SoHo and the Lower East Side and has a street named for him. At some point, the second “u” was dropped from “Houstoun.” 

So how does a real New Yorker intone it? HOW-stun. Apparently, that’s how the family pronounced it.

So why am I giving you a pronunciation guide to a downtown street? Well, during a ride the other day, I got a similar lesson.  

The Bronx is full of short, but sometimes surprisingly steep, climbs. One winds up West Tremont Avenue just south and west of Bronx Community College. It was just enough to make me glad I “wimped out” and took one of my geared bikes instead of my fixed-gear.  I wasn’t out of breath but, for a moment, I thought I was dreaming or hallucinating when I saw this:

I grew up at 573 Dahill Road in Brooklyn until I was 12. What, I wondered, was this barbershop 35 kilometers (22 miles), and even more years, away doing with the name of my childhood stomping grounds?

Oh, and I hope not to sound racist—and I mean no disrespect to the skills of the clippers I saw the other day—in saying this, but nobody in my old milieu (where they didn’t use words like “milieu”) would ever have gone to such a place because, well, no such place would have existed there. Our barbers were middle-aged or older Italian men who cropped the locks of men like them and their sons. 

I brought my bike into the shop. Haircutters and patrons alike looked at me quizzically: I obviously wasn’t there for a “fade” or cornrow. “Can I help you?” a slender man with a trim beard queried.

“Mamí, man’s haircut here,” one patron admonished me.

“Yo lo sabe.” Señora Provine, my old profesora, surely would have been appalled. Then again, I’m not sure anybody in the Bronx speaks the way she or, for that matter, any of my English teachers, taught us. And those guys, I’m sure, knew “I’m not from here” even before I opened my mouth. I even could’ve understood if they didn’t believe that I’ve been living in the Bronx, albeit in a different neighborhood, for 2.5 years.

To explain why the sign on the shop caught my attention, I pulled up images of my childhood home and the street sign on my phone.  “¡Mira! Yo vivida allí. La Calle Dahill. 

I pronounced it Day-hill. Just as anyone in my old milieu, where they didn’t use words like “milieu,” would have said it.

A customer overheard. “This place. It’s Duh-hill.” 

I should have known. Duh-hill. Da’hill. I missed the apostrophe implied by the space in that sign.  Just like Da’Bronx, not The Bronx.

Just 5 kilometers (3 miles) from my apartment. But I definitely wasn’t from there. At least we had a good laugh.

“Just” A Ride To Randall’s Island

 

Near the end of my afternoon ride, I heard my name. I turned: someone I hadn’t seen in a while. I’d asked about him at a neighborhood diner, where he was a regular and I occasionally get take-out. Turns out, he’d had a series of medical issues that turned out to be less serious than he’d thought.

We’re the same age: only a few weeks separate us. He knew that I am a cyclist but, until today, he had never seen me on my bicycle. “Where are you coming from?” 

“Oh, not far. Just Randall’s Island.”

“Just” Randall’s Island?”

Depending on which route I take to and from, and where I ride on the island, I cover about 25 kilometers. That, to me, is “just getting some fresh air.” To him, however, it seemed like an excursion. Mind you, he joined the Navy out of high school and, after a couple of tours and an honorable discharge, kept his fitness with weight and marital arts training.

One of the great things about midlife, at least for me, is that I have lost any desire to impress anyone. The people I tried to impress, which I confused with gaining respect, either couldn’t be impressed, at least by me (usually for reasons that had little nothing to do with my or their actual accomplishments) or, I would realize, weren’t worth the effort. 

What I haven’t expected is something I experienced today with that man: I was surprised that he actually saw something I did as out-of-the-ordinary, let alone worthy of praise. He, and others I’ve met during the past couple of years, like “Sam” and “Carrie,” have life experiences very different from mine and have done things that, while they don’t confer status, are things I’m not sure I could have done.

I pedaled “only” to Randall’s Island today. But it turned out to be just the right ride.

