Moonset

I have pedaled into the sunrise, and into the sunset, to work.

Likewise, I have ridden into the sunrise, and into the sunset, to go home.

Less often, I have cycled into a moonrise, to or from my job.

This morning, for the first time (that I can recall, anyway), I spun my wheels into the path of a moonset.

A full moon setting, no less--on my to the college.

(Photos taken today, along East 139th Street, Bronx, NY)

How I Became Aprhodite By Sunset

No, I'm not in Paris again.

After climbing to the castle (see yesterday's post), I descended back into Plaka's Archaeology Museum.  There, among pottery and other objects found on Milos and other islands, is this replica of Venus de Milo.   In the Plaka museum, it's called Aphrodite de Milos.

When I left the museum, I rode along another winding road to the place where a farmer, while digging for stones, came upon Aphrodite/Venus.   So how did she end up in the Louvre?  Well, as it turns out, some French naval officers were doing some digging of their own in a nearby area and took notice and, after some negotiations, bought the statue and bundled it onto a ship to France.  It was presented as a gift to Louis XVIIII, who in turn gave it to the Louvre.

How she ended up armless in France is another, much longer story, which I won't get into here.

Anyway, I continued along the road to a Roman theatre in Trypiti

and catacombs, which I didn't photograph because it was too difficult and, well, some of those people just might not like being photographed.  

From there, I pedaled up another widing road to a Klima and onto another rocky winding road to Areti, where an elderly couple leaving their house saw me and applauded. "Bravo!"

Of course, after all of that climbing came the descents to the sea, back to the port at Adamas, where I turned south and rode along the coast to Papikinou and the hot springs of Zefira.  By then, it was late in the day, and I wanted to swim before the end of the day.  After all, I'd brought my bathing suit with me and it would have been a shame not to use it, right?

So I stopped and descended the stairs to a pebble-sand beach with the clearest water I've seen in a bathing area.  Ahead of me the blue (yes, it really is!) Agean spread between volcanic islands.  I  started to duck behind this rock and was about to change into my swimsuit when I noticed a young boy and girl wading from the water.  Both were as naked as the day they were born.  So were their mother and father.   

Just past them, I saw the sign:  Nudist Beach.

They say that whatever happens in 'Vegas stays in 'Vegas.  Well, I figured the same holds true for Milos.  I probably would not see that family, or any of the other people--clothed or unclothed--again.  So I decided my bathing suit would have to wait for another day.

In that water, I became an acrobat and a ballerina.  I moved with the waves; my arms, my legs, even the rest of the body, became waves.  Maybe that is what our bodies really are, rather than the hard, straight lines we are taught to strive for in a commodified society.  Even the slender men and women in Greek sculptures were not composed of sinews and pistons; they move, fluidly, through time and light.  

When I stopped and stood, for a few moments, with those blue waves lapping up to my neck, I felt something silky and gelatinous, at the same time, against my legs.  I looked down through the clear water and saw little coral-colored fish with black stripes on their tails nibbling at me.  Were they feeding on some mineral my body exuded?  Or were they merely curious?  

Whatever (if anything) they were thinking, those fish didn't care that I was naked.  Neither did the other people, naked or otherwise, on that beach.  A guy in a swimsuit and googles made for racing pumped past me and didn't give me a second glance.  Everyone, it seemed, was there just to swim or wade as they pleased.  

After that swim, a few more things made sense to me.  To the ancient philosophers, life was about balance a balance, and the body was central.  And that is the reason, I realized, why there doesn't seem to be any body-shaming here:  Each of us is born with our own shape, size and other characteristics, and all we can do is make them into the best they can be. Venus/Aprhodite, however she is depicted, is simply the best version of herself. What the capitalist/materialist media in America and other places teach us, instead, is to strive for other people's reality.

I stayed in that water, swimming, dancing, or simply waving my arms and legs, until the sun started to descend between two hills.  Then I started pedaling along the road back to Adamas, and my hotel.

