Oliver Sacks was a neurologist, best-selling author, professor of neurology — and hard-core biker. Music and cycling were our initial bonds. Living two doors apart from each other added frequency. We used to go biking early in the morning all the way to Wagner Park from our Horatio Street apartment building. When he asked me what time I got up and I said 6 a.m. he replied: “Too late!”and he smirked. He once dropped me a note: “A friend is staying over tonight, bringing his bicycle, and we plan to go for a ride at 5 a.m. [underscored on the original note] Join us if you wish or look by later.”
I remember when Dr. Sacks moved into our building. He was shy, I was respectful. I hadn’t read any of his books, so my friend Jane — who is probably mingling with him in Heaven — recommended Oaxaca Journal. I decided, one day I had made meat empanadas, to drop off some for him as a neighborly gesture. I left them in a plastic bag by his door, without knocking. Then went home and started reading Oaxaca Journal.
In the first chapter, Oliver is served an empanada on the flight bound to Mexico. “I wanted the chicken or fish […] I dislike the empanada, but eat some as part of my acculturation.” I rushed out the door to grab my token of friendship but it was too late. It wasn’t there. Either he had enjoyed them — he never said, I never asked — or he dumped them. I was initially dismayed but later on, after we became friends, he placed milk on his threshold for my Siamese cat. Leo used to wander in the hallway. He hated milk. Idylls are sometimes born out of steps that French call faux.
—New York City, 5/28/2021