Cycling In Color

 We haven’t reached peak foliage in this part of the world. Still, there are plenty of vibrant, vivid colors flickering through leaves under a smoldering autumn sun. (It’s kind of odd, isn’t it, to use words like “vivid” and “vibrant” to describe leaves that are dying.) I feel as if I’d witnessed the entire season in this tree on Randall’s Island:

Red, orange, yellow, maroon and still some green. For the past couple of days, I’ve been taking rides, not to go any place in particular or to accumulate miles, but to fill myself with those hues and crisp autumn air. I’m

I guess that’s a perk of midlife: I can get on my bike for sensory experiences. I don’t need to justify what I’m doing or impress anybody. If my bike and body feel right, my ride will reward me. As it did today, and has so many days before.

The Family That Rides Together….

 My family never rode together. My father would take an occasional spin around the neighborhood. Because of our difference in ages, my brothers and I rarely did anything together: We had different friends (well, to the extent I had friends) and school and, later, work schedules. And my mother didn’t cycle at all; I’m not sure she ever rode.

What if she did? More to the point, what would a ride with her (or my father) be likeo were my brothers and I growing up today and, well,A few other things were different?

When Is It A Mobility Device?

 Today I’d like to address an issue in a comment I intended to publish but accidentally deleted.

The commenter took issue with my post from the other day. In it, I showed e-bikes parked in bike parking rack next to a sign warning riders not to do so at the risk of losing said e-bikes. 

The commenter believed the sign is discriminatory. As he/she pointed out, e-bikes are mobility devices, just like walkers and wheelchairs, for people like him/her who have disabilities.

The point about e-bikes being mobility devices is one I hadn’t previously considered, and is certainly valid. That said, I am probably not alone in my inability to tell which of those parked e-bikes was being used by someone who has trouble walking more than a block vs. the ones some teenager was joyriding with his girlfriend on the back. Perhaps some sort of sticker or decal would help.

That leads to the larger question policy makers in many jurisdictions are tackling: How, exactly, can e-bikes be legislated fairly?

While I have cursed out joyriders and “cowboy” delivery workers who sideswiped me and I probably won’t ever admit “defeat” and start riding an e-bike unless it’s totally impossible for me to ride a regular bicycle, I have nothing against e-bikes per se. If anything, I would rather see someone ride one rather than drive an SUV to work, school or shop. Also, I recognize—and have stated in previous posts—that delivery workers , nearly all of whom are male immigrants (at least here in NYC) may have few, if any, other ways of feeding themselves or their families besides bringing pizzas and quesadillas to folks who are too tired to use a microwave after a long day of making money off the very countries those delivery workers came from. 

About that last scenario: Just as I suggested a sticker or decal for people with disabilities, perhaps there could be another for delivery workers. Or, better yet, there could be a special license or permit, as there is for commercial vehicle drivers. Of course, one potential problem with that overlaps with that of registering e-bikes themselves: Some delivery workers are undocumented and therefore don’t want to risk “outing” themselves. I can understand: Even US citizens are sometimes reluctant, for any number of reasons, to engage with government bureaucracies.

And then there is the question of what, exactly, is an e-bike. Most jurisdictions define them, if they do, by whether the bikes have pedal assists or throttles, or by maximum speed. Even with regulations, too many machines that are within an inch or two of being a full-on motorcycle and are “flying under the radar.” I see them all the time in bike lanes, even the ones secluded from automobile traffic.

But those wannabe Harleys, I suspect, aren’t the ones used by the commenter I accidentally deleted. Nor are the legitimate e-bikes from share services like Lime. I think the commenter might’ve been upset (rightly) over being lumped together with them. So, even if policy-makers come up with fair and equitable regulations, signs like the one I saw would need to be re-written. Whether or not it was intended, the bias was certainly perceivable in that sign.

Foliage Before The Storm

 This, fifteen minutes before the edge of a hurricane pushed wind and dumped rain on us:

All About Parking

In New York City, it’s always about parking.

It’s one of the ostensible reasons for opposition to bike lanes: Drivers complain the green strips take away “their” spaces and traffic lanes.

Turns out, people with cars and trucks aren’t the only ones who can’t find places to leave them when they’re not driving.

