What Kind Of LIght--Or RIde?

A night ride

or a blue light special?

Actually, it was part of an installation at the Sculpture Center--where they let me bring my bike inside! 

Riding Again--And Discovering

 My energy is returning, if slowly.  I managed to ride over the weekend--including my first trek of more than 50 kilometers (just over 30 miles) since I returned from Paris.

About that ride:  I pedaled to Point Lookout on Sunday.  The wind blew at my face for most of the way out, and at my back on my way back.  I hope for that any time I do an aller-retour. But neither that, nor the length of the ride, were the only reasons why I was happy.

As I mounted La-Vande, my King of Mercia, the air was a bit warmer than normal for this time of year.  Still, I didn't peel off one of my layers:  I anticipated, correctly, a temperature drop--or, at least the feeling of one--as I approached the water.

  

As the sun played hide-and-seek, the wind, into which I'd been pedaling, blew straight off the ocean.  Even during such a mild winter, the water temperature falls to around 5C (40F) at this time of year.  That wind is a reminder that although the thermometer tells us "early April," it still is February.  It is probably the reason why the Rockaways boardwalk was nearly deserted.  I also encountered very little traffic along the South Shore streets and roads all the way to the Point.

That Sunday ride was sandwiched with two shorter rides.  I woke up late on Saturday, did a few things I didn't have the energy to do during the week and went for a late day ride to Fort Totten.  On the way home, I was treated to a celestial sketch of light, clouds and trees along the Malcolm X Promenade.  

And on Monday, a US holiday (Presidents' Day), I took another late day ride in which I found something that's been under my nose, so to speak.

The Sculpture Center is in Long Island City, less than two kilometers from my apartment.  I have pedaled up and down the streets in its vicinity, probably, hundreds of times.  But I bypassed the street--Purves--on which the Center is located because it dead-ends after only a block.  Also, until recently, there were no signs for the Center on nearby streets.

The young man at the front desk reassured me that I'm not the first person who's visited nearby PS 1--and any number of other museums in this city--but never knew about the Center.  The reasons, apart from its location, why it's not better known may be that it's open only when it runs the exhibit or two it happens to be running.  Those exhibits last a few weeks, then the Center closes for a few more before opening for the next exhibits. 

There is no admission charge to enter the Center.  Best of all, they let me bring Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike, inside.

(By the way, on yesterday's date in 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated in New York City's Audubon Ballroom.)

I Haven't Gone Away

I have not met most of you, but I have missed you.

Perhaps a week is not a long time, in the scheme of things, not to post on a blog.  But, considering that I've posted nearly daily for most of the past dozen years, it seems like an eternity.

This year has been, at once, utterly routine and strange, so far.  According to the weather forecasters and climatologists, this has been one of the mildest winters on record.  And we've had no snow of any consequence.  Yet this has been, probably, the worst winter for my health, both physical and mental.  If nothing else, that lends credence to what I've long believed:  Moving to Florida, or any place that doesn't have seasons as we have (actually, have had) them in this part of the world probably won't help me in my old age, whenever I reach, or admit that I've reached, it.

Anyway, I have been afflicted with what seems to be a "rebound" of the respiratory infection* that struck me at or after the end of my Paris trip last month.  When "catching up" with a friendly neighbor I hadn't seen in months, I mentioned it. "Maybe you didn't want to come back."

"Actually, I didn't.  Things are so crazy here."

She nodded.  "I know.  We're lucky to be here," she said, referring to New York. "But I don't know how much longer it will be before the rest of the country, and here, is like the place I left":  a state that, while it has a somewhat sane governor, has a legislator every bit as maniacally antithetical to LGBTQ equality, bodily autonomy and anything else I regard as a basic human value.

I mentioned my illness, in its onset and recurrence.  "I think you really didn't want to come back," she said.

I nodded.

"You should have requested asylum."

My eyes widened. "I would have. But how?"

"Well, look at all of the crazy people who've been elected.  They're a danger to your life."

"Yes.  I get more and more scared every day."

She took a long look at me.  Her dog sniffed around my ankles and clambered up my leg.  I stroked his ecru curls.

"I don't blame you."

"Since I came back, I don't feel as if I've been home--except for when I write and ride my bike."  And, I added, my illness has sapped me of the energy to do either.

The good news is that I finally did some riding this past weekend.  More about that later.

*--I have been reluctant to talk about it with anybody because, these days, if you're not well for more than two days in a row, too many people are quick to assume that it's COVID--which my doctor assures me that it isn't.  Not that having COVID is a marker of one's character (My vaccines are all up to date, BTW).  I just get tired of, not only the assumptions, but the gaslighting and irrelevant "advice" (thinly-disguised admonitions) that too often accompany them.