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

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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. 

Does It Come With Unequal Pay?

 Sometimes women really do all of the work in a relationship.

How Do You Measure Your Ride?

 J. Alfed Prufrock laments, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” It seems that some of my neighbors measure out, or at least schedule, their lives by doctors’ appointments. I promised myself I wouldn’t because, although I am living in a senior citizens’ building, I am not old; I am, ahem, in midlife, just a bit further along.

Yesterday I broke that promise. Well, all right, I didn’t measure my life by doctors’ appointments: I scheduled my bike ride around one.  To Randall’s Island and back on Tosca, my beloved Mercian fixie, after a breakfast and before a lunch I couldn’t eat because my appointment would include blood work.

I’d planned to ride some more after my appointment.  But when I got home, Marlee beckoned. A cuddle turned into a nap, which turned into real, deep sleep. Could I really have been so tired after riding only 25:kilometers? Have I become old, but without the poetry T.S. Eliot put in Prufrock’s mouth?

Carrie tried to call me a couple of times last night. She figured I was asleep and asked how my doctor’s appointment went. When I mentioned that the phlebotomist took five vials of my blood, she exclaimed, “No wonder you were so tired!”

It had been a while since any of my blood had been drawn. Did I drift into dreamsville? Or am I getting old, I mean, later in midlife?

As long as I’m not measuring my life in coffee spoons or doctors’ appointments—or anything else, really—I will be in the middle of my life. Measurements lead to comparisons, sometimes with the wrong people, for the wrong reasons. That’s not living your own life, in whatever way you choose. So what if I rode only 25 kilometers before my doctor’s appointment? That’s just one ride, one day among many in the middle of my life.

Midlife Changes

 

As I mentioned yesterday, Bruce Gerencser’s blog has been one of my regular reads for nearly a decade. For one thing, I enjoy his writing style, which I cannot emulate. For another, I admire his learnedness and sheer integrity. He was part of Evangelical churches almost from birth through the next fifty years 

and was a pastor for twenty-five of them. Like many clergy and lay members of such churches, he was a conservative Republican though, he says, that slowly changed. So did the way he defined and preached his Christianity.

The latter had much to do with his study of the Bible—about 20,000 hours’ worth, by his own reckoning. Finally, he left Christianity and faith altogether. As you can imagine, he has received many dismissive and even threatening letters and e-mails from self-professed Christians. Some say he was studying the wrong way. Others  say that it was a “midlife crisis” and he should get over it. Still others accuse him of becoming an atheist and humanist for personal glory or  monetary reasons.

From what I know of him, through reading his blog and corresponding with him, none of those charges make any sense. First of all, what is the “right” way to read or study the Bible, or to worship? As for fame and glory: Although the United States is nominally a secular country, religion, and Christianity in particular, is central to many of our institutions and people’s lives. So I don’t think becoming an atheist improved anyone’s social or economic standing. 

So, was he having a “midlife crisis?” Perhaps. If he was, so were many other people who changed their opinions or way of life based on what they’ve learned.  An example is how Gloria Steinem viewed transgender people. Like other second-wave feminists during the 1970s and 1980s, she was critical of us and said some of us chose gender reassignment surgery because of rigid gender roles imposed by patriarchy. Later, however, she publicly changed her stance, recognizing that transgenders and feminists share many of the same goals, including bodily autonomy and dismantling the very gender norms she previously believed to be the reason why we underwent surgery and other changes. 

People who changed their opinions are often accused of being weak “flip-floppers” or, worse, opportunists. If anything, I respect them for having the courage to continue learning and evolving, even doing so may result in a great personal cost. (I think also of how his pilgrimage to Mecca changed the way Malcolm X saw his faith, causing him to leave the Nation of Islam. Some say it led to his assassination.) They are nothing like those who abandon principles or, worse, betray those who loved and  trusted them only for personal gain. That is the opposite of integrity.

In brief, I have the utmost respect for people who are willing to learn and, if need be, change their behavior, beliefs or ways of life in the middle of their lives. There are many such people whose names I will never know. But I am glad that others, like Malcolm, Gloria—and Bruce—have given us, in one form or another, accounts of their journeys.

Perhaps they did, after all, have a “midlife crisis.” But sometimes a “crisis” is exactly what we need to become better, or at least more authentic, versions of ourselves.

On Our Bikes

 Bruce Gerncser’s blog has become one of my regular reads over the past decade or so. 

