June 20, 2015
22 – This Isn't a High Road Situation
I don't hear the coyotes howling and yipping during the night. I don't notice the cars that drive by on the road behind us early in the morning. I just sleep hard and don't wake up until the rain fly glows bright above my head. Then Walter walks stiff-legged up next to me from his spot deep in the sleeping bag, lays down on his side, shoves his little head into the crook between my left arm and my chest, and falls to sleep with a sigh. Kristen watches from less than arm's reach away. It's a wonderful life out here.
It's wonderful for the three of us, at least. We pass a couple of farms where veal calves watch us pedal by from beneath the cover of their white plastic jail cells. Then I see a groundhog shoot across the road in front of a snarling SUV and fly into the brush on the other side with half a second to spare. At the gas station in Homer I try to figure out what all of the cars idling on the far side of the parking lot are doing. Then I realize it's 10:30 on a Saturday morning. The people standing next to the cars are moms and dads and kids and they're all going through the dance of the weekend's custody handoff from one parent to the other.
But it's hard for me to focus on the bad, the good, or much of anything that's in front of me. My mind doesn't roll over all that I've done since we left Los Angeles but all that I haven't. I have work to catch up on. There are photos to edit, journal entries to post, and friends and clients to email. And my legs feel the hills of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York in each swing of the pedals. They're anxious about what waits for them in the rest of New York and then Pennsylvania after that.
It's amazing how this stuff builds up like a kind of debt. Thinking about it when I'd rather be focused on the road ahead is the high interest rate, the cost for letting things slip for too long, for not taking care of enough loose ends before we started pedaling three weeks ago. The only way to get rid of the debt is to step away from the road for a day or two to pay down what I owe. Ithaca, I need you.
As we head closer to town the farms trade places with suburban-type houses. They have big lawns all cut short or about to be cut short. Fake rabbits guard flower gardens and stainless steel grills shine like beacons on decks and patios. We pass garage sales where so much useless shit stands ready to change hands that they spread like some kind of cancer and turn into yard sales. And no matter where we are, there's never a point that the stars and bars of an American flag are out of view.
All of it passes with half attention. The other half lands on what waits just down the road in Ithaca: a motel room with a soft bed, burritos, a movie, a hair cut, craft beer, and a good shave and a long hot shower. It's the stuff that forms the fabric of everyday life when I'm not traveling, the stuff that's so basic I don't even think about it when I look back on a day that's passed or the day that lies ahead when I'm at home. But these things are hard to find in small towns and don't exist at all in a three-person tent pitched in the middle of the woods on some far-off hilltop. Their scarcity makes them fun and special and worthy of reverence. It's one of the great joys of bicycle touring to be able to find so much happiness in such simple things.
I wouldn't call it a joy, but bicycle touring also gives us a chance to discover the many forms that the character of our fellow Americans takes. When we reach the motel, we park our bikes along the curb of a side street. Mine leans on the kickstand; Kristen's rests on its side on the lip of the curb. When I leave to go pay for our room, Kristen stays behind to watch our stuff and talk to Walter. As she sits on the grass she hears a woman's raised voice.
"What are you doing?"
Kristen looks over to her right, then down the street. She doesn't see anything. When she turns to the left she notices a middle-aged woman leaning out door of a hair salon. Then Kristen turns away, because there's no reason the woman would be talking to her.
"What are you doing?" the loud voice calls out again.
Kristen turns back around.
"Me?"
"Yeah."
"I'm sitting here? Taking a break? Waiting?"
"Well, make sure you don't scratch the car."
Kristen looks around and sees the Toyota Camry that's three feet away from our bikes in the parking lane next to the curb. Then she turns back.
"Okay? I won't?"
"Well, you're really close to it. Don't scratch it," says the angry woman.
"I won't."
And then the woman disappears back into the hair salon
Kristen tells me the story when I come back five minutes later. And in an instant there starts to build within my head a series of important ethical questions. While cycling I spend a lot of time thinking about how I could be a better person — what that would look like, what that would feel like, what that would mean for how I live my life. I'm lucky to have all of my basic needs met, to have a good education and a fulfilling career, and to be living out my dreams by traveling all over the damn place on a bicycle. I have the time and energy and resources to elevate myself to a level of behavior above where I stand right now. When Maslow theorized his hierarchy of needs, this is the kind of stuff that falls into the self-actualization bucket at the top.
But living in a society makes all of these debates two-sided. It complicates things. It's not just about how you carry yourself and treat others; it's also about how others carry themselves and treat you. I appreciate the fact that there are times in life when you have to question the motives of someone else. There are times where you think your person or your family or your property may be in danger and you have to turn proactive and cut off a bad situation before it develops. You can't give implicit trust to everyone in all situations.
In theory I'd like to be able to take experiences of the sort that just happened to Kristen and let them go. I'd like to have the inner strength and mental clarity to not let them bother me. I'd like to be able to take the high road. But we're in clean-cut Ithaca, New York on a quiet side street. We've parked our bikes in a place that's only purpose in the world is for the parking of vehicles. We haven't touched anything or said anything to anyone. This isn't a high road situation. This is bullshit.
By yelling at us not to scratch her car, the woman has made scratching her car the thing I want do more than anything else. But I won't. It's too harsh, too aggressive, too illegal. But it doesn't mean I won't do nothing either. I don't want to feel like evil has won out, no matter how much I'd like to be a better person. And so as we get back on the bikes to ride around the corner to our room, I squeeze my cheeks tight, pull in as much snot from my allergy-plagued nose as I can, and spit a big fat ball of the stuff that sprays all over the driver-side door and window.
I feel zero remorse.
Justice has been served.
Within the hour our motel room fills with the scandalous moaning and satisfied sighs that go along with powering through the Chipotle burritos we've been dreaming of for weeks. And then we don't do anything worth a damn for the rest of the day. It's just the best.
Our only concern at the moment is Walter. He's slower and more idle than usual. He's not eating or drinking. When we place our ears near his belly we hear the bubble and churn of a digestive system hard at work fighting off some kind of imbalance. But we also know that this stuff happens sometimes. After all, the little guy sniffs the ground all day, every day and eats all kinds of garbage before we can stop him. And if past experience holds true, the story will end when Walter takes a big dump where the poop nuggets come out off-color and wrapped in a thin layer of intestinal slime. We will recoil in disgust, bag them up, toss them in the garbage, and then we'll all be good to go again.
But until then we let him curl up next to us, hold him close, rub his furry head, and worry.
Today's ride: 33 miles (53 km)
Total: 766 miles (1,233 km)
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