A clear, caring human heart

After reading Ian Buruma's prescient piece about Brussels, "In the Capital of Europe" (The New York Review of Books, April 7, 2016), I rode my bike to the beach.

It's a fine day for freedom, I thought as I pedaled. The sky's clear, the sun's shining, it's neither too hot or too cold, the kind of day when sunglasses are required but when there's also the possibility that rank-and-file citizens might abandon their earbuds for the sound of the real thing: little San Francisco pretending to be a big city.

Lake Street between 5th and 7th was under construction, so I improvised, careful to avoid Geary, finally reaching The Great Highway, descending the curving slope past The Cliff House--which to a biker is freedom itself--to the beach.

It's there that I paused. A cargo ship was slinking into the harbor, a centipede swimming for its life, but much too slowly, in a puddle much too big for it. Two gulls hovered overhead, miffed that the city removed the garbage cans from the boardwalk, perhaps mistaking me for trash. A surfer slipped out of his wetsuit, butt-naked for a moment or two, without the slightest self-consciousness.

Time to move on. I proceeded south along the ocean, made a left at Lincoln and rode into Golden Gate Park. Somewhere near the polo fields two figures approached, a man and a woman. They were riding Segways, traveling in the opposite direction, tourists.

The woman wore a burka. I could only see her eyes. I could see she was thrilled to be riding a rented Segway with her partner through the park. She let me see that much; no, she made sure that I saw that much before she passed by.