I haven’t been blogging much these days, too busy with work and out of the habit. But I was thinking about this blog on my ride yesterday and wanted to check back in and say thank you, bicycle and bicycle blog, for teaching me how to pay attention in new ways.

Here’s what I mean: I was in upstate New York last week, visiting historical sites related to the feminist movement, the Underground Railroad, the Erie Canal, and making my pilgrimage to Harriet Tubman’s gravesite. I remember when Ruthie Gilmore put a well known picture of Tubman on the screen in a class in graduate school–that’s not a broom she’s holding, Gilmore said, and it stuck with me and sticks with me as I have spent countless hours reading about Tubman, biking around Maryland’s Eastern Shore to visit historical sites related to her, and thinking about the work we do when we remember her, and remember how she has been remembered. That’s not a broom she’s holding, it’s a gun, let’s not forget that part. Anyway.

I spent one night in Auburn, NY, where Tubman lived after the Civil War. Auburn is known for two things, to me–Tubman and the Auburn Prison and its Auburn system of incarceration, the first to force prisoners to work all day until returning to solitary cells. So we have freedom and imprisonment right there in the same town, and I understand that the two always go together, and I’m always interested in both.

When I got to town I checked into my hotel and then took myself out to dinner. I have a terrible sense of direction, so of course I went right when I should have gone left to get to the restaurants. Three blocks later I was at the prison, right there in town, surrounded by historical signs: the first electrocution! from 1841-1846, the principal cash market in the U.S. for cocoons and raw silk! former site of a Cayuga village, land acknowledged! And it’s still a working prison. I turned back, walked the other way, ate dinner at a place called Prison City Brewery, decorated by pictures of Auburn Prison from back in the day. But the prison isn’t history–it’s right over there.

I have many thoughts about this, one of which is that I’m grateful Ruthie Gilmore introduced me to political geography and helped me understand that place (or space–I forget which) is a temporary resolution of a contradiction in capital. Like, the brewery is (maybe) there as a solution to the economic problem of surplus land and labor in this rural town, just as prisons are. And they are on opposite sides of these two main arterials that cut the city in half, and the crossing takes a minute. If I’d had my bike with me I would have ridden all over, looking to see what resources are located where, how the tree canopy changes from block to block, what the quality of the housing stock is like.

Paying attention in these ways isn’t necessarily deep. I am writing here as if I know something concrete about this place, but I don’t. But I know how to look around, how to ask questions, how to shift my attention to see things differently. That’s all thanks to my geography classes, sure, but until I started riding a bike and writing about it, it wasn’t a daily practice. And it is this daily practice that makes me feel at home in my body, and in the world. So here I am, riding my bike and writing about it again.

Yesterday I was taking pictures of Mount Vernon in preparation for an event I’m taking part in at the Walters Art Museum at the end of the month. We’re talking about the neighborhood, its histories, how do we reckon with ugly pasts is service of a more just present, you know, the usual. I snapped this one of a parking lot on Cathedral and Brexton. I pass this lot almost every day on my bike, always slowing down to make sure drivers aren’t driving in or out of it. Yesterday, though, I went through the alley, and it was no longer the parking lot, but Lesbian Lot, where we would dance and drink and get high and sweaty and in love during Pride celebrations. I hadn’t thought about Lesbian Lot in years, but taking my bike a slightly different way brought it all back. And I wanted to write this down because what if people think Mount Vernon’s gay history is only about gay men? We were there, too! I want that in the record. Look, consider, but yeah, I also remembered that I want to write it down. Thank you, bicycle, and thank you for the regular reminders to tilt my head, look up, look around, and see what a new perspective will bring. Here’s to another ride tomorrow.