Michael's Journal - Entry #3

Monday May 30, 2011

Let’s do this. 107 miles. Raining this morning. Highs of 90s.

Sounds like a suicide mission.

Last night, I cried for the first time in a while. I’ve spent my whole weekend with my grandmother – someone who everyone in my family tries to avoid. And I think I know why. She carries a broken heart, unmended, ever since grandpa died. It shows itself in her anger, her bitter hatred, her acts of violence. She denies life, almost as if she died when he died. I don’t remember what it was like before, but it certainly was safer, warmer, friendlier here. It wasn’t all grandpa either – it was grandma and grandpa.

I’ve only had a taste of that myself, but I can tell you, I wouldn’t be going on this trip now if it wasn’t for a broken heart. If you know me, you know that I am smart enough to do anything. If you asked me what I was doing at the end of last summer, I would have told you that I was joining the Peace Corps at the end of the year or doing some kind of volunteer work. Biking was an afterthought, a pipe dream. I might have applied to graduate school or looked for a job before going in this direction.

So, yeah, felt that pain in my chest the other night when I did the old Facebook check. Stalking I think they call it. It hurt so bad I just finally had to cry about it. And, get this, the energy moved! No longer was I feeling pain in my chest but I started to feel warmth in my navel. At first it was painful, and then…just serene. I swear – expression of one’s emotions is healing.

Speaking of hearts and love, my brother got married this weekend! Though a joyous occasion, I can tell that many were relieved when it was over. Our family is a bit disjointed – it feels uncomfortable putting us all together. I know that I personally feel a lot of obligation in social settings as it is, but in family social settings…it can be draining to the point of nausea. And we were on a boat all Saturday evening.

Notable occurrences – meeting a girl named Amber Friday evening at DJ’s and spending the whole night enjoying her company. Very similar personality, though she had a boyfriend and from what I told her, she sort of assumed I was gay. Well, whatever, it was fun and I hope that future nights out are like it. At moments kind, buying me all of my drinks that evening and at other moments cruel – accusing me of lying to get into her pants. Crazy, just like me.

Before that, just enjoyed some music and a nice little club by Lake George. Met another girl named Jennifer, who was a yoga instructor. She also had a boyfriend. Listened to some cool music and met some groovy dudes. It was nice. And before that, showed up to the rehearsal dinner wearing my father’s clothing. I looked and felt like a big child J.

Saturday morning was spent reconnecting with cousins from Georgia. Kind of forced at moments, but I could understand why. They wanted to know so much about me, it had been over 8 years. So much had changed. Turns out I have a cousin Meredith who is now 17 and doing a lot of the same things I was doing in high school. So sweet to know that someone of similar blood and inclination is around, probably dealing with similar social/emotional challenges and sorting through them her own way.

Trips with my grandmother – what a pair! First trip was full of shouting and cursing and calling each other dirty names. Second, pure, golden silence. I’m glad to leave the house feeling like I learned something about myself through my interactions with my grandmother. And, I’m glad she gets it and she’s been around it before. I think she wanted me to be grandpa this weekend and she succeeded in her own way. Anyways, I don’t want to get into too much detail.

If readers have questions/comments/suggestions in terms of ways to improve my writing to provide greater clarity and emotional connection, feel free to contact me via email. But please be specific – avoid vague and general judgments and make positive requests, as in avoid using the word “don’t.”  

Anyways, I better get going. I have a long ride ahead of me. Why? Because I still haven’t proved to myself that I can really do this. Because there’s nothing else for me to do. Because I’m lost and looking for something.

So why not ride.

Michael

Woodstock in Bethel, NY

 

Michael's Journal - Entry #2

Thursday, May 26

Worn out. Spent. Spaint I guess you could say. I don’t even know what to do with myself right now. I feel sort of depressed – like I just rode about 100 miles and I failed. I think I might have rode about 60 miles yesterday. But today, I only rode something like 23, maybe thirty. And I have been on the rode since 8:30. Well, not entirely, I probably took about an hour and a half worth of breaks. But still, that’s five hours of driving. That means I was going an average of six miles an hour all day. Wow.

