June 26, 2015
28 – Justice and Equality
Kristen's quick to remind me that I'm not dragging her across the country, that she'd do it on her own even if I decided to quit. She was just feeling tired and stressed and rushed last night and everything kind of boiled over. So did my response to those feelings. I get it, because I've been in that spot so many times myself. With every passing month we continue to get better at dealing with the challenges life on the road throws at us, but better still leaves a lot of room for freakouts.
One of my limits as Jeff Arnim is that once I start worrying about something I can't just flip a switch, turn it off, and move straight on to whatever's next. And so the early morning hours pass with an occupied mind. There's also the dry mouth, the dull pounding of a headache, and the creak and groan of a stomach calling out for food because I haven't been eating or drinking enough to account for the freight train of a bicycle I've been riding over the hills and mountains of a continent.
Sometimes these days happen early in a trip. Sometimes it's late. And sometimes they happen in the working class town of Dunnstown, Pennsylvania, where the Puff & Snuff smoke shop is already filled will customers at 9:30 in the morning, and where the fact that rumble strips both on the shoulder line and the center line tells me drinking and driving is a popular sport out here.
Walter sniffs so loud with his nose pressed against the front mesh of his trailer that I can hear it while I ride behind. As I look down at his furry little head and his forever-moving ears I think about how I envy how he interacts with the world. His life is a simple one. It's focused on sleeping, eating, playing, discovering the detailed smells of the world around him, and having the two of us within sight at all times. But there's such joy in this simplicity, like he's cracked some kind of formula for happiness. We could stand to learn something from our furry little Buddha.
And then, standing in front of a Dollar General store in Beech Creek, history charges in. That's where we learn how the United States Supreme Court has decided that same-sex couples now have the marriage rights as all other couples.
"Well, if the apocalypse happens today," I say to Kristen, "Now we'll know why."
But in fact we're overjoyed at the news. In the hours that follow I find myself focused less on the road ahead and the countryside around me and more on what this day means to millions of women and men, sisters and brothers, and mothers and fathers spread throughout every state of this sprawling union.
I have friends and family members who won't like or agree with this decision. I understand why they feel the way they do. I know that to them the ruling must feel like some kind of moral defeat. But I also know that in our democratic system sometimes it goes like that. At one time or another all of us end up in that spot; we never always get what we want. That's as true today as it was three hundred years ago. Yet for me, for what I believe and hold true, this is a moment where I'm proud to be an American. We're a country built on the idea that all men are created equal, not just those who share a common set of social or religious values. It gives me great hope knowing that this idea has not been forgotten.
As the forests and fields and rivers pass by I think about the people I know whose lives will be forever changed by this decision. I've gone to school with them; I've worked with them; I've played hockey with them; I've ridden bikes with them. They are my teammates, my colleagues, and my friends. I also think about all of the practical hardships faced for decades by so many people I'll never know. I think not only about couples who wanted to marry each other but couldn't, but also about the guy who couldn't get health insurance through his partner's plan, and the woman who had no power to sort out the affairs of her partner after she passed away because in the eyes of the state their relationship had no legal standing or merit. I think about how in hundreds of ways like this, more than a million Americans were made to feel less human and less worthwhile than everyone else.
Like so many things in a nation as big as the U.S., it took far longer for justice and equality to win out over prejudice than it should have. But they did.
All of this leads me to think about how tiny the problems we deal with out here on the road are when compared to the fight for equality that led to today's sea change. It's a reminder to let the small stuff slide and appreciate all we have, all we've seen, and all that's yet to come between here and the West Coast. I think our furry little Buddha would agree. And then, as if on cue, the sun comes out, the shoulder turns wide and smooth, and the rumble strips go away.
With the exception of a few days early on in Maine, we've had the chance to ride either on back roads or on highways so far away from cities that there hasn't been any traffic to speak of. Today those back roads run out. We ride in a narrow valley that only has one north-south road besides the interstate and we're on it. Every car cranks a good fifteen to twenty over the speed limit as we pass through little towns that have the remains of gas stations built in the 1930s or 1940s, a few cafes and antique stores, the greatest number of auto repair shops per capita in the country, and not much else. I lose a good fifteen minutes thinking about how, when you look at it from a rational perspective, the premise of the TV show Alvin and the Chipmunks is complete insanity.
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We stop to eat dinner in Port Matilda. We find the perfect small-town park on the perfect summer evening, and there we eat rice and beans and cheese with the competing drones of lawn mowers echoing all through the neighborhood around us. Walter runs through the grass in the outfield of the baseball diamond at top speed and would be happy if we decided to end our trip in this exact spot.
But we keep moving. The tall trees next to the road to block the rays of the setting sun even though darkness is still three hours away. We pedal strong to the southwest past an ungrounded electric fence that zaps in even time like a metronome. I see flashes of red out of the corner of my eye as cardinals pick off the little bugs that start to fill the evening air. The road is empty, the winds are calm, and the world soft and peaceful.
Farther on we cross into public lands where we hope to set up the tent. But on one side steep hills shoot up toward the sky. On the other a creek runs a hundred feet from the road, putting the woods beyond it out of reach. The darker it gets the more concerned we grow, because camping options are hard to come by out here. But as the window of green around us nears its end we see it: a trail running over the creek and up into secluded forest. It takes almost an hour to find the right spot and then lug a cargo bike, a bike with a trailer, a dog, and the bags and tent and sleeping bag up a steep hiking trail fouled with bushes and slick rocks and fallen trees. By the time we're done sweat falls from my face onto the leaves and sticks below in fat drops. It's not something we'd do on most days, but this is not most days. A storm is going to pass through some time in the night and might last all day tomorrow. We could be stuck in this spot for the next thirty-six hours and we want to make sure we won't be bothered while we're here.
With the tent staked and all of our gear tucked inside, Kristen and I lay back and stare up into the mesh of the roof. A moment later Walter climbs up onto our legs and wedges himself in our laps with his head resting on Kristen's left leg. He sighs a tired sigh and proceeds to go to sleep. This isn't something he's ever done before. It wouldn't surprise me if it never happened again. It's so profound in its sweetness that we lose our power to move him, and so we stay in that same position for the next half an hour. It's safe to say that the negative feelings that filled our motel room last night and this morning are long gone.
Today's ride: 60 miles (97 km)
Total: 1,004 miles (1,616 km)
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