Forty Years Later

June 6, 2016

Greetings from the adventure,

I still get the same twinge, feel the vibration.  When I see two lane road split the green in front of me, disappear over a hill.  When the road takes me to a place where the world opens up and I can see that it leads to more world. 

Forty years ago, on this morning, I awoke in a hammock next to a raging river flowing between thick forests.  There was snow on the ground around me, and on the mountains above.  I was on the lip of Yellowstone, following the road to more world.  When I had my coffee and packed up my gear, I swung my leg over the saddle and rode out to find it.

A couple of weeks ago I got a card from my mother.  “Happy Fortieth”  it said.  Took me a few minutes to figure out what anniversary she was remembering.  “Keep on spinning.” she wrote. 

I went to my room and opened a wooden box that sits where I can see it every morning.  Inside are the tattered and stained notebooks from four decades ago.  I leafed through the first one and found the date.  I had started across the country on my bicycle forty years ago on the date she remembered.

I don’t spend a lot of time reminiscing, for good or bad.  I love the life I’ve had, but I love the life I’m living too, so I tend to focus more on this moment than that.  And so it’s easy to get surprised by forty years.

I travelled all over the country on my bike, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone.  There is no question that those experiences shaped my early life, put grooves in me that would guide many choices since then.  That time added color and depth and texture to me that still lives in me.

A lot of what I wrote in those journals was naïve and idealistic and hopeful.  Thankfully a lot of those ideas have stayed with me.  I saw, for example, that people are usually generous and open and friendly, and so it was easy to think the best of most everyone I met.  That theme has never left me. 

I discovered what breathtaking beauty is, not from a screen or through a window, but from being in it.  I fought to find words to save what I saw and fell short.  Sunrise over the desert.  Cruising past the Tetons.  Zig zagging along the Pacific Coast.  Climbing Trail Ridge Pass over the Rockies. My tires humming on blacktop as I wove between redwoods.   In my journal I tried to describe my impression of the Big Horn Mountains, and like so many times I was at a loss for words.  I finally wrote this truth: “…it does not present an image, it is an experience.”

Reading my journals I was reminded:

I would rather be outside.  If things are hard, be harder.  There is nothing like the sound of rain on your tent.  Always treat people like you might meet them later in the day.  The mountain does not care.  After a few days without a shower you’re the only person who can’t smell you. 

Coming off the road is hard.  It will pass. Being at the mercy of the elements, living in the world and not on it, teaches you humility. 

I learned that I could be alone, and that there is a price that comes with that.  It is good to spend time with yourself, and really face what you think.  But from there I gained a new appreciation of what it is like to be with people. Being alone takes practice; there is an ache that gets better, like your body adjusting to a new effort.  For me it is a survival skill not a lifestyle.  I love finding people in my day.

Traveling on a bicycle provided a unique connection to the strangers I met every day.  They were curious about me, enough to provide us a place to begin a conversation.  That would open doors to a meal, to hospitality, to friendship.  I would share what I had, and they would share what they had.  It always began with understanding the other’s perspective. 

I wrote down some reminders of what I thought I would need when the tour ended.  Be content.  Be where you are.  Be patient.  ‘It will pass.’  Find intensity. Find passion.  Be persistent.  I can’t say I remembered these consistently, but I do recognize the words in some of my days.

The time on the road provided amazing experiences that hold up even after decades of a life filled with amazing experiences.  Sleeping on picnic tables, under bridges, in barns, in fields.  Grapenuts and peanut butter and macaroni and tuna, and coffee and coffee.  Riding up mountains, along rivers, and across prairies and into small towns and on to other small towns.  Powered by my legs and my determination through deserts and green valleys,  past mansions and shacks, through rain and snow and locust swarms and blistering heat. Gas station maps; tracing my finger along the pale grey lines that connected this place with more world.  I am sitting at my desk, folding the journals up and putting them back in the box, smiling, grateful for my mother’s reminder. 

So I have been sitting here all morning wondering; what matters in all of this?  Maybe it is enough to wade through the memories and enjoy that for what it was, like seeing an interesting movie or reading a book that you enjoy.

But what has been coursing through me since I opened the card from my mom was the thought that forty years from now I would want to look back at this morning with the same feeling of richness and satisfaction.  That this day had been as full as those of my nineteenth year.

Not every day is a mountain top experience.  We have to get the oil changed and do the laundry and wait in line at the DMV.  But if we don’t build the other stuff into our day, as often as we can, than who will do it for us?  Who else will make this the day that will shine through the next forty years?  To be honest, that is the most important lesson I brought off the road, one that I have forgotten too often. 

“There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I.”  John Steinbeck.  ‘Travels with Charley’

Hope this finds swinging your leg over the saddle,

David

If you would like to hear a story from the road, you can click here to watch this video from our story telling evening last year.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZUlEZ94OyM