[Editor's note: I'm skipping my thoughts about Monday, our day in Portland, for now. I expect that I'll return to them in the next few days. Today's post, as the headline suggests, is very reflective and not very much about touring as much as it is about me processing its end and my return to regular life. But because that is part of the process — and because I've decided not to be bashful about what I'm thinking throughout this whole thing — I've decided to publish it here. This is more for me than for anyone else, but if you get something out of it, too, then so much the better.]

Heart

2

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply

Tuesday thoughts 

(Wait, that's not alliterative! What's happening? The tour is over and you think you can give up on the established practices of this blog? Yes. It is a form of acceptance.)

I've successfully distracted myself until this moment, aboard an Amtrak train barreling eastward along the Columbia River at sunset, when the shifting colors of the sky and the rocky horizon and their reflections in the river pried my eyes off my phone screen from the dumb movie that I was watching in a pathetic attempt to embrace my complete denial that this amazing journey is rapidly ending. 

I opted for the train over a plane because of the notion, barely supported by any research on my part, that taking a train across the country would have a lower carbon footprint than flying (I'm pretty confident that trains are much better for the environment than planes for shorter trips, but I haven't done enough research to know for sure if that's true when traveling distances like this). But whatever the reason for this decision, I have three days on a train to appreciate what I can see of the country from here and to mentally process the adventure I just had and the fact that I am about return to my regular life in D.C. (well, it's actually not "regular life" because I'll be without Dani, who is heading not to D.C. but to Catalina Island, where she is taking a temporary job for the next couple of months, but it is regular in the sense that I will be home and back at work).

I look forward to being home and all the comforts that come with it — a bed, a shower every day, a kitchen, our cat, plenty of clean clothes, not having to haul all my possessions with me everywhere. I also look forward to the satisfaction and feelings of productivity and purpose that come with going to work and doing the best job I can do in the time allotted.

But of course it's very bittersweet to have come to the end of such a journey. I set out to ride my bike across the country, and I succeeded. As I explained in my blog post on the night after reaching the Pacific Coast, satisfaction is one of the strongest feelings I have about reaching my goal.

But, as with almost every one of the shorter solo bike tours I've done, the end forces me to reckon with the fact that the tour itself was an escape. It was many things, for sure, and many of them are amazing, but one of the things it is is a distraction.

A distraction from what? From the feeling of a lack of direction — eh, that's not the right phrase. It's a distraction from the feeling of wanting to do more to benefit this world and generally not being satisfied with the various things I've tried so far. A distraction from the feeling that I once had passion for my work and for the pursuits that I've volunteered my time for, but that passion has been wrung out of me by circumstance or by my own unhealthy expectations or my own shortcomings. Blegh, that makes it sound like I'm a lot harder on myself than I am. My point is just that I know I'm not perfect and I have been learning to recognize my limitations and cut myself a break and focus on putting my strengths to use where they will pay off and cut myself off where I feel my effort is relatively ineffective or inefficient (or unappreciated). (One example of me cutting myself off is deciding not to return to tutoring, at least for now.)

So, to get back to the point, this tour has been an amazing journey and also a big way of proving to myself that, yes indeed, I am a capable cyclist, and it was a fun challenge, but ... well, I was about to say again that it was a distraction, but that seems unfair. It wasn't that. I needed to do it to get it out of my system. I've wondered about it for years. I knew that I would regret it if I never did it, and the pandemic made me look at life a little differently and think that I should do it as soon as I could make it happen. 

So no, it was not a distraction. It was a necessity. I've needed to do it because I wanted to do it, not because I needed some distraction. Only now, now that it is done, can I think about what other passion projects I might undertake.

While on this tour, it was usually fun to explain what I was doing to those who asked. "That sounds epic," said Grimace, who was in the midst of his own epic adventure — hiking the Appalachian Trail. He would soon follow that thought with this: "You should do epic things with your life."

I don't know my next epic thing is. It probably will not be a bike ride. And it might not inspire anyone to use the word "epic." In fact, I think I will settle on something, or some things, that are decidedly not "epic" but just as satisfying, as I believe there can be beauty and satisfaction in efforts big and small, rare and everyday. 

I won't pressure myself to have a crystal clear image of them by the time I finish this train ride, but I will be spending much of this time in transit considering the possibilities. 

Coming up

Tomorrow or whenever I post my next entry, I will include some thoughts about Portland, about homelessness and the uncomfortable lens through which I've seen it on this tour. After that, I'll share what it's like to be on a train for days at a time. (Until yesterday, it had not occurred to me, for example, that I had effectively signed myself up to go three days without a shower. Hmmm.)