And This is How 2021 Ends (Apologies to T.S. Eliot)

So how will you remember this year?  

Whatever the state of the  COVID pandemic, or anything else in the world, I can say that 2021 was better than 2020 in at least a few ways, however small.

For one thing, I didn't have two accidents (here and here) that landed me in an emergency room (one of them to a trauma center), as I did last year.  I guess one of my blessings, if you will, is that they were the only two such accidents in my nearly half-century of dedicated cycling.

For another, I've met a couple of new potential riding partners.  As much as I like to ride alone, I sometimes want someone to share the experience.  And one of those new fellow riders is two years older than I am and took her first rides in four decades--with me.  Lilian is good company and the educator in me finds fulfillment in helping her re-enter the world of two wheels and two pedals.

And last year's first crash, which wrecked Arielle, my Mercian Audax, yielded enough insurance money for me to buy another Mercian frame--La Vande, a custome Mercian King of Mercia constructed from Reynolds 853 tubing and equipped mainly with parts I had in my apartment.  She's a nice complement to Dee-Lilah, my custom Mercian Vincitore Special.

I still wish I could have taken a trip somewhere more than a state or two away. Well, I could have, but even though I am fully-vaccinated, I have been reluctant to get on a bus, train or plane.  That hesitancy has also kept me from doing a few rides that I've done a couple of times in each of the past few years because they involve a ferry ride to connect parts of the trip or a train ride to get me home.  So, I've been doing many of the same rides again and again.  Perhaps, in the coming year, I'll seek out some new routes.

Oh, and Marlee has been at the beginning and end of my rides.  She joins me in ushering out this year, and wishing you good tidings in the new year.

Rest And The Path Ahead

 I wanted to ride this afternoon, but I wasn’t feeling adventurous.  Perhaps it has to do with the year ending:  Starting new journeys seems more appropriate for a new year.

So I rode to the Flushing Bay Promenade, recently renamed the Malcolm X Promenade.  He lived in nearby East Elmhurst, along with other luminaries like Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald.

The ride is pleasant enough, sort of like comfort food for me and my bikes.  I rode up and down the promenade a few times, in part to get into a physical and mental “groove,” but also because of two men.

Short and squat but broad-shouldered and thick-fingered, they looked like the sort of Central American immigrants who wait at strategic but discreet intersections in residential neighborhoods where contractors, landscapers and other small business people hire people like them as day laborers.  

Such people work and sleep hard, wherever they can. So it’s unusual to see men like them dozing on park benches.  

But were they sleeping ?

Their faces, which probably would have been colored like terra cota or the earth from which they came, instead looked as if they’d been worn to reflect the gray sky and water. One man’s hand drooped in front of him, his fingers frozen in a grip of something no longer there.  

The other man’s head was cocked to his side, as if he stopped himself from resting it on the other man’s shoulders—or a pillow he realized wasn’t there.

A mobile phone propped between them played bouncy conga drum and stringed music.  But it could just as well have emitted “elevator music,” for all of the effect it had on them.

Finally, when I rode by them for the sixth time, I think, the man with the cocked head stirred. 

“¿Estás bien?” I shouted. He nodded.

“¿Necesitas algo?” He moved his head slowly from side to  side.

“¿Estás seguro?” Another nod.

“OK. Feliz año nuevo.” Even if they’re OK, I hope the path ahead is easier and clearer for them in the coming year.

At least the ride back was, for me.

Annis Horribilis Or An Opportunity?

Queen Elizabeth II (How often have I referred to her in this blog?) referred to 1992 as an annis horribilis.  Her Majesty likes to project an image of someone not given to hyperbole, so perhaps she was just trying to show her former tutors that she still remembered some of the Latin they taught her.

Now, to be fair, I would think it was a pretty bad year if a fire destroyed part of my house.  And I wouldn't look back too fondly on a year in which one of my relatives, however distant, committed suicide.  But the other "tragedies," which include divorces, infidelities and the like were merely instances of Royal Family members showing that, well, maybe they're not so different from the rest of us.