The sunsets on Santorini were beautiful.  But this one was, by far, the most rewarding I've ever experienced.

Did I become Aprhrodite, just for a moment?  Could it be that when you experience beauty, when you feel beauty, you become your own beauty?  

Now I'll confess that after I got back to the hotel and had dinner, I did something entirely un-graceful.  More about that in my next post.

Into The Sleepy Hollow Sunset

Last week, I said this year's foliage seemed less colorful than that of previous years.   Well, it seems that I picked the wrong week to complain.  I saw some more color during a ride I took--to Connecticut--on Thursday, and even more about 50 kilometers north of the city.

Bill and I rode along the South County Trail, which begins in Van Cortlandt Park, near the Bronx-Westchester border, and continues parallel to the Hudson River.  Parts of it follow the Saw Mill River.  In some places, it looks more like a drainage canal than a river; in other spots, it's a turbid pool.  But, believe it or not, there are rapids and falls--and, even better, scenes like thesw.

Most of the trail is paved or hard-packed dirt.  But the part in Van Cortlandt seems to have been mud since the beginning of time.  There was a time when I would have said that getting myself muddied up, or sweaty, made me "deserving" of the beauty I saw around me.  But, the other day, the mud was simply another part of the picture, if you will.

Because of the marathon, we started later than we'd planned:  So many streets were closed that we had trouble navigating our way to our meeting point.  The part of Queens where I live was effectively cut off from Brooklyn, and the bridges and streets where people were allowed to circulate freely were full.  

Not only did we start late, we had less daylight to work with because Daylight Savings Time ended.  The day ended early, but at least, in Sleepy Hollow (a.k.a. Tarrytown), we saw this:

Light Along The Way

I tend to remember scenes, places and situations by the feelings I associate with them.  Those sensations are very much influenced by the light around them.

Although yesterday’s ride took me through places I’ve cycled many times before, I think it will become a Fall Classic, if you will, in my memory.

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge always does interesting things to the hues of water, sky, sun and clouds:

and to newly-denuded limbs exposed to the wind that stripped them so that they could only open themselves to late-day sunlight trapped in a cloud.

At the end of the day’s fading light, across the water, a boat

follows the setting sun

Is it headed for a fjord of fire?

The End Of A Winter Day

I didn't get to do a real ride today--just a spin to Astoria Park and a yogurt run.  However, I got home in time to witness a near-perfect ending to a winter day:

At least, it's about as close to perfect any day's end can be in these parts.  As the sun descended, a mist of wispy cirrus clouds rose from the horizon to a deep translucent blue sky:  a dream ahead, and a vision above, this day's ride.

Real Good Fall Twilight

It seems--at least in this part of the world--that the colors of October are celebrated more than those of any other month.

Reverence for the hues of that month are certainly just.  However, some of what I saw on today's ride left me absolutely stunned.

I saw this on the wooden bridge in the Randall's Island nature preserve:

Oh, but the visual feast didn't end there.  Barretto Point Park was closed, probably because of flood damage and weakened trees that might fall at any given moment.  However,through the fence, I saw this:

and this:

I know that the hues of autumn sunsets are particularly rich.  But lately it seems the skies are outdoing themselves.  I wonder whether it has anything to do with the recent storms.

My ride today was short.  But the name of this park, about three miles from my place, says it all:

This piece of real estate is in Rego Park, a Queens neighborhood that is currently home to thousands of emigres--many of whom are Jewish-- from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Russia.  It gets its name from the Real Good Construction company, which developed most of the neighborhood in the early 20th Century.

If you are visiting the neighborhood for the first time and it seems familiar, you've probably read Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus.  The scenes with his aged Polish Jewish father are all set in the neighborhood, where Spiegelman grew up.

Anyway, as you can probably tell, today's ride was short but Real Good.

Light At The End Of The Storm

I don't mind cloudy days.  Actually, I like them, especially for cycling, particularly along a seacoast.