In a recent post, “Me and My Bike, he wrote, “I rode my bike everywhere:  school, work, ball practice, roller skating, fishing, to the swimming pool and everyplace else I wanted to go.” But his bike wasn’t just a means of transportation:  “On my bike I was free of my mom’s manic behavior and my father’s indifference.” I can relate to that:  Whatever mental health I had, or still have, is attributable to riding whatever bikes I have had.

I will write more about Bruce—and another person I’ve mentioned recently—in an upcoming post.

Bike Face

 Have you ever ridden your bike just to do this?:

Riding And Remembering

 Yesterday I pedaled to Point Lookout. The ride takes me from the Botanical Garden through concrete canyons to houses on small patches of land in Queens and, finally, a peninsula bounded by the ocean and bay that looks more like a New England seaside idyllic than part of suburban sprawl.

Today’s ride was very different, from the Bronx all the way downtown in Manhattan.  Ironically, I left my apartment without a set itinerary, in contrast to yesterday’s trip, in which I followed a route, with slight variations, I’d taken many times before.

Today started cool but turned summer-like as the afternoon progressed. High clouds drifted across a blue sky. Many streets were closed off for what I believe is the last of “Open Streets” Saturday, in which motor vehicles are prohibited, and for various street fairs. But everywhere I looked, streets teemed with pedestrians and cyclists.

Twenty-five years ago yesterday, hijackers crashed two passenger airliners into the World Trade Center. The day after, from what I’m told, areas of Manhattan removed from the scene were all but empty, the silence interrupted only by ambulances and other emergency vehicles.  I said “I”m told” because I was living in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and no one was except police, firefighters and other emergency workers were allowed to enter Manhattan.

It would have been difficult, I imagine, for people I saw today, many of whom weren’t yet born on 9/11, to imagine how different the city looked from the one they were enjoying today. And I guess some, like me, who witnessed it firsthand or were nearby and experienced the immediate aftermath, couldn’t imagine or not imagine it whether or not we want to:  smoke wafts and screams echo in our minds, in our nightmares.

The festive atmosphere along downtown streets where people’s worlds were shaken twenty-five years ago reminded me of the first time I visited Place de la Concorde: On that pleasant June day in one of the world’s most elegant public squares, it was difficult, though not impossible, to recall accounts of the square filled with blood (because the drains were to small to carry it away) from the 1100 people guillotined there during the Reign of Terror.

One important difference between today and my first time in Paris was that there were no living witnesses to the Reign of Terror. Anyone who thinks about it knows about it the way I do: from written accounts, art and perhaps what they were taught in school. The day will come when the same holds true for 9/11. For now, many of us still can remember, whether or not we want to—even during a pleasant afternoon bike ride.

Twenty-Five Years Later

 

Today I pedaled to Point Lookout and back. I wasn’t trying to forget what happened 25 years ago today: I couldn’t have, even if I wanted to. 

Ships were docked beyond the South Shore beaches. They are more than likely research vessels, but I couldn’t keep from wondering whether they were defending against some kind of “commemoration” or “celebration.” After all, while I didn’t see much traffic on my way out and very few other cyclists, or even casual strollers, along the Rockaway and Long Beach boardwalks, cops seemed to be everywhere. Some, of course, were on their way to or from 9/11 commemorations, as many fellow officers died that day.  But I wondered whether some were deployed as deterrents even though, I suspect, someone wouldn’t have launched an attack today: it would be too obvious. But, hey, what do I know about such things?

Riding today was a sort of commemoration for me. I didn’t know anyone who died in the Twin Towers, but I knew people who did. I can’t help but to think it changed the dynamics of, or ended altogether, relationships between those who lost someone and those who didn’t.  I have lost friends and relatives, sometimes in unexpected ways, but I don’t think they compare to someone going to work and never coming home.  Also, I believe there must have been a particular shock in knowing how those parents, siblings, neighbors and friends experienced their last moments: Who anticipates dying in that way?

Today I realized that, perhaps, 9/11 has been part of the changes in how I ride. While cycle-commuting wasn’t as popular in New York as it is now, some of the people who died that day took their last rides to their desks, tables or other work places in the Towers. Some were making deliveries. 

