in the middle of desert shrubbery, which looked like randomly dispersed pom-poms, i went to the bathroom (#2). i learned to use a red steel(?) shovel, and i a dug a 6-12 inch hole while flies swarmed low in fear of the impending rain. to me, moments like these are real—you can’t escape your body’s needs, and you can’t outhink human processes. you are, as my mom says a vessel, but even in this vessel, you must adhere to its limits and ways of being,
as alex told me during one of the early days, there are things in life that are real, and there are things in life that are fake. this trip helps inject a heavy dose of the former: i’ve learned how to put on a bike wheel and work a bike rack. i’ve also learned how to remain warm in frigid elevation (apparently, you wear as little layers as possible in a sleeping bag) and travel through swaths of mormon crickets (to minimize splats, bike with speed and bike straight). i’m learning life skills and building street smarts (counterintuitive, i know).
this is what i’ve been told happens when you voyage through any outdoors trip, biking or not. you become a pseudo boy scout, and you reservoir an index of niche but practical information. i’ve also been told that these types of things are life-changing, soul-forming, though i could never quite parse out the reason. is it the exposure to different people, places, and ways of life? is it the time alone, meandering on roads and in thoughts less traveled? is it the intensity—the accumulation of physical and mental dexterity? is it that nature heals, that it allows us to feel more appropiately sized in space and time? i suspect that it is no singular reason and more or less all of these.
but when people said that you could find yourself on this trip, i was skeptical. i mean, that feels like the snare of some self help book. with each day, however, i find this to be true. i’m realizing more of my nature—maybe some deficits and delusions—and it’s been easier to do so when every other factor is transient. if we change homes, food, routes, and people, how can i not take responsibility for what persists? so, long story short, i’ve been in demon mode (lol), observing and refining my thoughts and tendencies. in my journal i write for on the road: what’s naive & what’s seasoned? what’s protection & what’s panic? which horrors are real and which are fake & how to act in spite—or because—of that knowledge to strangers? i also wonder about security in my relationships: what’s comfort & what’s a fear of being threatened? what’s competitive & what’s imposed? these parts are difficult but fufilling, and i am very much in the midst of these changes.
today (i am writing this a few days late), i was sitting outside our motel in Utah, near a discarded laundry machine and broken gnome. i was staring and sometimes sobbing, thinking about something that happened in spring quarter. my gaze was toward a wooden basketball hop, and a bird perched on its rim staring back. then my drift was halted as anna called. she asked where i was and told me that dinner was ready, and i said i wasn’t feeling okay, and she said “when you’re feeling better, you can come back and eat.” tears welled up again, and the salt of my eyes mixed with the sweat on my face, and i sat there in grime and coated sunscreen, perched on someone’s old leather stool. the subtlety of her care touched me, and in these moments, especially, when i feel more soft and confused and bewildered by life, i’m reminded of how lucky i am to be able to express this—and experience this age and this trip with these people.
time to watch the stars now!!!!
victoria