In the middle of the journey of my life, I am--as always--a woman on a bike. Although I do not know where this road will lead, the way is not lost, for I have arrived here. And I am on my bicycle, again.
The candidacy of Donald Trump makes a shambles of everything many of us hold dear.
Time was when the man did things that were merely creepy, like getting involved with beauty pageant. Actually, I think the whole idea of a beauty pageant is pretty creepy, even if they make some pretense at judging a young woman by her brains and not merely by her body.
But a Miss Universe contest, with or without The Donald behind it, cannot compare to this:
Apparently, there were "Miss Lovely Eyes" contests, like the one in the above photo (which took place in Florida around 1930), in many different parts of the world. The only difference between them, it seemed, was in how much of the contestants' faces and bodies were covered in order to isolate their "windows to the soul".
Hmm...I wonder if they ever held such contests in countries ruled by Sharia law?
Perhaps the folks who made the Hannibal Lecter masks in the first photo ( I wish it had higher resolution so we could see the inscriptions on them!) came out of retirement to design this:
Yes, this was actually touted as a "bicycling hat"! And it was available in four colors, no doubt to co-ordinate with your favorite cycling abaya:
After all, what is cycle clothing but a fashion statement? Still, even the best-coordinated outfit has nothing on a pair of beautiful eyes, even if you can't see them because you or the person who has them is riding too fast.
(By the way, I have been told I have beautiful eyes by people of all genders and sexualities. But no one has ever told me so while I was riding!)
The bike/pedestrian lane on the Queens spur of the RFK Memorial (a.k.a. Triborough) Bridge has been closed for "painting and repairs." The signs said the lane would be closed from 9 am to 5 pm from the 1st to the 26th of this month. I didn't figure that it would affect me much, if at all, since I always go in to work before 9 and usually am heading home after 5.
Last Tuesday, however, I didn't leave work until 8 pm. I pedaled across the Randall's Island connector and the island to the Queens spur of the bridge. There, the gate was still locked, with the same sign announcing its closure.
All right, I told myself. Maybe they just forgot to reopen it. That night, it meant backtracking to the north end of the island and the Manhattan spur of the bridge. Then I rode down Second Avenue from 125th Street to the Queensborough (a.k.a. 59th Street) Bridge. It was a longer commute home, but I didn't mind, really.
Well, the Queens spur of the RFK hasn't been opened since. No one from the Department of Transportation has returned my calls. (Should I be surprised?) So, I've been taking another route to and from work. To get to the Bronx, I've been crossing the Queensborough to First Avenue, which has a bike lane all the way up to 125th Street. From there, I take the Willis Avenue Bridge into the Bronx. It's not bad, really: Above 96th Street, there isn't much traffic, and below, there are other cyclists so, if nothing else, we're visible, though one has to watch for pedestrians who step into the lane while looking at their electronic devices or simply not looking at anything in their surroundings. One place where you have to be careful is at 96th Street, where traffic enters and exits the FDR Drive and there are several schools, a hospital and the largest mosque in the US within a two-block radius.
(Along the way I passed several fruit sellers. I stopped at one and bought my first cherries of the season.)
I often think that I ride, write and teach for the same reason: to learn. Well, today, I did just that on the Willis Avenue Bridge--or, more specifically, what's below the Bronx side of it:
Now, I know it looks like just another lot in an industrial landscape. But this plaque, on the bridge, told of its significance:
It may be hard to believe that until 1840, most of the Bronx was farmland or woods. That changed when the railroad cut through the area around that lot, which is now crisscrossed by highways, bridges and railroad tracks.
Port Morris--the part of the South Bronx by the bridge--became the first commercial and industrial area of the Bronx. (In fact, one nearby section became the nation's center of piano-making and has recently been dubbed "The Piano District" by realtors who are envisioning the next DUMBO.) It also became a railroad center, which is why the roundhouse was built on the site under the bridge.
Hmm...You never know what a slight change in your daily commute can teach you, eh?
You've probably heard of "storm chasers". They're the folks who pursue hurricanes, tornadoes and such, and sometimes fly into them. You might say that yesterday, I was the opposite of a "storm chaser". Instead of riding into the storm, I wanted to finish my ride just in front of it. Actually, I just wanted to get a ride in with the limited time I had because I woke up late and had a couple of things to take care of. I could have skipped riding, I suppose, but I have felt so sedentary and indoor-bound lately. Late in the afternoon, according to the weather forecasts, we were supposed to have thunderstorms with strong winds and possibly hail. Now, I don't mind riding in the rain unless it's cold, but I try to avoid conditions that were predicted. I alighted for the Rockaways at 1pm. I figured I could make it at least to Rockaway Beach and back before the deluge.
Even if you haven't spent a lot of time seaside, you could tell, from looking at the clouds that the weather was going to take a turn for the worse. And the wind coming off the ocean wasn't merely brisk; it had the edge and that weightless feeling of "butterflies in the stomach" that signals approaching bad weather.
Well, I did manage to have a light late lunch by the beach and make it home before the rain came. Although it fell steadily for a time, and the wind blew my bedroom door open, we didn't get any hail, there were no rumbles of thunder and lightning didn't blaze the sky, which remained as gray as I saw it at Rockaway Beach.