Perhaps as a result about the bikes that survived even if their riders didn’t, I don’t stress as much as I used to about a ride going “perfectly,” whatever that means. If my bike feels good under me and I’m enjoying the ride, whether I’m on a commute, errand or “joy” ride, that’s all that matters. If it’s not cold and raining at the same time, the weather is fine. (The planes that struck the Towers flew through the most preternaturally clear blue skies I, or many other people, had seen in New York City.) I don’t know whether the ride I take  tomorrow, or twenty or fifty years from now, will be my last. But if I can ride, and I can savor it afterwards, I have a gift, whether or not I deserve it, denied to so many other people on that terrible day 25 years ago.

This Isn’t What They Mean By “Going Green”

What I see during rides is a surprising —and sometimes shocking.

Witness this, from a recent late-afternoon ride:

A puddle with its own ecosystem?

The Abbey Road Ahead

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Is it nostalgia? Or does it mean I haven’t given up? Jo

I am pondering those questions as I’m listening to “Abbey Road,” specifically “Something.”

When “Abbey Road,” I was a couple of years shy of the demographic that made it one of the most iconic albums of all time. Still, whatever your age, you heard its most popular songs, like “Come Together,” “Something “ and “Here Comes The Sun” on the radio in 1969. The album is great because of its songwriting, musicianship and the sheer charisma of “The Fab Four.” But it’s also a reminder—or, at least it reminds me—of how what some would see as idle whimsicality is as necessary as analysis. Actually, rationality has nowhere to go without imagination.  

The album also reminds me that cynicism is not to be confused with wisdom, and it’s not naive to believe that joy is still possible. If anything, it might simply be an act of defiance: It’s not about not letting go, it’s about not allowing something to be taken from you.

That is not nostalgia. It’s what we need to move forward or, more precisely, what’s necessary to make the journey, whatever remains of it (personally or globally) meaningful.

An Old-School Visionary

 The Book of Ecclesiastes (1:9) reminds us that there is nothing new under the sun.

In earlier posts, I wrote about “bike libraries” as if they were some new, visionary idea. Turns out, someone created and operated one siglehandedly more than 40 years ago.  And Charles Kuralt used that exact phrase to describe it.

The best part is that the man in charge—Jethro Mann, who died at 96 in 2013–wasn’t running it as a nonprofit organization.  He did all of the work—from “rescuing” discarded bicycles, repairing them (or, sometimes, grafting parts from several bikes onto others), loaning them and keeping records (on paper) when kids took them out and returned them.

He also did something else that seemed revolutionary when organizations like “Recycle a Bicycle” started doing it about 20 years ago:  He turned his space into a kind of community center where kids not only learned how to fix flats and other problems; they also showed kids younger than themselves how to do the same.

While doing all of that, hemodeled kindness and respect and expected his benefactors to do the same. He, whose day job was with the state of North Carolina, definitely would not have a place in the Trump Administration or the MAGA movement.

Oh, and while fixing bikes and helping kids—most of whom were poor and African-American—he wore overalls over a dress shirt and tie.  And a fedora.  When was the last time you saw that?

Whatever his age, he would have been in the middle of his life, and life itself. I would have loved to meet him, even as the snotty young thing I was.

Was This His Weekend Plan?

 Tomorrow is Labor Day here in the US.

Some people are going to the beach one last time.

Some are cycling there.

Not many, I reckon, are combining those activities.

Who—Or What—Is Next?

 It’s been said that the deaths of famous people come in threes. Within the past two weeks, we lost two of the most amazing women: Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem.  Some (including me) would count Tim Curry, who died the same day as Dolly. Others might Robin Morgan, who passed yesterday, in the group. Perhaps we should make it four:  In Japanese and other cultures, the number is associated with death.

Strange times we’re in (as if we weren’t before). One of my neighbors, whom I usually encountered while smoking with other neighbors just outside our building, has kicked the habit. That’s a good thing, of course (unless you have stock in Philip-Morris), but the circumstances that brought him to that decision weren’t delightful:  While in a store, he started gasping and was rushed to the emergency room.  Oh, and someone else I know was ordered to the hospital immediately when tests revealed liver damage.

Somehow I knew change was gonna come (apologies to Sam Cooke) as I set out for Point Lookout, a ride I have taken many times. The weather was almost too perfect:  temperature-wise, more like a day later in this month or even next month, preternaturally blue skies and white, puffy clouds. Waves rolled in, echoing streams of flapping egrets’ wings. Perhaps it had to do with hearing, before I set out to ride, about a news item about an event to commemorate the 25th anniversary of 9/11. Like almost everybody else who lived through that day, I remember how beautiful it was right before the planes flew toward the towers: much like yesterday.