However, during the past few days, clouds have spread a thick gray curtain between us and the light of the day, even though Sandy had passed.  

Today, though, those clouds gave way to the less ominous overcast skies one often sees in coastal areas.  And we saw something that might have been reported as a UFO, given recent conditions:  the sun.

In fact, near the end of my ride this afternoon, I saw a sunset that caused me not to rue the fact that it came so early as a result of turning the clocks back an hour:

I captured the light as best I could with my cell phone from the Unisphere.

Riding Off Into The Sunset Out Your Window

Yes, I've hit Lotto.  Just to prove it, here are photos from my exotic midwinter cycling vacation.

Hey, who wouldn't want to see the sun setting over the ocean on a clear, mild day?

Or see the blue of the sky consumed into the blaze of orange and red and purple, and spreading in waves of deepening blue?

If any of you have not yet entered the workforce, you can look forward to long meetings and workshops.  It's not a sign of a character flaw if your mind wanders during them.  In fact, I'd argue that if you see what I saw out the window, and you pay more attention to it than to what's going on in the room, it's a sign that you're spiritually healthy.

Just don't tell that to the people who were running the workshop.  

I got outside, and on my bike, just in time for this:

In what exotic locale was I?, you ask.  Would you believe Kingsborough Community College, at the southern edge of Brooklyn.  I took the long way back, so in all I still managed to ride about 40 miles yesterday.  And I didn't even have to leave home.  Well, not really, anyway!

Cycling To Work In A "Hippie" Skirt

Yesterday the new semester started.  Had it been a movie, it would have been the beginning of best time in mine, or someone else’s life:  The rain of the previous three days had passed and the sky was even clearer and bluer than the bodies of water one sees on postcards.

Naturally, I rode my bike to work.  As I was not looking forward to going to my regular job, I needed something to pump up my Happy Hormones (or endorphins, or whatever you want to call them).  I also knew that wearing a favorite outfit—one in which I feel both confident and comfortable—would help.

But I needed a way to wear it—specifically, the skirt—while riding my bike.  Even though clearing the top bar on the LeTour wasn’t a problem, the skirt—which drapes nearly to my ankles when I stand up—could get caught in the chain or between the brake pad and rim.  I haven’t yet installed the dress guard “Velouria” gave me. 

So what’s a lady prof to do?  

Turns out, there’s a really simple solution.  All you need is an extra-large paper clamp.  All you have to do is to gather the skirt so that you can clip it, but not so tightly that you can’t move your legs freely.

It’s best to gather and clamp your skirt when you’re seated, in a position in which you typically ride, on the bike.  The first time I tried it, I had trouble mounting the seat because I’d effectively made a strait jacket around my thighs.  And of course you don’t want to wrap or clamp the skirt around your knees. 

I wonder whether anyone else has tried my skirt-clamping method. 

Now I’m thinking about how I used heavy rubber bands whenever I rode in trousers.  As with the skirt on the clamp, I found that I liked to pull on the rubber bands when I was seated on the bike, maninly because I didn’t want the trouser leg or the rubber band to rub and chafe the bottom of my calf or other sensitive areas.  Also, I found that if I wore the band too low, it would slide off the pants and onto my ankle.  (That’s what the reflective bands with Velcro, which were popular a while back, seemed to always do.)

After work, I took a ride to one of my favorite spots in Queens:  Fort Totten.  It’s at the western end of Long Island Sound and within sight of the Whitestone Bridge.  Just across the cove, it’s Gatsby country, where white sails skitter in the wind like white crests that cap the ripples on the water.

You may have noticed that I said “my regular job.”  That’s because in addition to it, I am teaching a course in another college:  the one I visited last week.  The chair offered me a class that started yesterday.  And it’s at the perfect time:  After my regular college job, I have enough time to pedal there.

And, because I had to take care of business at my new gig, I stayed a bit later than I anticipated.  But when I rode to Fort Totten, I didn’t mind, because from there, the majority of my ride home would skirt the bay.  The sun began to set as I neared the World’s Fair Marina.