Wow again. Just received a call from Denia with the Peace Corps. Looks like I’m moving onto the second part of the application process! Looks like they’ll be placing me into a program in Subsaharan Africa. If my nomination makes it. June 2012. Wow. Well, not to get ahead of ourselves, I will still need to pass the health check. Ugh. And I’ll have to be elected after being nominated.

That really cheered me up a bit. Anyways, to talk more about the day, I am here in a shortline bus station. Safe to say I didn’t make it all the way. Safe to say I wouldn’t have made it all the way. Might have made it to Middletown by tomorrow afternoon, but no way was I going to make it there by today. Too many hills. TOO MANY HILLS! AHHHH!

I wonder how far I’ve really gone. 100 miles ain’t bad. Monticello is about 90 miles from Binghamton taking 17. Think I might have gone the long way though. The hard and tough hill way. Though, it’s hard to tell – there’s the catskills if you take 17. Plenty of hills going in that direction.

I must have received over 20 voicemails today though – aieyayay. Grandma goes crazy and calls everybody and their mothers. Glad though I got it all straightened out. I might have used the internet while I could over at the Best Western. It’s not that far away still though – maybe I’ll head over once I’m done journaling/venting into a word document.

Can I really post this? It’s not well written. Just stream of consciousness. Guess that’s what I’m comfortable with. No worries – I’ll move onto more description as the trip goes on. Maybe choose a day of the week to write only in description. I’ll get better at it I’m sure. Then, write some poetry too. It has been too long without some poetry.

Woke up this morning at around 7:00. Did some yoga, ate some breakfast, packed up. Talked with Zach the fifth grader. Kid was so interested in me. Told me about how he had a bike. They were pretty wowed at how far I’d gone. Got some coffee at the Rilleyville café. Beautiful waitress – enjoyed talking with her for a few brief instances. Hearing the story about the really young kids who were from the west she said she saw coming through there. 

Rode, rode, then rode some more. Tackled a mountain once I got into New York. Really, really enjoyed my stop in Bethel. Nice guy took some pictures of me in front of the picture of Woodstock and the big peace sign. Looked like there’s a phish concert happening this weekend. Would have liked to have stuck around and went to the museum. Probably could have given the amount of time still until the bus comes. Curses, curses, I wish I hadn’t been in such a hurry to get here!

Lesson #1 – If you hurry, you’ll miss out on the now and the opportunities that come with it. Stay in the now.

That’ll be a hard one to practice. How to stay in the now? Just notice. Meditate. Use your senses.

Practices for lesson #1 – Meditation, using one’s senses, descriptive writing, deep breathes, stories about being present and mindfulness.

Had a nice siesta at the ice cream shop – ate some lunch, took a short nap, and tackled another beastly hill. Man, was I sluggish on those roads. I can still feel it in my legs. I’ll get out that tennis ball again – man, what a clever thing to do.

I wonder if you are reading this right now. If you are, I want to tell you that I love you and I miss you and I hope that these dreams aren’t just foolishness – that there is in fact a good reason why I met you. I hope to divine that reason before this is all over.

Plenty of time and riding still to reflect.

Michael

Sleeping in the Chicken Coop

Michael's Journal - Entry #1

Wednesday May 25

Wow. Everything aches. I feel so guilty for being here in someone else’s shed. Like, wow, what a free loader. Look at you and your bike and your stupid tent that you never opened before setting out on this trip. What a load of crapt! I spent 300 dollars on that tent and it doesn’t even come as a complete package! And I’m supposed to set it up where there’s no underbrush? Like, whoa, that sounds more like a pain than something that I would want to work with. No wonder it is so light – they didn’t include the stakes! Or the poles that hold the damn thing up!

I must sound like such a brat. Guess that’s why I’m on this trip – so I can learn to be more tolerant of stuff as it happens. It could have been a lot worse. I could be road pizza. Or sleeping in the brush with no tent.

Though, I don’t know. It just happened that the place that I chose was right near a lake! Tons of flies. I got so bitten up. Here is different, just a few miles did the trick I suppose. If I chose a spot here, I might have been able to handle the flies with a bit more grace and mcguivered something with some large sticks. That’s all you really need I suppose.

