A Barb Bikes in Brooklyn

The weather yesterday was so beautiful that my lazy arse couldn't refuse myself a nice bike ride but i wasn't content with just a turn around the park, i wanted to explore other parts of Brooklyn. So I pulled out an old issue of TONY that featured worthy local bike rides and set off. I biked from Park Slope to Manhattan Beach and back. Who knew there's a Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn? I didn't. It's WAY better than Coney Island but also WAY smaller. But beach aside, the real interesting part to me was riding through the different neighborhoods. Having grown up here I know NY is a salad bowl but it's another scenario entirely when you see so much in a few short hours within the same borough. I managed to biked through Park Stroller into areas where there were signs identifying Punjabi restaurants, people speaking in Arabic, Asian folk playing handball, black folk hanging out on stoops, Hasidic Jews minding the kids, and finally Russians hanging out on the beach. I think I even saw a group of Nepalese men chatting in front of a bodega. In between there were some beautiful and ginormous suburban looking homes with manicured lawns on Ditmas Avenue, Brooklyn College (where Michael Cunningham teaches) in front of which i passed a trainer from my gym, before finally reaching a marina and ultimately the beach. I was in bike lanes pretty much the whole time but i wouldn't recommend the ride if you're afraid of car traffic.

I was reminded while i was riding that part of why I love NY is it's diversity. People fight all over the world, yes i'm mindful that this country is partaking in a grievous war, but in NY people of all backgrounds live in the same borough blocks away from each other. The fact that I could hop on a bike and encounter such a variety of people is amazing. I don't have to get on a plane to go anywhere. The world comes to NY.

On the ride back amidst comments coming from cars like, "hey, can i ride with you," and stares from small children in schoolbusses gawking at me on their way home, and the beginning of fatigue setting in since i was riding home on a flat rear tire I thought, 'hey, this is pretty cool that i got to do this.'

Awareness

I got out of the subway just now after scurrying about like a rat underground for 40 minutes and really smelled NYC air, possibly for the first time, at 42nd and 6th ave. I had been reading Eat, Pray, Love during my commute and realized that the novel that I had been reading is about awareness. This particular book, much like others worth their salt, incite emotion in people. Some swear by it, others think of Liz Gilbert as a privileged writer paid to travel for a year while she jots down her experience. Boo-effing-hoo. I get the latter but I also believe the former because in my mind you're not supposed to think about who she is because she's sharing her experience which is one that is universal, our quest as people to become aware. At least for those of us who aren't already. Myself included. Back to the air.

I smelled the air when I emerged from the subway and realized that I've smelled it before, it's a familiar city smell (likely a combination of exhaust, dirt and people. ha.) that I've noticeably encountered in my travels to other cities but not in my own. Interesting no? Am I really that absorbed in my day to day and have I been for the last 21 years I've lived here that I've never smelled Eau de NYC? It appears so. The point is not that this city smells so wonderful, because frankly it doesn't, but that I've only bothered to pay attention when I travel- to what a place smells like and from that you can infer that I've missed a lot of other things here too but perhaps conversely also why I like to travel so darn much.

To keep this from becoming a longer yarn than it needs to be on a Wednesday morning I'd like to say that I recognize that I have a tendency to focus on others, possibly in an attempt to deflect from focusing on myself. I would like to be more aware of myself and my surroundings and will work on this as I'm able. Starting with my supinated gait.

Oh and I still love NY desperately.