Hasidic Jews are a fascinating subculture in the melting pot that is New York City. These people brace themselves against the heavy current of the modern city with strong social order and a highly insular community. Densely Hasidic areas in Brooklyn were once considered remote but the geographical boundaries that protected them have faded as the city grows and encroaches on their once-isolated neighborhoods. Now the Hasids in Brooklyn (much like the Chinese in Chinatown) must rely on a combination of intra-community lending practices and their profound strangeness to protect them from being swept away. Continue reading “Breaking Out”
My STD is Fucked Up
STDs are a bummer. At minimum they represent embarrassing disclosure, annoying contraceptives, itching and burning. Farther along the spectrum of misfortune are the incurables, the cancer-causing viruses and the life-threatening illnesses. But no matter how much suffering you may incur, in my opinion, the worst thing about STDs is that some can be passed from mother to child. Imagine an entire life carrying the burden of one of those unfortunate illnesses without even having had the pleasure of acquiring it!
Pants (The Second Installment)
In a city as flat as New York, bridges represent pretty much the only hills that bikers face. Among bridges, the Williamsburg boasts the most challenging uphill climb for bikers (according to me).
The Williamsburg Bridge is over mile long. The road bearing cars and trucks is relatively level, the subway line is offset slightly above the road, and the pedestrian pathway rises above them all. Foot and bike traffic follows a steep route consisting of three segments, with a strong slant on either end and a moderately lower grade in the middle.
Scrambling up that incline one morning on my way to work, I was surprised to see another bike gaining on me. I’m a competitive person and I enjoy the sport of passing other bikers– especially men– so I was surprised to see a woman closing the gap between us.
I picked up my pace to try to shake her but she caught up in spite of my efforts. She pulled abreast, and faced me as we continued pedaling aggressively, then, with bated breath she said “I just had to tell you….GASP…..your pants….GASP….are totally see-through!”
And with that, she slowed down and faded into the distance.
Trying to Let it Out
When I got married at the very young age of 21, I meant every word in my vows. When we celebrated our 5th anniversary, I thought we might someday celebrate our 50th. Divorce was not a milestone either of us ever expected to reach. So when I moved out of the apartment my husband and I shared, it was confusing and traumatic and deeply painful for both of us. Only weeks later, I was in a serious car accident. Heading to a New Year’s Eve party along the oceanfront Pacific Coast Highway in LA, the car I was in slammed into the side of another car making a poorly-timed left turn across our lane. We were incredibly lucky: everyone was wearing their seat-belt, no one was intoxicated, no one was driving above the speed limit, and no one was seriously injured. Except me. Continue reading “Trying to Let it Out”
Pants (The First Installment)
For one week in August I took an energy efficiency class up in the Bronx. I headed “up North,” riding my bike the 10 or so miles from midtown Manhattan through Times Square, alongside Central Park and on into that Other Borough. On my back I carried a pack with a notepad and pen, a sack luck, a water bottle and a change of clothes.
I’ve often thought that if I could play God or Mayor for a day, my first task would be to demolish the highways. As in the city of Detroit, neighborhoods in the Bronx have been bi-sected pureed and splayed out by highways. Back in the 70’s people paved over neighborhoods and truncated others with the myopic hubris that justified those roads as quite literally a means to an end (the end being Manhattan in the case of the Bronx, the end being The Suburbs in the case of Detroit).
With highways come overpasses, and that commute was the first time I had occasion to cross over a pedestrian overpass in New York. In the sweltering heat of that baking city in late summer, I carefully navigated around what appeared to be human feces* and entered into that beleaguered borough. Continue reading “Pants (The First Installment)”
Bike for Your Rights
-or-
“Don’t Let Special Interest Groups Tell You Not To Let Bureaucrats Tell You What Size Beverage to Buy”
Times were tough in New York following Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s highly-contested anti-soda campaign, which waged war on the sugared-beverage rights of peace-loving not-quite caffeinated-enough New Yorkers. For the uninitiated, I’ll inform you that the mayor’s idea was to ban soda cups over a certain size to make a small splash in the fight against obesity.
Doc’d Up
In the waiting area of clinic 4E at the Detroit Medical Center, women in various stages of pregnancy and early motherhood are leaning against walls, sitting on plastic “kiddy” chairs, and pacing around the rows of empty chairs around them. They are waiting for their name to be called, and they will wait for hours. They’d like to sit in the chairs, but will not, for fear of bed bugs.
There are a number of unavoidable symptoms of pregnancy: swollen feet, morning sickness, drowsiness, sure. But parasitic insects? They have no part on that list.
One Cry Fix All
My submission to The Moth Detroit StorySLAM topic: “Blood Sweat and Tears”
When you go through a difficult time in your life, your body naturally deals with it by going into shock. This is a beautiful response because it allows you to go on with your life and get through every day when you’re not quite ready to deal with the emotional and physical trauma of what’s happened to you. The downside, though, is that you don’t actually process those feelings. Sooner or later, you will have to deal with them.
Last year I was coming out of the hardest time of my life and it became very clear to me that the ancient protective shield of “shock” had happened to me. Basically I was pretty messed up and it was time to deal with it. I figured I could either spend a bunch of money on therapy or do something awesome- and that is how I found myself quitting my job, leaving New York City and backpacking across Northern Michigan by myself. Continue reading “One Cry Fix All”
Ritual
Every time I ride, I fly.
Arms extended, hail the sky
With mind aloft I pedal though
I am a sail, but anchor too.
I make my peace here on the road,
Too free to fear, to far to fold.
Economies of the Heart
When I moved to Detroit I had no job, no place to live, and almost no friends in my new city. But I did have a plan. My blank slate gave me the freedom to carefully curate every component of my life just the way I wanted it. This meant not accepting the first job offer that came my way, not signing a lease with the first apartment I thought I liked, not befriending the first people who invited me out for a drink, and not going out with to the first guy who asked for my number. It was the longer and lonelier route but I had just been through the hardest year of my life and I knew I was up for the challenge. Continue reading “Economies of the Heart”