Last Thursday’s ride took me down to the Inner Harbor to meet A. and her sweet baby girl for a tour of the Christmas Village. It was empty, which I suppose is to be expected on a Thursday afternoon. That worked for the 19 month old kiddo I was with who mostly wanted to oh-so-carefully step her way down stairs and then run up them to slowly sneak down them again. And then she wanted to run as fast as she could, which wasn’t very fast if we’re being honest, and everyone who saw her could help but smile. Continue reading
politics
Catherine Pugh Campaign Headquarters on Charles Avenue in Mount Vernon
Today’s ride took me down the hill for my last shuttle ride to campus for the fall semester. I love the last day of classes almost as much as the first, but I’m a little bit distracted right now, so I wasn’t totally on my game. The thing about teaching, though, is that just a few minutes with students and the distraction was gone, replaced by a sweet recognition that I’m pretty flipping lucky to have a job that lets me take the long way to work, and that the work is largely me having interesting conversations with other people about interesting things. And then class ended early, because it’s the last day, and I was back on the shuttle bus to fetch my bike to head up to meet N. for a celebratory beer and cheese plate. I took a lazy route home, mostly walking, because in my distraction I’d left my safety lights at home. I snapped this picture of Catherine Pugh’s Mount Vernon campaign headquarters, lots of those popping up these days. I wonder what sort of person wants to be mayor, given how much cash you have to throw down to make it happen and how many favors you end up owing. I saw Nick Mosby, another guy running for mayor, at the Monument Lighting last week. We were both shoving ourselves through the narrow peoplechute going south from the east side of the park, and I said, “Hey, you’re going to be our next mayor!” He chuckled, “I will if you vote for me,” and then he lamented that he was going to be late for a meeting. I suggested that was pretty bad scheduling, and he nodded firmly, “But it was important for me to be here.” I could practically see the gears turning, don’t act like a meeting’s more important than this community event, this was the right choice, grind grind grind, and I thought wow, he’s going to be on display and calculating his every move for a very, very long time. I bet that just becomes normal at a certain point for those politicians. And then I ran into J., had a quick drink with him and R., and got back on my bike to home. I love that I live in a town small enough to run into everyone like that.
Lee & Jackson Monument at Wyman Park Drive & Art Museum Drive
Thursday’s ride took me up the hill to place a large order at Popeye’s and then down the hill, over, and up again to Druid Hill Park to do a bunch of laps as I try to get used to clipping in again. I got out of the habit, and now I’m scared of it. I used to clip in every day, even just for a quick two mile ride to Tulane. I taught in my bike shoes and hopped back on the bike to ride around town afterward. They were normal–now they’re not. I’d like to make them normal again, at least in time to pull myself up and over and through the Adirondacks at the end of July. That’s what was on my mind as I did my laps, getting more and more and then less and then more comfortable with my spds. Continue reading
The National Guard Mustering at City Hall at Fayette & Holliday
Today started with some trepidation, I have to be honest. When I got home from my bike ride yesterday I turned on the TV news. It’s hard not to do that when there’s a sense of urgency in the air, and it’s hard to stay vigilant against the sway of the news, its steady insistence that your city is going up in flames, that your neighbors aren’t your neighbors but your enemies, that suddenly it is the apocalypse, even when you know the apocalypse has been here for decades upon decades in the guises of deindustrialization, urban renewal, the drug war, the meteoric rise of mass incarceration–the list goes on and on and on. The problem with The Event, though, is that it collapses time, and those histories, and even the present moment, the murder of Freddie Gray, disappear, replaced with fears about a faceless mob on the attack. Continue reading
Photographers Photographing a Little Girl and Police Officers at the Western District Baltimore Police Department
Saturday was a most excellent day to be on a bicycle. That’s hardly the point, but it’s just true: when there are multiple protests and rallies going on around the city, plus the rest of things to do on a weekend, a bike is the best way to move quickly and easily, especially as cops and cars start blocking entrances and exits. I thought about this, about how car culture makes protest culture that much harder because we become so easily immobilized, as I inhaled a stack of blueberry pancakes at the diner on the corner before biking over to Sandtown-Winchester for the first gathering of the day to remember Freddie Gray, killed by Baltimore City cops almost two weeks prior.