In spite of the warning, e-bikes have filled one of the two rows of bike racks by the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Critics of dockless bike share systems have at least one piece of evidence here.

But it also raises a valid question: Is it better to leave e-bikes and scooters in a rack where they don’t belong than in the middle of a sidewalk or other public passageway? At least those racked e-bikes aren’t making life for people with mobility issues more difficult. Still, if I had to park my bike and there were no free spaces in that rack, it might be more than an inconvenience—say, if I had somewhere to be.

I will, however, put things in perspective. Here is the biggest “parking” problem at the terminal—and throughout the city:

Some would say, “They should go to the shelters.” I have known a few people who’ve spent time in them. While a few say the shelters offer services and “you can get your life back together” in them, even they admit the shelters often turn people away because they’re overcrowded or simply can’t handle the problems some homeless  people face. The overcrowding, along with some residents’ mental health issues and sheer despair and desperation, leads to theft, fights and worse. So it’s almost understandable, at least to me, that some people would “park” an elbow’s width away from the cyclists like me—and thousands of tourists—who stream by every day.

How An “Influencer” “Won”—On A Bicycle

I am almost always happy when I see somebody on a bicycle.

Notice that I said “almost.” Among the exceptions are when someone uses the bicycle to commit a crime or cause harm.

Or cheat.

I have never run a marathon, so I rarely criticize whatever anyone does to complete one—unless someone does something like what Yuanyuan Sun, known as “Abeeer” on social media did in the latest Berlin Marathon.

Now I am going to reveal a prejudice. I really try not to categorically disdain groups of people. As an example,  while  I can’t count any lawyers among my friends, and probably never will, I have met advocates who work for the public good, including ones who fought for equal rights, which the current administration is trying to take from people like me.

On the other hand, I must say that it didn’t surprise me to learn that Ms. Sun is an “influencer.” Some might accuse me of internalized misogyny, as the majority of “influencers” are female. Others might accuse me of jealousy, as many “influencers”:are younger and more conventionally attractive than I am.

But I have seen too much, shall we say, unethical behavior. In trying to get that perfect image, I’ve seen them endanger people by, for example, obstructing the paths of cyclists, pedestrians and disabled people. And some, like Ms. Sun, cheat:  She rode the last few kilometers on the back of a bicycle. That helped her finish the course in her “personal best” time and post a video of her, adorned with a medal.

Now, to be fair, what she did is, arguably, not the most egregious example of non-pharmaceutical performance enhancement in a long-distance running event. In the 1904 Olympics—one of the most bizarre sporting events ever held—the marathon’s winner was disqualified for driving part of the way. Then there was Rosie Ruiz, who “finished” the 1980 Boston Marathon after entering it during the last mile. That, after taking the subway for part of the 1979 New York Marathon, for which she was given a special dispensation to enter after claiming she was dying of cancer when she missed the qualification deadline.

I guess what Yungyung Sun did bothers me more because she committed her fraud on a bicycle. And I’ll admit being an “influencer” doesn’t redeem her in my eyes.

Why Him?

Why was the tubing on this frame named for a guy who got lost?

 

Happy Columbus Day/Indigenous People’s Day!

I live near the “real” Little Italy in the Bronx. I often go there for food and, occasionally, other kinds of fun. There are festivities there. So why am I not participating in them? Well, I’ve never understood why a guy who got lost, didnt “discover” any place (people were already living there) and helped to start the transatlantic slave trade became a source of Italian pride when we have Michelangelo, Galileo, Dante and Leonardo (What does that tell you when we only need to use their first names?), Vivaldi and, for crying out loud, fashion designers? 

And why was one of the best-known brands of bicycle tubing, from which so many fine frames (I’ve owned seven and ridden a bunch more) have been constructed, named after that wayward sailor?

Does ending a post with three consecutive rhetorical questions mean I’m getting cranky in midlife?

5000

 

So why am I posting an image of a 1988 Panasonic DX~5000?