It sucks that I have such little tolerance for bugs. But, hey! You know that they get worse and worse. And that bug spray did nothing! Grr, just let it all out Bratty Michael.

I wonder how far I got. I’m going to say it was about 60 miles. Which is not bad considering I started midway through the day. Though, I must say, I was making very slow time towards the end. I hope I can maintain tomorrow – 6 hours of riding versus 12 hours of riding might bring my average down.

Such negativity! Ugh, there’s so much to celebrate! It’s hard though to shift that consciousness. Not hard, maybe just doesn’t feel natural. Sometimes, I think I go through all the bad stuff because I know that once I get all of that out of the way, then there’s nothing but good stuff to talk about. Like when I was a kid, I used to eat all the cereal pieces in lucky charms so that in the end, I could eat all the marshmallows.

Binging. Extremes. Describes my life up till now. Always testing boundaries. And here’s one.

I’m going to take a few pictures before I go to sleep. It might also be a good idea to say good night to my host family. A couple with kids. I am surprised they let me sleep in the shed. I’m surprised there was space in the shed. What a bonus. It’s going to be hot in here tonight a little noisy due to the chickens. But it’s worth it – I get to tell people I slept with baby chicks my first night touring. Babies are so beautiful.

It has been a day though! Woke up at around 7 and got ready by showering, washing clothing, finishing off most of my breakfast stuff. Tooled around a lot with my camera to try and upload Aaron’s bachelor party photos. He must have deleted some of them. Such a weird experience – I celebrate it and at the same time it really threw me off my game. I’m back to masterbating every day and I get those weird urges to watch porn. Earlier today, I think I watched it in my kitchen. God, anyone could have walked in on me whanking it. People could have seen me through the window. It’s hard not to think there’s something wrong with me, but, who knows, nothing ever lasts that’s based in right and wrong/binary thinking. There are reasons to do it and reasons not to. I hope I can remember what caused me to quit for such a long period in the first place.

Such luck though with the package! I was sure it wasn’t there when I walked into the post office, but then it was! As well as my brakes! Too bad I didn’t have time to put on the brakes. But man, did I look at that front rack and think “shit, I got the wrong rack.” I stuck with it though and realized how to put it together. Just gotta make some brake adjustments later – but that’s just fun. Bicycle maintenance. Can’t forget to check stuff tomorrow and pump up them tires. Got a long ride still ahead of me and I don’t want a flat happening. I should probably lube the chain up as well. Hopefully it doesn’t rain.

Left at 12:30 after eating some Mac and Cheese. Took some pictures on my porch. Returned some books. Hit the road. Felt great starting off. Got down to Susquehanna and felt like a boss. Remember ripping out the new York map in front of a café on the street. Felt so ghetto/hipster. Kept riding, lost in thoughts.

Thoughts. Felt like I was reflecting on so much. Going through my baggage. So much to go through. Does it ever end? Maybe when I say it does. I haven’t yet, I hope to soon. Maybe on my way across the country. Maybe tomorrow. Who knows.

Proscrastinating again. I can feel my feet going numb just by the shear weight of this laptop.

A couple of run-ins. Not supposed to bring your bike indoors. Lots of friendly people though. That gas station attendant who was watching my bike. The truck driver who asked “what kind of job do you have that you can do something like that.” “I don’t have a job” – LOL. The store owner in Thompson – “You don’t have to worry about your bike, these people here are nice.” Kind of reminds me of home – such carefree attitude and a mutual respect for property that doesn’t need to be mentioned, that just exists. The man who owned the junkyard, such ease in terms of offering me to stay a while and even use his facilities a bit. Such a nice man, soft spoken, just asked where I was going. The old woman who wouldn’t let me sleep at her house, but who was trying her best to help me out. Everyone is just trying their best.

Rilleyville. I believe that is the name of this village. I wish I had made it to Damascus – that would have been an epic stop on this trip.

Ok – yoga, tennis ball, pictures, talk to the lovely family who’s letting me stay in the shed and then sleep.

Oh, and brush my teeth I guess.

Starting Off - Ride to Montecello