Out Of Season

Late summer + Late afternoon =  Winter?

Perhaps that equation makes sense if you are the sort of person who grows sadder as the summer draws to a close.  In normal times (whatever that means anymore), the days grow shorter and cooler at this time of year.  So, if winter isn't incipient, fall is certainly on its way--with the barren season not far behind.

Although the air was warm when I mounted my bike, I felt as if I'd taken a ride in the middle of January or February, after the bright lights of Christmas and New Years' festivals are switched off.  Coney Island, like other seaside destinations, seems to retreat into hibernation from that time of year until Easter or Passover.  During those spring holidays, people congregate on the boardwalk, and sometimes even venture on the beach, even if the roller coasters and Ferris wheels and other attractions have not yet opened.

But such gatherings were absent yesterday.  Granted, it was a Thursday afternoon, but in normal (there's that word again!) times, I would have to weave around groups of strollers on any summer afternoon that didn't include a raging thunderstorm.

Most people would say that Coney Island is "dead," or at least closed, when the Cyclone--one of the most iconic amusement park rides in the world--and Wonder Wheel are still, their entry gates locked tight.    But, for me, what really shows that a stake has been driven into Coney Island's heart is this block:

I remember riding the "bumper cars" with my grandfather as a child, and trying to win prizes at the shooting range.  Tourists usually come to "the Island" for the "big" attractions, like the Cyclone and Luna Park.  But, for me, the real spirit of the place--in all of its grit and garishness, in the hustle of its carnival barkers and the pulsing of its shopowners'  hunger alongside the expanse of ocean--is in places like the shooting gallery, the sideshows and the old man--actually, he turned out to be exactly my age, save for a few days!--who sat in front of one of the padlocked doors.

He saw me riding and taking photos.  We talked.  He told me a bit about his life and how he ended up there, like a piece of driftwood on a more remote beach.  I assured him that what happened to him could happen to any one of us, myself included.  "I don't want to keep you," he said.

He wasn't keeping me.  I still have choices:  I would ride back to my neighborhood, where some would complain about restaurants and bars that aren't allowed to serve patrons indoors.  He would look for the bits of work--sweeping sidewalks, unloading trucks--the few still-open hot dog stands (Nathan's, and others) and other shops could offer him, and pay him a few dollars for. 

I rode to winter.  He was living in it. I rode home.

What Is The Tide Bringing In Now?

The new semester begins today.

So what did I do yesterday?  I went for a ride, of course!

An agreeably cool morning turned into an agreeably warm afternoon, both full of sunshine.  And I had the wind at my back on my way home.

The tide was out at Point Lookout.  I was tempted to ride onto the sandbar.  I think Tosca, my Mercian fixie, would have been game.  But I didn't want to chance the tide coming back in.

I had a good time.  I'm sure everybody did!

Today I'm teaching some basic freshman English classes.  Tomorrow, though, I get to teach something that even a few weeks ago--let alone when I was living as a guy named Nick--I never imagined I would teach.

Women's studies.  Can you believe it?  I didn't ask for it:  I was asked.  

Is there some other kind of tide coming in?

Impressionist Camouflage?

When you get to a certain age, you become more honest with yourself because, really, you have no other choice.  I think that it was the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset who said that at age 45, a person can no longer live in fictions.

One thing I've finally admitted to myself is that when I talk about what I "should" or "am supposed to" do, I'm actually just forestalling, even if only for a second, doing what I actually want to do.

And so it is that on days like today, I can tell you there were things I "should have" done--which, of course, I didn't do.  At least I managed, pretty early, to admit to myself that I wasn't going to do them.

It just took one look out my window--which was wide open (save for the screen, of course).  The morning was delightfully cool in a way it hasn't been in a long time.  Breezes were light and skies blue, full of sunshine.  

Well, it wasn't just any old mild, sunny day--with low humidity, to boot.  The qualities of that day seemed all the more vivid because it followed a long heat wave.  Something else made it truly unusual, though.

You see, the morning felt like early autumn and the early afternoon felt like one of those late-summer days we experience a week or so after Labor Day.  That made for delightful cycling weather.  The relatively cool air, however, was accompanied by the sort of refulgent summer light one sees in Impressionist paintings of picnics or other outings in the country.  Even the concrete canyons and brick-lined boulevards seemed to be bathed in the deep greens of the rippling leaves and the deep yellow sunlight.

I took a ride to--where else--Connecticut--where even the War Memorial in Greenwich seemed to camouflage itself in that light.

And the bike I rode--Arielle, my Mercian Audax. (Sorry about the poor quality of my cell-phone photos!)