Exceeding Their Grasp

Although the day was almost as mild as yesterday was, I didn't ride.  In fact, I barely got out of my apartment at all.  I wasn't the only one who stayed indoors:  The driving rain that began some time early this morning seemed not to let up.


As much as many of us would like to think Spring has sprung, some things tell us otherwise:

Stretching toward the light of a sun that is beyond them, their wizened fingers must weather the wind and rain, for now.  They remind me of what Robert Browning wrote in Andrea del Sarto:  "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp/Or what's heaven for?  All is silver-grey/Placid and perfect with my art:  the worse!

Biking Bauhaus

A warm, or at least mild, early March day.  And I spent a good part of it doing errands.  At least it was on my bike.


Is a day like this one a foreshadowing of the season that will soon come?  Or is it a respite from the long, wearying season we've been experiencing?  Or is it just a teaser?


What if days like this were labeled?  What if bikes were so labeled?  Some announce themselves as racing bikes, city bikes or "comfort tourers" (whatever they are) in the decals on their frames or other parts.  Nearly all bikes--even the ones that aren't so marked--are marketed under one designation or another.  


What if there were truth in advertising?  One bike might be labeled, "sound design, solid construction."  Another would have to say, "Ignores 140 years of accumulated wisdom."  Yet another would have to say, "Designed by art-school dropout on crystal meth."  


Or they could tell you what they offer.  "Arcane design and proprietary parts."  How would you like a bike that so announced itself?  "Plastic with a pretentious name."  Then there are those bikes that could tell us they offer a "comfortable ride," "speed" or, perhaps, "flawless shifting and braking."  They could take their inspiration from this:

That building is in my neighborhood, more or less.  I've always wondered whether "Cornice and Skylights" was an advertisement?  An announcement?  The name of the firm that built or manages it?


Whatever its story, it has nothing on this building on the eastern end of Long Island:

You guessed it: Ducks and duck eggs were sold inside this building by a duck farmer.  (Now there's a career!)  Now it's a museum or visitors' center or some such thing.  I'm not surprised, as the days when one could make, or order in a restaurant, a dinner consisting of duck, potatoes and vegetables from Long Island are long past. (Such a dinner could be had during my childhood.  The ingredients could even be bought at our neighborhood's Waldbaum supermarket.)


Hmm...Can you imagine a bike shop or factory shaped like the product made or sold inside?  Is that Bauhausian?  Or some other -ian?  Or Ian?

A Long And Restful Sleep

I didn't post last night because I got home dead-tired and fell asleep not long after walking through the door.


Thursday is my longest day of the week, work-wise.  And I did it on about half as much sleep as I'd planned.  Plus, it seemed, everyone--and I'm not talking only about my students--had some pressing issue, question or need.   Sometimes there are just days like that.


Riding from home to my main job, to my second job and home again, I felt surprisingly fluid.  Yes, I felt as if my legs were just flowing through each pedal stroke.  And I felt even more surprisingly strong, considering how little riding I've done since Christmas.  So what made me feel so tired when I got home?


Perhaps it had to do, at least in part, that I rode a bit more than I'd planned.  On my way home, I decided to ride a bike/pedestrian path along the southern edge of Kissena Park.  Close as it is to my commute, and other rides I do, I hadn't ridden there in a very long time.    So my memory of it was faulty, to say the least.  As I result, I made a wrong turn coming out of it.  Then I made another wrong turn. And another. 


My errance (Is that the noun form of "errant?") took me, among other places, around the perimeter of a cemetery.  And it was dark.  That, of course, is not an aid to someone who is a direct descendant of Christopher Columbus and inherited his navigational skills.  Well, OK, I may not be the great-great-great-great-whatever of CC.  But you get the idea.


One thing I wasn't going to do was to sleep in that cemetery.    For starters, it was very cold and windy.  More to the point, nobody ever plans to do such a thing.  At least, I didn't the one time I did it.


It happened back in the days before my first ATM card.  I didn't have any credit cards then, either.  I didn't buy traveler's checks, as I had done for my first European tour a couple of years earlier.  So all I had was cash.  And I was almost out of it the night I rested under the stars in a graveyard.


I knew that I was in New York State, somewhere near the point where its borders with Massachusetts and Connecticut meet.  I knew that because I crossed, during the course of that day's ride, from Massachusetts into Connecticut before seeing a sign that read "Welcome to the Empire State," or something like that.  


It was, as I recall, the fourth day of a ride I took from Montreal to New Jersey.  I'd carried a sleeping bag with me, which I didn't use until that night.  The day was hot, though not humid, which is unusual in most of the Eastern United States. I was tired: As young as I was, riding more than 80 miles with a load (small as it was) through a hilly area was a lot for one day.  


Most people's navigational skills decrease as they grow weary.  When your skills are like mine, they shrink into non-existence at times like that night.  If someone had told me there was a hostel or some other place fifteen feet in a straight line in front of me, I probably wouldn't have found it. 


Tired, broke (almost, anyway) and lost.  What did I do?  I rolled out my sleeping bag.  At least the night was clear and full of stars, with absolutely no threat of rain.  And it was quiet.  Very quiet.  But I was too tired to be disconcerted by anything, so I fell asleep almost as soon as I got into my bag.


I had a very long and restful sleep, as I had last night.