Cars, Trees, and People at President & Fayette
Thursday’s bike ride took me down the hill and up the other side to visit A. and her sweet baby girl for the afternoon. It was such a nice ride on a cool, windless day–and that second part makes a big difference. I was mostly just happy to stretch my legs on a ride that wasn’t taking me to work. And then we had a ridiculously nice day, the kind you can only have when one of your companions reliably giggles and coos every time you fake-sneeze or stick your tongue out at her. For all the ugly in the world, it was good to remember that there’s this other kind of divine goodness, the still-fresh baby; she’s also part of this world. Continue reading
Police Helicopter in the Sky at St. Paul and Mount Royal
Wednesday’s ride was all commute, happily since Monday’s rain-out meant a super crowded bus ride home. It was so crowded, in that way that reminds you how relative that whole “no touching” dictum is. I mean, if the kinds of physical contact happening on that Monday bus ride were to happen at the workplace, somebody’d be out of a job. Wednesday’s ride home was a different kind of slow slog, this one taking place right after I heard that Eric Garner’s killer was not indicted. That means the grand jury didn’t think there was enough evidence for any reasonable person to even possibly find the killer guilty of any kind of crime. It sucked the air right out of me, but I had the privilege for that to be a passing feeling, and I returned to breath, shallow for a bit, but there. Continue reading
Row House at Presstman & N. Carey
This is a post about what I saw when I rode my bike around last Saturday morning. I got up early to ride over to Carver Vo-Tech High to judge some high school debate with BUDL. I rode past the Waverly farmer’s market, already bustling with shoppers at 7:30am. I watched cars treat red lights like they were bad suggestions, because I guess on a Saturday morning nobody’s watching. I passed the crowds outside the methadone clinic on Maryland Avenue, because addiction doesn’t take weekends off. I pedaled past the riders waiting early to be first on the Bolt bus, and then through the quiet streets of Mount Vernon. I took a right past Meyerhoff Hall, where the symphony plays, and then west of MLK, on Dolphin. I stopped to check my maps before taking my right on McCulloh, left on Presstman, watching as the old glory of Druid and Marble Hill, of Pennsylvania Avenue, gave way to the steady decay of a neighborhood laid waste by political, economic, and civic abandonment. No, it’s not really abandonment. That makes it sound like folks just left, but the policies of urban renewal purposely slated neighborhoods like this one for destruction, and this bike ride was a reminder that those policies continue to reverberate. And then I was at the high school, locking up my bike, judging a couple rounds of smart high schoolers making strong cases that we should rebuild our coral reefs if we want life on earth to continue. I was totally convinced we should do that, though neither affirmative team running that case won the round they were in. Debate, man–it’s not just about the best idea, and that’s pretty scary when that rule translates into real life. The bike ride home was a reverse tour, and I stopped at the corner of Presstman and N. Carey to snap this picture of a row house standing alone. I’m not sure where it’s neighbors went, or where the people who used to live here went. But this house is still here, and people are still here, and the settled assumptions that white people and capital shall not go west of MLK continues to make just this kind of difference. This is what I saw on my bike ride last Saturday. And then, like everybody else, I was sitting, waiting to hear whether or not Darren Wilson was going to be indicted. I watched as the state set up its police in advance of the announcement, because they know this shit is terrible, and they know it is only the use of force that can force people to keep eating this shit. And the announcement came down, and the resistance that is always there, steady, made itself visible, and the few narratives of this single event dominated the talk cycle, and the rest of us waited for it all to quiet down a little so we could get back to shopping and eating and taking pictures of our cats, and I wanted all of us to have to take some history classes, because how do we end up in a world where Darren Wilson can tell us Michael Brown “looked like a demon” and thus required him to shoot to kill, and how does this world keep spinning on just like this? It’s a long story, and I am reminded of that on every single bicycle ride through Baltimore City, because look at this place. No, really look at it.
Youth Curfew Ordinance Protesters at UB School of Law at Charles & Mt. Royal
I’m moving this week, just up the street, but still my anxiety is through the roof–you’d think I hadn’t moved at least every three years of the last twenty. Oh well–I’m doing what I can, and on Tuesday that meant taking the bike out to meet a friend for a walk, riding over the the gym for step aerobics (never changes!), and then riding all over running self-care errands. Yeah, it was slightly better than sitting in the house, waiting for it to pack itself. Oh, I love this town–its trees, its cheap haircutteries, its community acupuncture and friendly eyeglass shop! The ride was an excellent reminder that I may be moving, but I’m not starting over–I get to stay in Baltimore this time! Continue reading
The YMCA at 33rd & Ellerslie Against Blue Skies
First, I have to say something about the weather. It is so hot and humid out. This is obvious to anyone in the are, but wow, it makes a difference in how riding feels. I’m sleeping like a rock, like I’ll need a crane to peel me off the bed in the morning, because riding in this humidity sucks the life force from me. I mean, I still love it, but it takes some acclimatizing is all. I got some of that out of the way with my long ride on Tuesday and commuting on Wednesday, but on Thursday the best I could do was the mile to and from the YMCA. N. and I just joined for pool access so N. can use it to heal this back spasm that’s gripped her for the past three weeks, and I’m using it to get back to weight training and maybe a group class or two. Thursday’s was Urban Line Dancing, which as far as I could tell meant Black folks, not white country folks. I rode to the gym, sweaty after just ten minutes, locked up to the rack, took a minute to judge the blue fixie rider for locking their impracticable bike horizontally on the U-rack, and headed in to join the twenty or so other dancers. I was close to the youngest, and the only white person, and it struck me how rarely that ever happens in my life. Our social spaces are so segregated by age and race, generally, that rarely do I find myself in the minority, other than sometimes in the classroom–a privilege, but also a cost of whiteness. It’s only Smalltimore because we live such segregated lives, you know. Everyone was friendly enough, and I gamed my way through the six or so dances (though Bmore Nights is going to take some out-of-class work if I’m going to get it), and had a really good time. The steps were complicated, so all I could do was focus on them, and that was a treat. I said my goodbyes on the way out, happy to have found another place to play, this one in ac. Thanks, this YMCA, for being welcoming to so many kinds of folks. I snapped this picture on my way out. All blue skies, no sign of the humidity.
What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today 