Movies and TV programs never show disasters happening on days like yesterday or, for that matter, 11 September 2001. But the times before, if not the disaster itself, then the loss of innocence, always seem to be idyllic, even Edenic, shown through a scrim, or perhaps a gauze, of dreamlike haze. Even the sunset, when seen through that mist, wispy clouds drifting about, does not seem to portend the coming of the moment when it all becomes a memory—and nobody in the scene knows what’s coming. The audience does, but they can’t tell.

Gloria Steinem Dies In The Middle Of Her Life, At 92

A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.

She admits that she didn’t coin the phrase.  But she probably did more to popularize it (and its paraphrase, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”)

I am talking, of course, about the one and only Gloria Steinem.  Please indulge me that one cliche: She was not only one-of-a-kind; I truly believe that it’s simply not possible for this world, let alone the human race, to produce anyone else like her.

Yesterday she passed away, age 92.

I remember my disbelief when hearing that she was 80 years old. She seemed to be as much in the middle of her life as she was decades earlier. Perhaps it came from living and working for the causes she championed  with the knowledge that even when a policy changed, a new law passed or people (some, anyway) changed the way they thought, her work would never end. She clearly never forgot the struggles she faced while growing up (her father died when she was 11) or as a young woman trying to make her way in male-dominated spheres.

Her body has ceased to function. But her legacy hasn’t, in spite of Trump’s (and his allies’) attempts to destroy it. That is why she will always be in the middle of her life: the only possible, let alone proper, way to remember her.

This Light, That Color

 A downpour in the early hours. Rain until late morning. Then this:

I have never seen such a sky early in the afternoon in this part of the world.

I am not Vincent Van Gogh who, I believe, experienced colors as energies and balanced (especially violet and yellow) rather than merely contrasted or complemented them, as someone like me, who can only see colors, would. Nor am I Claude Monet, who sensed light as a tapestry of colors and textures woven into a moment. But I do perceive and remember moments, events and people by the light around them. 

I believe I will recall early this afternoon—an otherwise ordinary time—by the light of that sky, unlike any other I have seen. Does it convey some energy I can’t yet, and perhaps never will be able to, explain? 

What Does It Mean To Be Retired?

 

The new semester has begun. For the first time in many years, I am not part of it.

After I taught my last class, more than three months ago, my brother asked me how I felt about it. “I don’t feel retired,” I said. “ I think it will hit me when next semester starts.” Well, here I am and I still don’t feel “retired.” Is something supposed to happen in one’s body, one’s mind or one’s life when one stops doing what they’ve done for most, or all, of their working life?

People have advised me to keep busy. I am doing that,  and will probably become even busier if I do even a few of the things I’ve planned or contemplated. Of course I have been cycling, writing and helping Sam, Carrie and a couple of other people with everything from fixing bikes to filling out forms. But I am also, in whatever ways I can, be someone who is the kind of person I didn’t know when I was growing up or beginning my life as Justine. I got a glimpse of that person when, after my last class, two non-binary students told me they were glad to, not only have me as a professor, but also simply to meet me: It showed them, they explained, that the lives they want to live are possible.

And, as I mentioned in the post I wrote afterwards, it actually confirmed, for me, that I was making the best decision. The venue and context may change, but there is work and simply living to be done. Perhaps that is the reason I don’t feel retired, and possibly won’t.

On Top Of The Curve

 Beach cruisers aren’t meant to be high-performance bikes. So their designers can be, shall we say, a little whimsical:

A “Blockbuster” No One Wants To See

 Rain, rain and more rain. That’s a fair summary of the past two days. One local weather forecaster called this summer a “blockbuster storm season.”  Blockbuster? I guess storms can be spectacles, spreading  across the sky like a movie on a screen.

Ironically, I was most worried about rain the other day, I’d pedaled out to Point Lookout and was enjoying pane de casa from Addeo’s with Manchego cheese when a cumulus cloud with a face of shadows crawled across the sky. It passed, and I made good use of my sunscreen during the ride back.

And now I get to watch this summer’s “blockbuster “ when we were supposed to see a near-total lunar eclipse.

