On The Horizon: Spring

Gatsby had his green light across the harbor.  For me, bridges on the horizon always seem to signal something. 

I hadn't been to this spot in months.  Today I took a little detour over that way on my way home from work.  It is odd, at least for a waterfront area in New York, in that it seems to open up every time I see it.  And the bridges are somehow clearer against every sunset.

I mean that literally as well as metaphorically.  The old Fort Totten Army base, which is near the foot of this bridge, has been turned into a park and its buildings are being given over to civilian--or other--purposes:

The bunkers in the background are very similar--and are in very similar condition--to the ones in Fort Tilden (at the other end of Queens, at Breezy Point) and Fort Hancock in Sandy Hook, NJ.  As I understand, those bunkers were built during the Spanish-American War of 1898 and were little used after that.  

As much as I enjoy the beauty of the water and landscapes around all of those places, it is a little disconcerting to know that those places were all used for the purpose of conducting war.  I hope that they will never be used that way again, just as I hope la Place de la Concorde, where I have enjoyed a stroll or two, is never again used as it was in the days of Robespierre.


For now, the place has its past and I have my moment in it. 

Then there was the ride home, part of it along the paths in Fort Tilden, along Long Island Sound and underneath the bridges I saw in the distance, very close to where Gatsby saw his green light.

Next Year In Provence?

This ain't Peter Mayle's Provence:

German cyclist Tony Martin won this year's Paris-Nice race, which ended yesterday.  Here he's shown on the 27 km time trial to Aix-en-Provence.

If Monsieur Mayle were to write a book about training for the race, would he call it "Next Year In Provence"?  

The Gates To The Seasons

Today I took out Tosca for the first time since the week before Christmas.  In fact, this is the first time any of my Mercians have been out since then.


At Alley Pond Park, we got an interesting welcome:

The "gate" is in Alley Pond Park, near the Queens-Nassau line.  I hadn't been there in a long time.   In fact, the last time I was there, I was on a mountain bike.  So were the three guys who were riding with me.


We didn't need--or, in my case, want--an open gate or door. We used to feel more drawn to entrances like this one:

We were young.  They were guys; I was living as one--and trying desperately to show that I was one of them.  We wouldn't talk about the signs of spring we saw or felt; the seasons didn't really matter.  Nor did the quality of the light.  Actually, I cared about that and other things I didn't talk about then.  

At the end of the day, there was the day's ride and the bike.  Some things don't change.  In fact, even though I'm not and probably will never be in the kind of shape I was in back then, some things are better.  That includes the ride and the bike.

Each of them has brought me to the gates of a new season.