For the Love of Place

Posted: August 24th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: bike, Brooklyn, place | Tags: | Comments Off

Mon pannier neuf. (My new saddlebag).

I have new panniers for my red bike. The fancy metal baskets on the dearly departed Silver Wing departed with that splatter-painted steed from Cadman Plaza in March, so I opted for something a bit more sporty and waterproof. My ancient panniers were ripped to shreds (tserisene, in Yiddish) with lazy, disobedient zippers and zero waterproof-i-tude. So, welcome Ortliebs. Makes me think of a French rhyme.

Un deux, trois,
nous irons au bois
quatre, cinq, six
cueillir de cerises
sept, huit, neuf
dans mon panier neuf
dix, onze, douze
elles seront toutes rouges.

My panniers are, of course, bleus, with silver splotches for reflectivity. Ortlieb brand: German. Using my powers of Yiddish, I can discern:

ort= place
lieb= love
ortlieb= place-love or love of place…

I do love place. Being. Sitting. Observing. Taking part in a locale, seeping into it by eavesdropping.

Aller-Retour

This project is in no small part about place, finding the place I am from, la terre, the ground where my forebears walked and shlepped and hunkered down and happened to have landed and stayed and strived. The project is about finding place, uncovering it, making peace with what is there, and with what is not there and pinpointing, amid the whirlwind, places that make me feel welcome. Places that embrace the awkward past, the uncomfortable present, the uncertain future and still, onward, last and lilt onward. I want to map, this places, to trace them and showcase them, to match them to documents and objects and stories and to move forward on my own power, essentials in tow.

Are you trying to get yourself killed?


a truck driver asked me on Ashland Place after BAM, en route to the passthrough to the Manhattan Bridge approach ramp. “No,” I answered, “Are you trying to kill me?”

I was in the bike lane. I was going in the right direction, not being reckless, just moving forward — and making more headway than he was. He opened the door of his cab to ask me this question.

Vulnerability makes people nervous. And being on a bike is an act of vulnerability, of faith and risk taking and hope. It’s how I urge on the messiah. How I pray. Not walking, or rather marching, with my feet as Abraham Joshua Heschel intoned, but pedaling, returning to the same revolutions of the wheel, putting my feet, my heart, my soul into the practice of revolution, turning, movement.

Comments are closed.