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Sunday, June 30, 2013

T+6: And so it begins...we hope


PORTLAND, OR:  We arrived today to sunny, hot Portland.  We had a magnificent view of Mt. Hood as the plane circled.  It is a huge massif, completely snow enrobed.  Wes spent the entire flight from Denver peering out the window.  We played a guessing game:  “Is that the Red Desert?  Is that Bear Lake?  Is that Boise, ID?”  The skies were clear and the view was amazing.  We saw the volcanic cones of the Cascades from our window and were immediately humbled.  These mountains are obviously named Cascade because of the roaring way the water comes off the steep sides.   We will have our work cut out for us on the first part of this trip.
We have been a jumble of nerves and exhaustion that reached a boiling point last night.  Since we left Detroit on June 22, our life has not yet slowed down.   It is always a fairly rough passage to get to the cabin two days, but we have done it often and know all our favorite stops along the way.   It has become a matter of ritual for us to stop at the Pioneer Co-op in Iowa City.  Here we pick up our fill of good Midwestern produce, fresh hand-made bread, and rich organic coffees.  We know well that such delicacies will be rarities in the wilds of Wyoming.  We stop in a park for a picnic, but are chased away by the swarming mosquitoes breeding in the remainder of the flooded Iowa River.

I ask Wes, “what will we do if we when we are on the bike and the mosquitoes swarm.  There won’t be a car to hide in.”  We remind ourselves other mosquito swarms on other trips and recall our cries for mercy, and our setting up and hiding in the tent for a moment of respite.
Then it is a straight push to Des Moines, where we always stay at a Candlewood Suite and eat some of the food from Iowa City.  One of the delights of this lodging is their video lending library.  We checked out The Way, which was particularly appropriate for us to see at this time.  In the movie directed  by Emilio Estevez, featuring his father Martin Sheen, the meaning of journey is explored.  Each of the characters takes El Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James) in Spain, saying they are looking for one thing---to quit smoking, to start writing, to lose weight---but find that the journey brings the knowledge they need, not the knowledge they sought.  Throughout the film, the constant refrain and greeting is “Buen Camino” ---roughly good path, good way.   We are thinking a lot about the bike trip, wondering what we will learn, wondering where our tempers will break, and who we will meet along the way.

The next morning, we take a tiny detour to see a working Danish windmill.  As we take a walkabout the minute Iowa town, we see men two staring pensively into the southwest.   The wind is blowing sharply, so I ask, “Does it look like tornado weather?”  “The tornado sirens are blowing in Walnut” is the reply, which is supposed to tell us something, but does not.  We continue our walkabout, when strangers stop us on the street to warn us of “big storm coming”.  We ask where we should go, we are not from here. The answer is go to the Danish Immigration Museum, where they have a good basement.  
We start to make our way there, a good six blocks away, when another Iowa woman, appears at the door of her house and announces to us, “It’s a complete lockdown.  You need to get to shelter right now.”  She considers offering her place to us, but is relieved when we ask, “Should we go back to the Windmill?”  She agrees, “Yes, go there.”  The sky is blackening, and the wind is rising hard, when Wes and I begin running to the mill.  Giant raindrops are pelting when we duck inside, just in time.  A few seconds later, the wind is pushing the rain sideways, the trees are whipping, and it is impossible to see across the street.  The radio is screaming warnings of 70-90 mile hour winds.   We are glad to be inside, in a room far from windows and blowing tree debris.
As quick as it came, the storm left.  When we drove back to the interstate, the road was scattered with all sorts of tree debris, including a few big limbs.  Again, we wonder, what would we do if we were on the bikes during such a violent storm.   Again, we remember hunkering down under an overhang and watching a storm lash our bikes, but not us.

By the time we get to Sidney, Nebraska, it is clear that we have entered the West.  The hotel is full of oil field workers and the prices reflect it.   We choose to eat breakfast at the hotel and regret it.   Like the room, it is flashy trash: bad, cheap ingredients gussied up to look fancy, but in reality, plastic and shoddy and fake.   We are glad to realize that it is only 180 miles to our cabin.