In comparison, many people--and large parts of the world--suffered real tragedies, mainly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also because of natural disasters and other disruptions to what was considered "normal."

One can hope that the coming year will be better.  For one thing, Donald Trump lost his bid for a second presidential term.  For another, vaccines against COVID-19 are making their way into the world.  

What really gives me hope, however, is the knowledge that tragedies and disasters are opportunities to learn, and there are always resilient people. (Meeting Cambodians who survived the Pol Pot regime and Greeks who have come through wars, invasions and economic crises taught me much about both.)  One example of resilience includes the people who got on their bikes during the pandemic, when mass transit systems shut down or cut back their services and other forms of recreation weren't available.  I hope that the new "bike boom" shows planners, policy-makers as well as ordinary citizens that the future need not (actually, can't) be as auto- and fossil fuel-centric as the past century or so have been.  

If nothing else, I hope this year helps us to learn that we must--and, I believe, can and will--learn and change.

As The Sun Sets On 2014

I guess I could say that I ended this year in a way that reflects the kind of year it's been:  rather lovely, but unexceptional.  

Early this afternoon, I boarded Tosca for a ride through familiar places to a familiar destination. Even the detours were familiar:  through backstreets lined with cute little brick houses and restaurants of various nationalities, by the tidal marshes by Jamaica Bay and up and down stretches of reconstructed, but still not reconnected, boardwalks in Rockaway Beach and Jacob Riis Park.  

Those detours, and the headwind into which I pedaled through much of my ride made it longer, timewise, than it would normally be.  Even though I did not consciously choose them, I believe that some internal guide steered me through them.  (If Thoreau were alive today, would he say write that if a person does not keep pace with his or her companions, perhaps it is because he or she is guided by a different GPS?)  And where might that internal navigator been leading me?

Where else?:  Coney Island, just as the sun was beginning to set.  Somehow it seemed just right for my last ride of 2014.

Thank you all for following me on my journeys through this blog. as wild or mundane as they may be.  I hope you will join me for more in 2015!

What The End Of This Year Means For Me

From Leica 1956.

In recent years, it's seemed that the ending of the year has more or less coincided with the beginning of winter.  There have been exceptions, of course, such as the winter-that-barely-was a year ago.  But in my recent memory, in this part of the world, the death of a year, if you will, has mirrored the death of so much else.

At least cycling has been a constant in most years.  One of the exceptions came three years ago, when I was recuperating from surgery.  But, in most winters, whatever cycling I'm able to do makes the weeks and months of barren, wizened trees and old people in old, sometimes frayed coats that have survived other seasons seem like people and things encountered on a journey rather than signals of death.

And although I did no Grand Tours or any other monumental rides, I am happy and thankful for the cycling I have done.  For reasons I haven't discussed, and won't discuss, on this blog (After all, they''re not reasons why you come to this blog!), the past year has been difficult for me.  Some might say that I was coming down, finally, from the euphoria I experienced after making a change I'd wanted for as long as I can remember.  Maybe they're right.  But cycling has not merely masked the pain or discontent I've felt; it has always helped me to see that conditions such as those are (or, at least, need) not be permanent.

So has keeping this blog.  That makes sense when you realize that writing has been, along with cycling, one of the enduring passions of my life.  The fact that I continue to do both shows me the necessity of living in the moment as well as the foolishness of living for it, or of believing that every moment will be an extension of the present, or even the past.  So, while I know that I have been in better physical condition--and that I have written things that some people would say are better than anything I've written on this blog, or during the past year, as long as I keep on pedaling and writing, I know that there can be change.  I take that back: There will always be change. What riding and writing show me is that One kind of change or another (save, perhaps, for getting older) is not inevitable; while I may not ever regain the form I had in my youth, I can always improve my conditioning and, perhaps, do different kinds of riding from what I did in those days.  I may not conquer mountains again because I may not need to.  But there will always be a journey, and all I can do is to keep on pedaling and writing, and do whatever goes along with them.

N.B.:  Check out Leica 1956, where I found the photo I've included in this post.