Well, it was a nice bike from one of the most under-appreciated bicycle manufacturers. I think Panasonic never became as popular (at least in the US) as other Japanese brands like Fuji and Nishiki—which continue to offer some great bikes—because most Americans thought of Panasonic only as an electronics company. But their bikes had excellent workmanship and were well thought-out.

But the real reason I chose that model is its number. Yesterday’s post was #5000 in the history of this blog. 

So why didn’t I write a celebratory post yesterday? Well, I felt really good after yesterday’s ride and was still glowing within from the light over the ocean. Call me self-indulgent or narcissistic or whatever else you want. I wanted to share it before I got too full or tired. (I think that was one of the mistakes I made during my Japan trip last year: I waited until night to write and, after full days of biking and exploring in a mountainous country during the hottest part of the season  I was cooked.)

Anyway, here’s to 5000. I think it’s a good reason to skip the Sunday funnies, at least for this week.

A Ride As The Sun Breaks

The days are growing shorter. So I should begin a multi-hour ride early in the morning, right? Did I? No. I took my time with breakfast and let Marlee cuddle me: I think he wanted it because I was wearing a sweatshirt I hadn’t worn in a while. 

I had another motive for starting my ride to Point Lookout later than I “should” have. Today was one of those bright, nippy, breezy days that practically defines October. Tomorrow’s forecast calls for wind and rain, courtesy of a hurricane that’s soaking the South. So I figured—correctly, as it turned out—that as I pedaled along the ocean, I would see light and cloud formations even more vivid than those of hot, shadowless summer days.

It was as if the sun were taking a break in the waves ahead of the approaching storm.  

A First Bike As I Never Could Have Understood It

 

In the milieu in which I grew up, well, you would never hear the word “milieu:” I didn’t encounter it until my freshman year sociology class in college.

That’s not to say people were stupid, or merely uneducated. In both Brooklyn and New Jersey, the two places where I spent my pre-college years, almost everyone was working- or middle-class. Almost every kid I knew had two parents. If any kid was being raised by only one, it was more than likely the other had died: Divorce and separation were rare; a parent choosing to raise a baby or child was rarer still. To my knowledge, only a handful of kids I grew up with were adopted. Among them was the sister of the closest friend I had in high school. And my friend already had four siblings when his family took in one more.

You probably could guess that in that milieu (!), almost entirely White, conservative (even for its time) and mostly Christian (Catholic and mainstream Protestant) witn an assimilated Jewish community, there were no “out” gays or lesbians; a non-heterosexual parent or teacher was unthinkable. The only trans person most people had heard about was Christine Jorgensen, and then only as a punchline.

At least I knew that LGBTQ people existed, even if I didn’t know who they were. (Much later, I would find out that a few whom I suspected, and some I never would’ve guessed, were indeed not hetero or cis.) I cannot say the same for another group of people who, like LGBTQ people, are often misunderstood and unfairly stigmatized: foster children.

Not only did I not know any foster kids—or, more precisely, know that anyone I knew was one—I didn’t even know what that meant. When, much later,  I finally met some whom I knew to be foster kids, I started to understand why some teachers, counselors and other professionals said they were “difficult” to work with or even “hopeless:” Many have endured traumatic experiences no one, much less a child, should bear. And, one thing anyone who has taught, at any level, can tell you is that, all other things being equal, people-whatever their age—are easier to teach and learn more and better when their lives are stable and structured.

That so many come from dysfunctional or abusive environments means that foster kids often don’t have the milestones and other experiences other kids, even adopted ones, typically enjoy. One such experience was a kind of rite of passage for so many kids, including me: getting their first bicycle. So many foster kids not only don’t get a first, many never get a bike at all.

Some employees of an Utah Volkswagen dealership understand what I’ve just described. Ken Garff Volkswagen in Orem has a “We’re ‘Hear’ For You” program in which employees decide how they want to give back to the community. The program has worked with Utah Foster Care in other ways, but this time employees decided to buy, and in some cases assemble, 100 bikes. They even attached name tags to the bikes so the gift felt more personal.

