Without the Need to Escape

I rode to Point Lookout, again.  At approximately 65 miles round-trip, it's tied with the longest trip I've taken this year, and since my surgery.  


On a day like today, when the sea seems to be the shadow of a preternaturally clear sky--or when the sky is light refracted through a cobalt stained-glass reflection of the sea--it seems as if the water is a sort of light, and that light flows and ripples and undulates like the waves of water.  

And the ripples of water and waves of light become each other's reflections:

Just before I crossed the bridge from which I shot the above photo, I saw one of those things that could you forget that you're in Queens:

The dunes are in Arverne, which is just to the east of Rockaway Beach.   The streets leading to the Arverne stretch of the beach and boardwalk were, not too long ago, filled with bungalows and cottages that served as summer homes for some New Yorkers and permanent residences for some cops and firefighters.  Then most of them were abandoned when housing projects were built in Far Rockaway, the next neighborhood to the east and the last before the Nassau County line.  


I was pedalling into a fairly stiff breeze as I rode past those dunes toward Nassau County and Point Lookout.  That meant, of course, that my ride back was actually easier: enough so that I found myself thinking of a poem by Pablo Neruda:


EL viento es un caballo:
óyelo cómo corre
por el mar, por el cielo.

Quiere llevarme: escucha 
cómo recorre el mundo 
para llevarme lejos.

Actually, those are just the first two stanzas of  a poem from "Los Versos del Capitan."  The selection above translates into something like this:

The wind is a horse:

Hear how it runs

through the sea,

through the sky.

He want to take me away:

Hear how he roams 

through the world

To take me far away.

Please forgive my poor translation:  It's really much better in Spanish.  

Here is my "horse" :

And here is how someone is "riding" Neruda's "horse":

Yes, that white object is a board of some kind.  A man is riding it and the wind is pulling his kite.

Somehow these rides that are directed by the wind and follow the sea are even more innocent--almost to the point of being naive and romantic, as Neruda's poem is--than the ones I took as a teenager and in my early adulthood.  Those now-long-ago rides kept me sane, at least to the degree that I was. 

 On summer days, I would ride down to Long Branch, Asbury Park or beyond.  I learned that around 2:00 every afternoon, the wind would shift along the coast, so the wind I fought on the way down would blow me back up to Sandy Hook, the northernmost part of the Jersey shore.

I remember that long, straight flat stretch of Route 36 along the beaches in Long Branch and Sea Bright.  Some days I would just let the wind do my work, while on others I would spin as fast as I could.  It was my release and escape; now that I no longer am trapped by what I was trying to escape, there is just the ride along the sea.

Dead Bikes

Near my apartment is one of my favorite urban spaces:  Socrates Sculpture Park.   Lately, I've seen more cyclists riding to, and into the park.  It makes for a great rest stop, with its combination of benches, grassy areas, riverfront and, of course, the sculpture installations.


Last year, there was an installation called "Dead Bikes."   At least, that's what some of us called it; I'm not sure whether that was the official name.


This isn't the best photo, but it gives you an idea of what the exhibit looked like:

How many times have you seen bicycles stripped to their frames but still locked to a signpost or some other immovable object?  Sometimes I wonder whether how those bikes came to resemble the remains of prey.  


Some people do not bring their bikes into their living spaces.  Perhaps some of those people relocate and simply leave their bicycles. Others, perhaps, decide that they no longer want or need their bikes and simply abandon them.  


I think now of a story someone told me about a friend of a friend of his friend.  She had witnessed what turned out to be a mob execution and had to literally drop what she was doing and get on the next Greyhound bus out of town.  I wonder whether she, or someone else in a similar situation, may have a bike chained to some railing or another.  It wouldn't be long before some bike vulture would pick the carcass clean.


I have had three bicycles stolen and have returned to other bikes I parked only to find a seat, brake or other part missing.  Luckily for me, I have never found my bike stripped.  But I can't help but to wonder whether other cyclists here, or in other cities, have gone to unlock their bikes, only to find them stripped.  Have you had such an experience?

Hair and Tatoos

Today I rode the LeTour to work for the first time.   I was running a bit late--or, at least, I left my place a bit later than I'd planned--and forgot to bring my camera with me.  So I have no photos of myself or the bike or the commute.  But I'll tell you a bit about it.

First, fashion:  I feel as if I cheated a bit here.  I didn't ride in a skirt and heels.  Rather, I wore a sundress and my Keen sandals.  In a tote bag I stashed in my rear basket, I carried a short cardigan from a dusty blue twinset.   When I got to work, I slipped it over my dress, which was black with a hibiscus flower print in varying shades of blue.  One of those shades matched the sweater from the twinset, more or less.  And I also brought a pair of somewhat dressy black wedge sandals.  


I was glad to be wearing the sundress, as it was hot (though not as humid as yesterday).  And, of course, the Keen sandals were very comfortable.  


I didn't have any wardrobe malfunctions.  But the bike had a bit of a mishap.  Actually, it wasn't the bike itself; it was the rear rack.  The bolts that fasten the body of the rack to the arms that connect it to the seat stays fell out.  That caused my rack to flip backward and land on my fender.


Fortunately for me, I had just passed a hardware store, where I bought a package of screws and nuts, some lock washers and blue Loctite.  I've stopped there a few times before, as it's along one of my routes to and from work and other places.  Sometimes the guy behind the counter is an oldish Russian Jew who looks the way Alexander Solzhenitsyn (sp?) might have had he shaved.  But today I got this guy who is covered with tatoos and whose yellowing white hair  is longer than mine and beard is longer than mine ever was.  It's really odd to find him in that shop because it's at the corner of Metropolitan and 71st Avenues in Forest Hills, which is possibly the most resolutely bourgeois part of the city.  But he knows his stuff and is very helpful, which is one reason why his shop stays in business.


At one time in my youth, my hair was almost as long as that of the man in the hardware store.  And my beard, while not as long as his, was thick around my jaws and chin.   With all of the anger I felt in those days, I didn't need tatoos (which I've never gotten and probably never will get) or studded jacket to help me project an aura that said, "Stay the ---- away from me!"  I was like a cross between Charles Bronson and a hippie without the charm of either.


One hot day, I was riding my bike to my parents' house.  At the time, I was living in the town where I attended college (New Brunswick, NJ) and my parents were living on the Jersey Shore.  It was a thirty to thirty-five mile ride, depending on which route  I took.


Well, on that day, I peeled off my bike jersey before  I passed through Milltown, after which one of the early sedative drugs was named.  At that time, it was noted in the area for cops that were rumored to have been recruited in Alabama or from the KKK.  


One of those redneck officers actually pulled me over when I was riding along one of the streets.  In those days I didn't carry ID with me; most people didn't. 


"What are you doin' here?"


It took everything I had not to answer him sarcastically. But, fortunately for me, I managed to check that impulse.  


"What are you doin' here?"


"Riding my bicycle, sir."



"To where?"


"My mother's."


"All right.  Have a good day."


I haven't thought about that encounter in more than twenty years.  Now I wonder:  What would it have been like if I were covered with tatoos.