The Reason for Going Again
I have been back in Columbus, Ohio, now for two weeks. A few days ago a friend I hadn't seen in a while asked me, "Did [the trip] change you?"
Obvious physical changes (machete-carved legs, caricatural farmer's tans, increased lung capacity) aside, the response was still a vehement "yes."
At the approximate midway point of the trek, I pulled into Bastrop State Park, 65 miles east of Austin, Texas, to camp. I encountered a party of Texans there who flagged me down as I wended toward my site. One, a middle-aged cycling enthusiast, was delighted to discover I was the spitting image of him when he was a country-crossing youngster.
Came the recurrent question: "Why'd you decide to do it?" And my programmed response: "I wasn't doing much else, and I wanted to try something unusual before starting a career."
His reply to that has stuck with me more than anything else that happened during 48 days on the road: "Yeah, but now you can never be normal."
He said it with a slight chuckle, as though only half serious. Yet -- how excited he had become when I'd rolled up, tired and hunched, bags slung over my bike. How he couldn't wait to relive his year traversing the continent through the eyes of a fresh adventurer. He craved my stories, and he craved to tell his. What he wouldn't do to be on the road again!
And what I wouldn't do, now home for only two weeks.
I will spare you readers a tiresome analysis of self-discovery. What else is there in moving to a new place every day but constant discovery? It is the sublime joy of travel, but for the traveler whose journey must end, the prospective absence of that discovery is his bane. The memory of a trip is not enough to sustain a journeyer for any long time through a sedentary existence.
That, I think, is what Ron Fillingim of Dauphin Island, Alabama, was telling me when he said I'd "feel a letdown" when I got to St. Augustine, my destination, and why he was absolutely right.
For 48 days I'd engaged each of my senses in ever-present newness, I'd engaged my body for a definitive purpose, I'd stuffed more living in than I had in most of my previous 22 years. When I reached the Atlantic shoreline to dip my front wheel, signifying completion, I was proud that I'd reached my goal. But that feeling was trumped by the overriding letdown of which I was warned, and which has intensified since. I plopped down onto the sand, looked to sea and thought, "What now?"
If there is one problem with discovering new things all the time, it's learning that you will never be able to see everything. But that's not to keep you from trying, and it's not even close to enough to keep you from wanting to.
There is plenty I have yet to see. And that, friends, is reason enough to go again.
Obvious physical changes (machete-carved legs, caricatural farmer's tans, increased lung capacity) aside, the response was still a vehement "yes."
At the approximate midway point of the trek, I pulled into Bastrop State Park, 65 miles east of Austin, Texas, to camp. I encountered a party of Texans there who flagged me down as I wended toward my site. One, a middle-aged cycling enthusiast, was delighted to discover I was the spitting image of him when he was a country-crossing youngster.
Came the recurrent question: "Why'd you decide to do it?" And my programmed response: "I wasn't doing much else, and I wanted to try something unusual before starting a career."
His reply to that has stuck with me more than anything else that happened during 48 days on the road: "Yeah, but now you can never be normal."
He said it with a slight chuckle, as though only half serious. Yet -- how excited he had become when I'd rolled up, tired and hunched, bags slung over my bike. How he couldn't wait to relive his year traversing the continent through the eyes of a fresh adventurer. He craved my stories, and he craved to tell his. What he wouldn't do to be on the road again!
And what I wouldn't do, now home for only two weeks.
I will spare you readers a tiresome analysis of self-discovery. What else is there in moving to a new place every day but constant discovery? It is the sublime joy of travel, but for the traveler whose journey must end, the prospective absence of that discovery is his bane. The memory of a trip is not enough to sustain a journeyer for any long time through a sedentary existence.
That, I think, is what Ron Fillingim of Dauphin Island, Alabama, was telling me when he said I'd "feel a letdown" when I got to St. Augustine, my destination, and why he was absolutely right.
For 48 days I'd engaged each of my senses in ever-present newness, I'd engaged my body for a definitive purpose, I'd stuffed more living in than I had in most of my previous 22 years. When I reached the Atlantic shoreline to dip my front wheel, signifying completion, I was proud that I'd reached my goal. But that feeling was trumped by the overriding letdown of which I was warned, and which has intensified since. I plopped down onto the sand, looked to sea and thought, "What now?"
If there is one problem with discovering new things all the time, it's learning that you will never be able to see everything. But that's not to keep you from trying, and it's not even close to enough to keep you from wanting to.
There is plenty I have yet to see. And that, friends, is reason enough to go again.
posted by Patrick Bourland at 10:42 AM
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