Nice

Creative writing instructors, entertainment critics, and your 7th grade English teacher, Miss Collins, justifiably excoriate the word “nice” as being bland, non-specific, and, in general, just an insufferably weak-titted term of approbation.

To label something “nice” is to paint it with a broad, flaccid brush—in beige—and sound like a combination of the Church Lady and your grandmother as she reviews the selection of Hallmark greeting cards at the local five and dime.

That said, there’s something nice about the term “nice” which is particularly apt in relation to a Thursday night bike ride with three dozen or so fellow cyclists on a lovely, cloudless evening in spring whose record warm temperatures really bring folks out—many of whom, apparently, have been hiding under rocks or being otherwise engaged during our recent months of drizzle and gloom.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “nice” originally comes from the Latin “nescius” which refers to foolish and silly; the semantic development of how it has come to take on its current meaning as pleasing or pleasant is, according to the OED, so mysterious as to be “unparalleled in Latin or in the Romance languages.”

But it’s surely no mystery how the foolish and silly become so nice when you’re out on two wheels.  All it takes is the foolish silliness of multiple routes to the same familiar provisioning stop and then the silly foolishness of riding east across the water to quaff quaffables in a public park a mere billy-club’s throw away from the city hall and police station of our region’s wealthiest municipality.

Additionally, the OED defines “nice” as well-executed; commendably performed or accomplished, as in “nice going,” “nice try,” or “nice work,” all of which were also on display: it was nice going across the lake twice on two difference bridges; nice try for half the group missing swamp trail riding, and to get all this and still be home by midnight--Nice work!

Reunion

I felt bad about putting the burden of decision-making on the visiting Nurse—for all of about 2 seconds.

And then, I was only glad since I had secretly hoped that a southerly route was in the offing anyhow.

It seemed like one of those nights where organization is a little jagged—droppings and indecisions were the theme, although no one could complain about the views: a city bedecked in spring splendor under bold skies that filtered a golden sunset through cottony clouds of persimmon and apricot.

The waxing crescent moon smiled a sideways smile in the west as twilight blued the snow-covered Olympics periwinkle and powder.

A shortcut took just as long as the usual route although it did provide the opportunity for gravel and a close-up look at our civic failure to combat homelessness.  A short descent was enjoyed just long enough to occasion an unnecessary climb and then there were those who preferred to get rad while the skater dude yelled for bikes to get it out of their systems.

We bombed down the favored bombing run and corkscrewed over the traffic; divergent routes were taken to the old-growth park and the firepit had to be backtracked to—and not just by those who weren’t as under the influence of leftover time trial cookies as yours truly.

Somewhat impressively, ignition was achieved by the perseverance and lung power of Fancy Fred, no fossil fuels required—(unless you count the leftover plastic wrap from the bundles)—which made for a cozy fire of just the right size for the size of the group.

Soon enough, several stragglers straggled in and almost concurrently, the early departing departed early.

Saltwater, freshwater, mountains, lakes, an urban core with plenty of bars, giant trees, gravel paths, not a single drop of rain all night long; stories from the forest, anecdotes about the kitchen and finding things at last.

 If you could live anywhere you wanted, why live anywhere else? 

Lots

In Nicholson Baker’s relentlessly introspective novel, The Mezzanine, the narrator reflects on—among countless other observations about social and psychological minutia—the ways in which everyday objects evolve organically to be used for purposes other than which they were designed. 

So, for example, the humble paper clip, whose primary function is to hold manuscript pages together, is regularly unbent and employed as an ear-scratcher or hole-puncher.  Or the common parking meter morphs from being a device for collecting money from automobile drivers to an apparatus for leashing your dog to when dashing into to the dry cleaners or for securing your bike on as you stop in at the corner bar for a few cold ones.

The same thing apparently happens to much larger structures, notably multi-story parking garages, which go from being a place to vertically store hundreds of cars in the horizontally-challenged core of an urban center in the Pacific Northwest to becoming a marble raceway for cyclists ascending to the perfect viewing platform upon which to observe a sunset over the industrial heart of that aforementioned western US metropolis.

It was a view no doubt soon enough to be reserved only for our future condo overlords on the tenth floor of the glass and steel box that will inevitably replace the concrete cube as real estate values in our fair city continue to rise, and the importance of enjoying it while we can was brought home when it turned out that the second of the two parking garages on the evening’s conceptual agenda was no longer accessible on two wheels, although that did lead to the opportunity to turn a pedestrian overpass into a windy single file outdoor bar for libations al fresco.

There are places in our town that given their geography and scale, are pretty scary to ride to by yourself, but when you’re there with a score of fellow cyclists, end up becoming a charming little park. Transformations abound, unbound transformationally.

Vortices

As did the Tasmanian Devil in those old Looney Toons cartoons, we ascended like a tornado one height after another.

First, we whirled up through the testing ground, which was funny to think of given that I was already riding the bike I would have wanted to buy.

And then, you might not have noticed, but the Fred way aloft from under the freeway is also a kind of wormhole, leading to yet another, one sanctified by St. Ignatius who apparently admonishes us to go out and set the world on fire which, literally, would have been hard to do given the dampness, although half an hour into things, no more drops fell from the sky.

Dead reckoning through the trails opened the secret marble raceway along the newly-paved route and soon enough superfluous laps hardly seemed like more than enough.

Then, there’s only a short up before a much longer down and then you’re being invited by the bartender to drink special extra-large beers around their toasty fireplace.

Moreover, how many places have you ever been where they happily turned off the lights once all the diners had left so that indoor one really felt and looked like an authentic outdoor one?

And to think that all it took was a power-move around a fence and over a pond past razor wire and brambles to make a long-standing wish come true.  The case for eating the rich is made ever stronger by the observation that such a perfect and perfectly flat vortex is usually reserved for the recreational activities of wealthy landowners.  That being said, it was nevertheless thrilling to emerge almost immediately across usually-distant space.

The quotidian is remarkable for those unfamiliar with it, which is yet another reminder that real shortcuts do exist as long as you’re willing and able to ride them.

Flat planes magically ascend, and you’re home before you know it; how can the secret to secret pathways still be a secret?