Those employees did all of that on their own time. That tells me that they understand something I did: the thrill of getting that first bike and something I never could have: what it’s like to be a foster kids. And I suspect that at least one of those employees is a cyclist and understands the pleasure cycling can give us, from childhood to midlife and beyond.

 

Too Old For What?

 “Aren’t you too old to be riding a bike?”

I heard that in my 30’s. In a bike shop, no less.

And who, exactly, was questioning my fitness to mount a saddle, or my emotional maturity (depending on how you read the question)? The father of the shop’s owner, a racer with whom I sometimes rode. He was only three years younger than me. He didn’t seem to think I was “too old.” Nor did our other riding and training buddies, some of whom were even younger.

(If they could see me now…)

To my knowledge, there is no law, body of knowledge or fount of wisdom not tinged with societal expectations that says a person can’t ride a bike past a certain age. Of course, some people hang up their wheels when they reach some age or another, not because of the years, but of the pains and illnesses, they’ve accumulated. In fact, I acquired Vera, my Miss Mercian mixte, from someone whose medical conditions precluded further adventures with her.

Some people grow angry and bitter in such circumstances. Others feel resigned. But I suspect that most remember the good times on two wheels.

In that latter category is Cambridge, England native Clifford Craske, a  97-year-old retired architectural technician. He rode many, many miles with Town and County Cycle Club, now known as the Cambridge Cycle Club. In addition to completing long tours, he won the local Lime Kiln Hill climb challenge and several sprint championships.

His wife passed away last year. Confined to a wheelchair, he still reminisced about his days in the saddle—and about his Claud Butler. His 67-year-old daughter, Alice Craske, realized how much that bike meant to him and arranged to have it restored. Now it will be displayed in the Cambridge care home where he lives.

From the photos, it looks lovely, with its dark green paint and brown handlebar wrap. (Very British!)  “Seeing Clifford reunited with his bicycle was such a touching moment,” said care home manager Razvan Stanbeca. “Clifford’s face said it all…there was hardly a dry eye in the house.”

I don’t know what has Clifford Craske between rather than astride two wheels. Whatever it is, he isn’t “too old” to ride—or love—his bike.

Pursued By The Season

"
Some people pursue the best views of fall foliage. I have been among:them: I have taken trips upstate and to Vermont and Canada in pursuit of the most vibrant displays of red, gold and rust-colored leaves.

Here in New York City, it’s still early. During my last couple of rides, the season has played peek-a-boo with me. 

These little bursts of color popped into view around a bend in the Bronx Park path

and across from the north shore of Randall’s Island 

I Am Woman, See Me Ride

 I am woman, see me ride!

Not The Description . Not The Theory.

 

So how does something I saw during today’s ride connect with a PhD I never finished (actually, just barely started) one of the most famous critiques of conceptual art—and why people hate (or at least claim to) AI summaries? 

While taking a spin around Randall’s Island, I noticed a fellow, built like a football linebacker and astride one of those bikes that looked like iridescent ice cream straight from the oven and probably cost more than a university-educated worker’s average salary in many African or Asian countries, staring at a screen on his handlebars.  When we passed each other again, halfway around the island (we were riding in opposite directions) he was still transfixed on it. And when we passed each other again. And again.

Oh, and just after I saw him the first time, I almost crashed into someone on a Citibike e-bike who, along with his girlfriend on another Citibike e-bike, made ir impossible for me or anyone else to pass because their wobbling and swerving cut off the whole lane—while he recorded himself on his phone, completely oblivious to anything else.  (Somehow I thought he was an actual or would-be “influencer.”) All the while, the girlfriend giggled.

Of course, it wasn’t the first time I saw behavior like his, or that of the fellow looking at the device on his handlebars. But I think I realized something about folks like them and the “phone zombies” we’ve all seen.

It seems that, at least for some people, whatever is in front of, or around, them is of no consequence:  Only the summarized, digitized version that is presented to them, or they can make from it, matters.The guy looking at his device on his racing bike was looking at whatever AI or some program told him about his ride along, possibly, with physiological data. And the video the other rider was making of himself seemed to matter more than his actual ride.

