After 19 hours on Amtrak with my folding bike (the still-unnamed replacement to America), I traversed the island of Manhattan from Battery Park to (and across) the George Washington Bridge. We used to cross that bridge to visit my grandparents, and I wanted to “feel” it again for the epilogue to my new book (the sequel to Round America with a Duck). I patted the cold, hard rocks of the Palisades for the first time ever, having only seen them from the seat of a car.
I visited five community gardens (like modern-day Victory Gardens) from top to bottom of Manhattan, had dinner with my younger daughter and her roommates, enjoyed a Guinness 0 at an Irish pub in Washington Heights, and caught an early St. Patrick’s Day Parade (Irish wolfhounds, horses, bagpipes, the works) with my 91-year-old dad in the village on Long Island where I grew up. I saw other beloved friends and family members as well, toggling between the past, present and future in so many ways.
The vibe continued. I ferried with my brother to Ellis Island on the 100th anniversary of our grandmother’s arrival on U.S. soil there (March 4 —march forth — 1925!*), and I rode my bike past the home addresses listed on my grandparents’ marriage certificate. I even sat in a pew in the church where they got married as congregants filed in for Ash Wednesday crosses smudged on their foreheads (a thing I used to do but don’t anymore), my bike locked outside it on 2nd Avenue.
I then raced a storm cross-town in one of the many big, fat, red bus lanes (which weren’t here when I lived here, and are usable by those on bikes), knocking out 34th Street in record time. Shoehorned into a crowded commuter train with my bike, I met a woman with a backpack. She was on her way to hike the Cloud Forest of Chile. You go, girl.
During my week or so in New York, I rode subways, buses, the Long Island Rail Road and then, finally, the Amtrak Crescent again, from New York’s stunning new(ish) Moynihan Station to Atlanta. In my comfortable recliner, I saw the sun set and then rise again, although we lost an hour overnight on that train as Daylight Savings Time began. But I had already lost and gained so many hours, days, years, during this journey that time felt irrelevant.
Two MARTA trains and a bike ride ultimately took me home to the bottom of a steep hill in a metro Atlanta suburb-city, where my husband of 35 years holds the fort while I do my hands-on experiential book research.
And now, it’s time again to keep working on my book at coffee shops and libraries; to plant in four different gardens where I have a hand; to ask (again and again) for the first protected bike lane where I live and ride my bike as transportation every single day; and to hope, in some small way, that my time on earth — however limited my precious, unrepeatable visit to this realm ends up being — makes some small difference for generations to come.
Only time will tell.
* my grandfather arrived from the same county in Ireland six months later. They met in New York City at a dance.
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