Like Charlie Brown, very few of us escape life without grief.  So, as George Bailey's nemesis, Potter, exclaims in the classic, It's a Wonderful Life, what follows--and some of my previous posts--may be considered, "Sentimental hogwash."  Feel free to skip this one and wait until I get back to the whats and hows of cycling across the country.  The below is more personal.  

When I decided to follow the Lincoln Highway, I stopped by the Lincoln Highway Association's headquarters and bought pretty much every book they had.  One was titled An American Songline.  The author, Cecelia Otto, is a singer who decided to drive the Lincoln Highway, and give concerts in the towns along the way of songs from around the time the highway was completed, i.e. the early 1900s.  In the introduction she included the following:

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Coincidentally, before her old friend sent her a copy of Chatwin's Songlines, my oldest friend, Pete, gave me a copy.  At the time, I didn't have quite the reaction Ms. Otto had.  However, in her book she shares that on the trip she was dealing with the grief of her father's passing. 

"I was needed in my mother's house.  I nursed my mother.  I could not except that she was dying.  I loved my mother.  She was the entire world to me.  And then she passed.  It turned out to be cancer...This was the hardest thing that I had known.  I was grown...but I felt that I was drawn back to my childhood again...my mother was my idol.  I was scared to go on in the world alone.  I believe I had a nervous breakdown but I was too sick to understand."

The few of you who know me really well might think that paragraph was about me.  That was actually an excerpt from Kozol's Rachel and Her Children.  The woman in question became so depressed that she couldn't work and, as a result, she and her family became homeless.  But, the rest is true for me.  I was my mother's caregiver while she lost her battle with cancer, I became depressed.  However, I pulled out of the depression, in part thanks to the few of you who know me well.  Nonetheless, I still grieve.  Another dear old friend, Porter, passed away a couple of years ago and I found myself overwhelmed with grief.  Mostly because Porter and I grew up together, went through a lot together, and did a lot together.  But, in part, his death triggered the grief I'm still carrying around for the loss of my mother. 

So what? All of our parents die--we all grieve--we're not supposed to be happy all the time.  I had this naive concept of Buddhism as a way to avoid grief: I was recently disillusioned of that concept.  I had an interesting conversation about grief with a brilliant young Muslim student of mine a couple of years ago.  

First, a couple of the supporters of this ride donated specifically in memory of Porter.  Second, we can try to figure out relatively healthy ways to deal with grief.  Plenty has been written on the mind-body connection.  Science is starting to catch up with ancient wisdom.  We know exercise can improve mental health.  For me, jogging with music in my earbuds helps.  So does cycling.  

Carl Jung's five pillars for a happy life (though I'm not sure he'd appreciate that characterization) have cycled back through the pop-psych media again this year, enumerated as follows:

• Good Physical and Mental Health. 
• Good Personal and Intimate Relationships. 
• The Faculty for Perceiving Beauty in Art and Nature. 
• Reasonable Standards of Living and Satisfactory Work. 
• Philosophical or Religious Outlook.

Jung also discussed the importance of taking on challenges and missions in order to achieve mental health.  There have been some recent studies out of King's College in London have indicated that cycling slows deterioration of muscles and the immune system.  

If I weren't doing it for the cause: breaking the cycle of poverty, I would not do this.  I'd probably just put my earbuds in and go for a 20-40 mile ride once a week.  Nonetheless, if the ride helps my mental and physical health; if it helps me accept the loss of my mother and Porter; if, as Jung believed, this challenge/mission helps me grow psychologically and avoid neuroses, great.   

Since we're talking about Jung, who informed and inspired many of the tenets of  Alcoholics Anonymous, just a reminder that while I am uploading photos of beer and giving beer credit for my ability to recover from tough rides, I don't do this in ignorance.   Friends of mine are recovering, and more than one has died from alcohol.  I'm lucky: in moderation, beer is magical for me. 

In sum, there a variety of reasons why I'm looking forward to riding cross country this summer: primarily, the cause/mission I committed to a couple of decades ago, working to eradicate poverty; also, my own grief and health.