They got me to thinking about the museum- and gallery-goers who look at the plaque or placard next to a work of art and read the description without paying much attention to the work itself.  I am not talking only about tourists who go to the Met or the Louvre to check off a box on their New York or Paris itineraries. If I recall correctly, at least one critic said that a work of art matters only to the extent that it fits certain theories or narratives. 

Now, I realize that some people are more verbal than visual. (I may be one.) Still, I feel that one thing that makes a work worth seeing is that it offers something language and theory can’t, or at least don’t do well. As an example, I wrote something about the way I believe Van Gogh experienced color: as forms of energy, which is why he balanced them as he did. Even if my explanation was brilliant or simply lovely (which I doubt), I hope that no one reads it without looking at his Irises. 

So what does any of that, or the cyclists I saw today, have to do with my nipped in (or, more precisely, before) the bud doctoral program? Well, upon realizing that my MFA and creative work probably weren’t going to get me a full-time job in any school not in some “college town” island in a redneck sea, I figured I’d go for the next three letters in the academic alphabet. It didn’t take me long to see that students at that level, at least in the program I was in, weren’t actually studying Shakespeare or Blake or Yeats—or even contemporary (at the time) poets like Seamus Heaney or novelists like Toni Morrison. Rather, they were studying theory, which felt like the most abstract, even abstruse, areas of philosophy or social science. Those things can be interesting, but it seemed that discussion and writing in those classes were concerned entirely with the theories, with little or no mention of the work itself.

Sometimes people ask me how many miles I ride. i know the lengths, more or less, of some particular rides, but I don’t think about those numbers after I ride. I might recall the light or scent of a path or place, how my legs felt or how something changed along the way. I don’t try to reduce my pedaling to data point or a journey into a catalog —or Ai—description. There’s so much more, and better, to cycling—and life.

Something In The Water?

A midday ride to Randall’s Island. Came home. Looked for Marlee at the door. Not there. Not by the window or on my bed. Where could he be? My apartment isn’t that big.

I opened my closets.  Sometimes he sneaks in when I’m getting a jacket or pair of  shoes. Today he didn’t. Maybe he got out the door as I left. Checked the hallway, then all 12 flights of stairs. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I pushed through the doors, out to the sidewalk.  I hoped he hadn’t run out into the street or by the Metro North tracks. The thought of him under the 1:45 from Grand Central Station to Valhalla drove me to hysteria. That, or him wandering the streets—even though he’s a rescue cat, he’s spent practically no time outside in the 14 years since I adopted him.

Took the elevator up to my apartment. Maybe a drink, something to eat would jog my nonexistent psychic powers. There must be something in the water, Poland Spring to be exact: I heard mewling and saw him playing with a fish toy I bought him last week.

“This Is In The Bronx?!”

One of the wonderful things about cycling is that it connects you with wherever you are riding. Yet, sometimes, you can’t believe you are where you are.

That was how I felt on my first overseas bicycle tour, which took me to England and France.  I have also had that sensation any time I have experienced a new (to me) country, countryside, city or village—or, say, the ancient temples and shrines of Japan or Southeast Asia.

But, even as a jaded, crotchety woman in middle age, I don’t have to go far for that sense of wonder. I have experienced it without leaving my hometown of New York City or even the borough in which I live, whether it was Manhattan, Brooklyn or Queens, or is the Bronx.

As for the latter, I took my neighbor Sam, who has lived all of his life in the Bronx, onto paths past sights he never knew existed in his home turf. Today I pedaled to one of those areas, a peninsula between the (misnamed) East River and Long Island Sound.

There I met Helen, who wasn’t on a bike but was photographing houses that look like no others in this city:  They are more like fin de siecle beachside cottages.  And they stood behind a tall fence. The street leading to and around them stretched behind a gate—which, seemingly ignorant of the “No Trespassing—Private Property” sign beside it, yawned wide open.

“Wanna go through?” 

“What can they do? Chase us away?” I wondered.