Oh, I should mention this:  I rode 11 miles to my regular job, another six and a half to my part-time gig and about eighteen home in my clamped skirt, all after getting up at five a.m.—after going to bed at two a.m.  Although I felt good when I got home, I didn’t want to cook or otherwise prepare my supper.  So I stopped at the the King of Felafel and Shawarma for one of their wonderful chicken and rice plates.  Not long after bringing it back to my place and eating it, I fell asleep.

Recovery Becomes A Sunset

Today I wanted to "test" the blisters I incurred during my ride to the Delaware Water Gap.  I "popped" them the way they used to teach us in the Scouts and the Army:  I cleaned the blisters and the area around them with alcohol, then I pierced them with a sterile needle.


After bandaging them, I got on Tosca with not particular destination in mind.  I stopped first at the Canarsie Pier, then in Coney Island.  After that, I rode to the promenade that rims the Verrazano Narrows and passes under the bridge named after that body of water:

I used my cell phone to take the photo, as I didn't bring my camera.


I was riding pretty slowly.  At least, it seemed as if I was.  But I don't berate myself quite so much for it when I'm riding my fixed-gear bike.  Besides, riding slowly to enjoy a sunset, particularly if it's on a large body of water or behind a bridge is acceptable as a reason or excuse, at least for me!

An Orange Bike

I've got the LeTour in rideable condition.  I'm still going to tweak it a bit.  But it's close to what I want it to be.


Early this evening, after the weather had cooled a bit, I took it on a test ride through the back streets of Astoria and Long Island City.  I ended up in Astoria Park, which is separated from Manhattan, Randall's Island and the Bronx by a strait known as Hell Gate.


This bridge is named for the passage it spans. Do you think it looks like a gate to Hell?:

If you've taken the Amtrak/Acela between Boston and New York, you've gone over this bridge.  The span behind it is the Queens-to-Randalls Island spur of the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, which was known as the Triboro Bridge until a couple of years ago.


The waters are deceptively calm.  The strong undercurrent wrecked ships and drowned sailors, which is how the passage got its name.


But you didn't come to this blog to read about that, right?  You want to read about a middle-aged woman riding a bike she just fixed, don't you?


Well, the bike is actually a smooth, almost cushy ride.  Yet it feels very solid.  That last part didn't surprise me:  Schwinn had a reputation for building sturdy bikes, and this one was made in Japan by Panasonic.  The second shop in which I worked sold Panasonics, and I assembled a couple hundred of them.  Even their cheapest models were easier to assemble, and required less tweaking, than most other bikes.  


It won't be as responsive as my Mercians.  It wasn't designed that way.  But I have the feeling it will be very satisfactory for errands and commutes.


When I got to Astoria Park, I made another interesting discovery about the bike.  It's an aesthetic consideration.  


If you've been reading this or my other blog, you have some idea about my tastes in colors.  I like purple, especially lavender, lilac and violet, best.  I also favor most shades of blue, green and pink.  But I can see why  orange is a popular bike color.  I actually think this bike looks better in orange than in the other colors in which Schwinn offered the Le Tour series.  Even more interesting, though, is a quality revealed in this photo:

As ratty as the paint job is, it still has a nice glow to it in the dusk light.  In a way, it made me think of all of those weatherbeaten and even somewhat grimy brick buildings that mirror the sun setting at the end of the day.

OK, so this one came out a bit darker than I hoped it would.  But here's another shot, taken in the same light, of the bike:

And here's one taken a bit earlier:

As I mentioned, the bike is almost complete.  I'm going to add a bell to the handlebar (the Velo Orange Milan Bar which, so far, I really like on this bike) and a pair of Wald folding baskets to the rear rack. I have a feeling those might be the best solution for commuting as well as shopping:  I can simply put grocery bags or my bookbag into one or the other.


Until next time....I'll spare you the cliches about riding into the sunset or crossing that bridge when I get to it!