We Didn’t Lose A Hero: Dolly Parton Will Always Be One

 

The other day, I wrote about heroes. In that post, I said that our heroes, especially when we are young, are people we believe we can emulate, or at least become. So a young person’s hero might be an athlete because they don’t yet realize that being the best basketball player in their neighborhood doesn’t mean they have the talent to win a scholarship to UCLA or Indiana, let alone a contract with the Lakers or Celtics. Or, perhaps, they might idolize a musical performer before they realize that no matter how much they practice, they’ll never play guitar like Jimi Hendrix.

Once they realize they can’t emulate a hero, one hopes they will find another satisfying path and not grow bitter and cynical.  If they want or need a hero, perhaps they can find one in someone who makes an admirable choice that they themselves could make.

When I was younger, Dolly Parton wasn’t a hero simply because I never could have imagined I could become like her. I don’t have her looks or talents—at least, not her talents.  I could, however, identify with the sentiment in “Jolene”—a sense of insecurity over not being “good enough “—and realized that she was doing things  of which I was capable, however imperfectly:  She could empathize and express it, and thus herself, in a completely authentic way.

And that is why she is—dare I say it—a hero to so many of us, whether in the LGBTQ community or in other dilemmas not of our own making, or enlisted military members (many of whom grew up poor, as she did). She wasn’t simply feeding us “It Gets Better” platitudes; she was creating and, more important, simply being, something better because she was unapologetically who she was.

That is why we didn’t lose a hero yesterday: She will always be one. At least, one of mine.

Who Are The Heroes?

 

Yesterday’s post was a “Sunday Funny,” got me to thinking about an interesting question: Who is a hero, really?

When we’re growing up, our idols tend to be much older than ourselves. To some kids, parents  might be heroes and even continue to be even after they become parents themselves. An athlete or other performer is often the object of a kid’s adoration. I knew a brother and sister whose avatars were, respectively, a mechanic and beautician. They were like magicians, who seemingly could do the impossible with their hands, in the eyes of those siblings.

I am not an anthropologist, psychologist or sociologist. For whatever it’s worth, here’s my theory about hero-formation: The one admired is visible, whether in person or some medium, and does something the admirer can’t do in the moment but hopes to accomplish one day. That, I believe, is a reason why most kids don’t idolize the author of a book (especially if it’s a children’s book) or creator of a movie or cartoon:  They cannot see the wordsmith, the animator, the director or, for that matter, even know their names. Also, they don’t get to see the process of those creations as they do with an athletic performance or dance.

You grow up, become as old as your childhood heroes and your life takes a path different from theirs. Sometimes very different. You realize that you won’t do whatever they did, whether because you couldn’t or your priorities change. Or you realize your heroes weren’t the people you thought they were.

My favorite baseball player was Tom Seaver.  He was one of the greatest pitchers ever to grace the game. But he wasn’t a hero:  I knew, early on, that I never would be a professional ball player, no matter how hard I worked at it. Later, when I learned about bicycle racing, I admired Eddy Merckx, who was in his prime. But he, too, wasn’t someone I could idolize because in those days, Americans didn’t ride in the peloton. The cyclists I admired were people like John Rakowski, whose around-the-world bicycle tour I followed in Bicycling!, and fellow club members-especially the women—who pedaled up mountains and across hundreds of miles.

In other words, my heroes, even when I was young, were people who did things I couldn’t do at the moment, but could do if I dedicated myself. In addition to the cyclists I mentioned, some teachers and professors became heroes, even though I wasn’t yet considering their career paths, because their education and the kinds of understanding they were out of my range yet still attainable.  As for people I never would meet, I looked up to writers because even if I weren’t as great as they were, I could see myself in them: Kurt Vonnegut’s and Allen Ginsberg’s  disdain for pretense, Toni Morrison’s understanding of dilemmas and Victor Hugo because he always seemed to ask, “Who are you?”  And there was Jacob Bronowski, whom I encountered in his “Ascent of Man” series. He seemed to know everything and somehow made it seem possible.

Although I don’t idolize athletes, there are some I admire as much as human beings as for their sports accomplishments. Among, but not limited to them, are people like “Major” Taylor, Jackie Robinson, Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, Arthur Ashe and Simone Biles. While I will never match their physical feats, I can still use their courage, integrity and pure-and-simple humanity as guideposts to my life.  Perhaps they, the creators I mentioned and people who do whatever they can to make our lives and worlds more livable, are the closest we can find to heroes.