Today I rode to, and tonight I rode from, work--in a sundress. When I got to work, I slipped on a cardigan (which is half of a twinset) in a shade of blue like the one in the bands on the dress.
One of the things I'm enjoying about teaching an evening class is the commute home. I'm only doing it twice a week, but it's enough to remind me of an aspect of cycling I've always loved.
Riding at night, even if only for a commute, has its own rhythms and therefore requires its own mindset. What I've always loved, of course, is the calmness that fills the air, and me, from the time the sun sets. I especially like it after teaching a class, which requires an energy entirely the opposite of what I feel on a ride under moonlight. Plus, as it happens, the route I took tonight (I have four different routes to and from work.) takes me through some residential areas that are possibly the most resolutely middle-class in Queens or New York City: They are quieter than, say, the stretch of Broadway around the corner from my apartment.
Ironically, for all that I'm praising night riding, I almost never end up riding at night by design. It's usually been the result of working later in the day, as I am now, or of getting lost or otherwise seeing plans go awry. One of the few times I deliberately went on a late-night ride was when I met up with a Critical Mass rally in Columbus Circle about a dozen or so years ago. I didn't do another CM ride for a number of reasons. For one, I'm not crazy about riding in such large groups. And, for another, I really would prefer not to be arrested or go to jail, even if only for a few minutes. Finally, I'm not quite certain about what organizers are trying to accomplish.
On the other hand, being out at night by choice can be enchanting, if you're in the right areas. That happened to me during my tours in France and other places. In particular, I think of the time I rode in circles (squares?) around Orleans and found myself pedaling ,or seeming to pedal, with the rhythms of moonlight reflected on a Loire that seemed to be just barely rippled by the breeze and in the almost silvery shadows of leaves on the vines and pear trees.
Now, I didn't see vineyards or pear trees, much less chateaux, on my ride home. But I still had the air that was beginning to cool down after another day of 90-plus degree weather.
Today was another beast of a day: ninety-five degrees, with more humidity than we had yesterday. I'm definitely not a hot-weather person, but I wanted to get in a ride, however brief. And I did, until I simply didn't want to deal with the heat anymore.
Time was when I would have soldiered on in even hotter weather than what we had today. But I'm guessing that I'm still not at 50 percent of my normal condition, so I don't want to take unreasonable chances. I know, I could ride more if I hydrate. But I'm not training for any races, and a big tour--if I am going to do another one--is probably two years away. And, being older and presumably wiser--and without testosterone--I'm not trying to prove anything.
Part of my ride took me along the World's Fair Marina. It's just north of the site of the two World's Fairs held in New York City. (1939-40 and 1964-65: I attended the latter as a small child.) Between the Marina and the Fairgrounds (a.k.a. Flushing Meadow Park) stand Citi Field and the US Open Tennis Center, where Arthur Ashe and others had some of their greatest moments. Citi Field replaced Shea Stadium, which opened at about the same time as the second Fair in 1964. Just to the east of everything I've described is everyone's least favorite airport: LaGuardia.
I did a "slalom" here:
It seems that every structure built around the time of the second Fair was either built by Eero Saarinen or was a copy of or parody of something he did. A year or two before the Fair, he designed the TWA terminal of the JFK (Don't you love all of these three-letter abbreviations?) International Airport, which has been closed since TWA was grounded about a decade ago.
I remember being in that terminal for the first time when I was about fifteen years old. One could still feel the romance of flight Antoine Saint Exupery conveyed in books like Vol de Nuit (Night Flight) and Pilote de Guerre. (Why that was translated as Flight to Arras is beyond me. Then again, I still don't understand how Se Questo e Un Uomo became Survival at Auschwitz.) And to think that some French teacher ruined him--and French literature--for you when she force-fed you Le Petit Prince!
Anyway...Arielle is still one of my preferred methods of transportation. She withstood the heat better than I did:
I am going to make the most audacious claim you'll hear for a while.
I am going to show you a photo of a dream:
Here's another photo of that same dream:
Believe it or not, the place in the photo looked more or less as you see it back around 1961. Yes, it's a place I'd actually been to before today. This is how I got there today:
OK, so now you know I'm not in some exotic foreign land. To give you an idea of where I am, here's another shot.
Those of you who are familiar with Brooklyn, NY--or part of it, anyway--now know where I am. It's Sunset Park, which is on a hill surrounded by the eponymous neighborhood.
Save for the views, not many people would call it their "dream" park. But it has become mine, through no choice of my own.
I don't make any great effort to remember my dreams. Some of them just happen to stick with me, for whatever reasons. But I know that I have had more than a few dreams in Sunset Park, or some place that looks very much like it.
One of those dreams came during my first night in France. That day, I took the boat from Dover to Calais. After I'd gone through French customs, I went to a bar. In those days, Calais was fairly gritty and, being a seaport town, full of sailors, dockworkers and such: the very kinds of people who were in the bar.
Every one of them was even more inebriated than I would become. Given the sort of person I was then--at age twenty-one--that's saying quite a bit. However, I'm not sure if the libations were lubricating their tongues and making them start conversations with me.
I wasn't worried about them. I was, however, worried about this: The only word I understood of what they were saying was "miss-shyure." Did I not work hard enough in my French classes? Was I taught a dialect they didn't speak?
Anyway, we all got laughs at each other's expense and I managed to ride to Boulogne-sur-mer. It wasn't very far, but the town had a hostel listed in the Hosteling International guide. It was clean and relatively quiet. At least, it was quiet enough for me to fall asleep not long after I had supper. Or maybe the alcohol had something to do with it--or the dream I would have in Sunset Park.
My grandmother was in that dream. I spent a lot of time with her and my grandfather when my mother had to go to work. My grandparents lived not far from the park and, very early in my childhood, they used to take me to it. In those days, it had a garden in the middle of it. Of course, in my memory, it's one of the most beautiful gardens in the history or horticulture--or, at least, one of the most beautiful gardens I've ever seen. So is the view I've shown, which--as I've said--is much like the view I have in my memory.
The following day after my first dream in that park, I cycled into a town called Montreuil-sur-mer. It's a few kilometres inland from the English Channel, but a few centuries ago, before its harbor silted up, it was right on the coast and was a fairly major port. It's the town in which Jean Valjean of Les Miserables becomes one of les bourgeois and serves as mayor--and where Inspector Jalabert tracks him down.
Nothing quite that dramatic happened to me. (After all, we're talking about life, not fiction, here!) However, I did come to a garden in the town that overlooked the sea and gave me a clear view--even on that overcast day--of the coast from which I'd sailed the day before. And the grayness of the day did nothing to dampen the vibrancy of the colors in that garden: there were sunrises, sunsets and dusks, and all of the seasons, in it even thought the sky wasn't expressing any of them. Perhaps the view of the sea had something to do with that.
Now, remember that I was twenty-one years old when I say what I'm going to say next: That was the first time I cried during that trip. At least, it's the first time I recall crying.
That evening, I got to a town called Abbeville and called my grandmother. Somehow I knew she sounded better than she actually was. And, without my asking or prompting, she talked about that park, and that we used to go to it. "You loved to go there."
"Yes, I did. I always loved going there with you and grandpa."
"It seems like only yesterday that we used to go there."
I didn't tell her I had indeed been there the night before.