So I wheeled La-Vande, my King of Mercia and she walked beside me. She is about half a foot shorter and more than a few pounds lighter than me—hardly an imposing figure—but somehow her presence emboldened me to do something—enter that gate—I wouldn’t have done alone.

About a hundred meters inside the gate, a man whom I guessed to be a bit older than me greeted us. Helen—who, as it turns out, is a freelance reporter—asked the man what he knew about the history of the place. Quite a bit, as it turned out.  So did the postal carrier who told us he lucked into that route as his “retirement gig.” “Have a good afternoon, ladies,” the older man bade us. 

That last detail stuck with me because later, Helen asked why I thought those men, and a few other people we encountered, were so friendly. After all, we were in a gated community—yes, in the Bronx—and had no business being there. “Well, we’re not causing any trouble,” I mused. Then, something else occurred to me. I am well into midlife and Helen, though seemingly younger, certainly is a grown woman. And, I added, “I am White and you are Asian.” While I don’t want to impute racism to people I don’t know, I couldn’t help but to notice that everyone we saw was White and middle-aged or older. So, Helen and I simply never stood out as we might have had we been two young Black men.

Don’t get me wrong: Both of us enjoyed our moment there.  “You don’t need to go on vacation with these views!” she marveled. And the architecture and history of that place are fascinating, all the more so because neither of us expected to see it in the Bronx.

Weathering The Storm

Why do we have pets? They teach us how to live!

Marlee is fifteen years old and has been with me for all except the first five months.  In the cat-to-human-years conversion, Marlee is—wait for it—about 15 years older than I am.  In other words, she’s considered “old.”

Accuse me of projecting if you like, but as long as I am in mid-life, so is she: I don’t know when either of our lives will end.

And she’s always teaching me something.  This weekend, she showed me how to ride out the Nor’easter:

The Race To Midlife

 I swear, I really did race. And it wasn’t that long ago. Really!

Midlife Rain

You’re not riding your bike today, are you?

I heard that question from two of my neighbors today.  To mess with one, I said, “Why not?” She looked at me in disbelief until I laughed. 

Actually, I had no intention of getting on my bike today. I woke to the first downpours and gusts of a “Nor’easter” that’s blowing through this area.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I’m not entirely adverse to wind and rain.  Still, there are some conditions under which I won’t start a ride unless I absolutely must.

The rain is falling, but the leaves are not, yet: autumn has just begun. 

This is a strange time, a strange situation. I have retired from university teaching, but I don’t feel old, or even older than I felt when I was still in the classroom. Of course, that was only four months ago: barely the blink of an eye when you’re in midlife but still long enough for change on top of change.

This reminds me, ironically, of my first days of teaching and my first days as a college student. In the eyes of some, I have a new title, a different status. Today I am “retired” and my days are less structured— or, at least, I am not following a schedule imposed by others. But how, if at all, have I changed as a person? I had the same question the first time someone called me “professor.” I felt uneasy, not only because I was only a teaching assistant (Everyone who teaches in a college is called “professor,” whether or not they have attended that rank.), but also because I knew that I wasn’t any smarter, wiser or even more accomplished in any other way,I than I was before that title was conferred on me. And during my first weeks as a college student, I knew, deep down, I really was no different from the person who graduated high school just a couple of months earlier.

The neighbors who asked whether I’d planned to ride my bike probably see me as “the bike rider” and know little, if anything else, about me. That is fine. I don’t remember when, exactly, I started referring to myself as a cyclist or, for that matter, a writer. Perhaps that is why those designations don’t seem so strange to me: They simply denote things I had been doing, as “woman,” female pronouns and my name identity what ai had known about myself long before I claimed them.

The rain is falling, but the leaves are not. It’s still autumn, if early in the season. I didn’t ride today, but I am still a cyclist. And as long as I keep on, I am in midlife.

Layers of Exposure

 I’ve dressed the same way nearly every day since my last class, in May: shorts, top, sneakers. I did the same this morning: To my knowledge, the post office—my first destination this morning—has no dress code.  The forces that make the weather also write no such mandates. But they let me know, just a few steps from my building, that the season had changed and I wasn’t dressed for it!

So, when I went for a ride, I added a flannel zip hoodie to my attire. In addition to its coziness, it offered another advantage: I didn’t have to wear sunscreen, at least on my arms. Perhaps I should’ve worn some on my face, but I don’t seem to have burned—and I felt the brisk wind, into which I pedaled through Van Cortlandt Park, skipping against my cheeks. I think I needed that.

From Cyxling Without Age

What Does That Number Mean, Anyway?

 

Photo illustration by Sarina Finkelstein for Money magazine.

“Age is just a number.” Because of that number, I am classified as part of an age cohort and Generation (yes, with a capital G). But, my life philosophy—and the premise of this blog—is based on my belief that as long as I don’t know when I am going to die, I am in the middle of my life.

So, to invoke something a nun taught me (and a roomful of other kids) many years ago, a number—whether it’s age, income, the temperature or anything else—may not have a denotation, but we certainly give it a connotation or, in some cases many connotations 

For example,  a temperature of 10C (50F) doesn’t, by itself, mean much. But in my part of the world, it’s an unusually warm day in January or too cold for July.  And so it is with age:  35 is the youngest at which someone can become the US president, but by that age, gymnasts’ careers are long past. Heck, Eddy Merckx retired from bicycle racing two years before that milestone.

As for my age: Three days after my most recent birthday—which was also the 17th anniversary of my gender affirmation surgery—I was older than my maternal grandmother when she passed away. And today a former student, whom I taught during the last year I lived and worked as a man, celebrated a birthday. She is now as many years old as I was when she was in my class—in the Fall of 2002

When Jennifer (So many women around her age share that name!) was my student, almost anybody would have described her as “young” because of her age, which was typical of college students. I was at an age most people would have described as “middle.” I was, in the sense that I had experiences and knowledge even, if I do say so myself, I was “well-preserved” physically. But, in a sense, I was either very old or very young, in the sense that I knew full well that I was near the end of the life I’d been living and on the threshold of becoming who I am.

She is, in some ways (that I am aware of, anyway), if not older, then at least more evolved than I was at her age: She is aware of what she loves and needs in ways I was just learning. And she resisted pressures to follow a particular educational and career path in favor of one that aligns more closely with her skills and desires. I wouldn’t do anything like that until I was well past the age she was when I met her.

My grandmother, on the other hand, was a very old woman long before she reached my age. Her body began to break down, from a combination of genetics, poverty and lack of self- and other kinds of care, long before she reached Jennifer’s current age or mine when I met Jennifer. She nearly went blind a few years before she passed; she turned to the then-still-experimental technique of laser surgery (which her insurance wouldn’t pay for) in desperation. Thankfully, the procedure restored enough of her sight that she could do most of what she could do before, albeit with thick glasses.

So, what does the number of years we’ve been on this planet say about us? At my current age, I am old enough to have lived in a senior citizens’ building for more than two years. To many of my neighbors, however, I am a “kid.” My grandmother would almost surely see me the same way. When I was Jennifer’s age, I had been an adult, at least in the eyes of the law, for decades while she, as a student, had been one only a few years. But I was in a similar situation to hers in one way:  almost ready to embark upon a life based upon what I want and need rather than others’ expectations.

In other words, she and I were and are in the middle of our lives. So was my grandmother: Even as the rest of her body deteriorated, her sight was restored. She probably had no idea of how much more she would see, just as neither Jennifer nor I know how many days and experiences await us.

On Its Way: Autumn

  Autumn comes (sorry, James Wright) or Summer ends, depending on your point of view, at 20:05 EDT tomorrow.

I don’t, however, need a calendar or almanac to tell me that. My ride this afternoon did plenty: The nip in the air hadn’t turned into a chill but was enough to remind me that I won’t be riding in shorts or short sleeves for much longer.  

Also, the view from Baretto Park toward North Brother Island (where “Typhoid Mary”:was involuntarily held) and Manhattan portended, not only earlier sunsets, but the sky drawing a darkening, rumpling cloak against cold and darkness it cannot—will not?—stop.