When we get there, it is refreshingly cool, not more than 55 degrees.  The cabin is like a long cool drink on a hot day.  It takes us a little while to open it up.  I can’t rest until the full load of furniture, dishes, and whatnot has made it to its new location.    We are super pleased with how all of it works.  We argue about whether Wyoming looks dry or wet. 
Wes goes out to get a piece of lumber to reinforce our kitchen shelves, now sagging under the heavy load of dishes, and terrifies a young male moose who was quietly, and apparently habitually, eating in our yard.  Wes tells him that he doesn’t have to leave, and to our astonishment, the moose stops, seems to consider the proposition, before deciding that this yard was not big enough for the both of them.   He is a beauty, at least 6 feet tall, 300 or more pounds of moose muscle, with his 2 inch antlers still in velvet.  This is by far the closest I have ever been to a moose, and I was thrilled.
The next day is consumed by errands.   We have to get Wes’ bike shipped to Portland, and we spend hours, truly hours, trying to figure out Wes’  GoPro video camera.  The camera is communicating with the camera is complicated.  I fuss at Wes because I told him months ago to get started figuring out these systems.  He keeps saying, “Who thought it would be so difficult?”  I remind him, over and over, I did. 
The next day is the belated filing of our federal taxes, which goes well until it is time to submit and we realize that we are out of ink and the closest store is more than 40 miles away.  We don’t have internet at the cabin at this point in time, so we go to the nearby hamlet of Centennial and try three different locations before we are able to submit our taxes online.   The technology is difficult and balky, and requires downloads, and re-booting, and failures, and retries.  We are exhausted, stressed, and cranky by the time we are done.
Then we have to go back to the cabin and begin closing it up so we can be on the road by 5 am the next morning.   We work at it, and are so exhausted, we go to bed by 9, but are so keyed up, we are awake by 2 am.  We close up the cabin, (a multi-part process that requires draining all the pipes, among many other things).   Our dear friend takes us the 130 miles to the Denver airport, where with the exception of a difficult security clearance for Wes, we are happy to get on the plane to Portland.  I sleep much of the way.

When we land, we call the bike shop to get instructions and find out about the bikes.  We find out, to our (especially my) great disgust, that our bikes have not arrived. Wes’s is not due to arrive until tomorrow, but my bike and the BOB trailers should have already been here.  A call to Detroit confirms that our shipment, despite having been dropped off more than a week ago, was not sent from Detroit until Wednesday---two days ago.  It is highly likely that it will not arrive until early next week.
Wes is philosophical about it.  Perhaps this is the way the gods are making sure we get a rest.  We have been on the dead run since the first part of May and are truly beat down.  So now we chill in hot and humid Portland (who’da thunk it) and watch the funky street life.    The truth is: the trip takes you, you don’t take the trip.  Apparently, this trip is not quite ready to start…or a maybe the trip is not in the biking….but in the being on the path. That we are, that we certainly are.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

T+1: It's About Time


NEW BUFFALO, MICHIGAN:  We got out of town on time, much to our surprise and exhaustion.  The last few days have been a marathon of endless work and stress, trying so hard to make sure we are leaving the systems of our life intact.  The transition in our house goes well.  Our demented dog, Louie, is in love…not with the house sitter, but with her dog.   This was a bit of risk, bringing in a house sitter with her two animals, a dog and a cat.   However, she is obviously an animal person, and we have been very concerned that Louie, who is so connected to us, and has very limited coping skills, would absolutely freak out. 
The object of
Louie's affections
Her dog, Tucker, outweighs Louie by at least 40 pounds.  He is gentle and well behaved.  Louie follows him around and watches everything he does.  Tucker has basic dog skills, like coming to “Come” and drinking from a bowl.   Louie follows Tucker in and watches with great interest as Tucker slurps water from a metal dish.   Whether Louie overcomes his great aversion to all things metal remains to be seen, but it is astonishing to see how much Louie has relaxed to be around this big, calm dog.

The cats are less happy.  There is some spitting and arching, but it is too early to tell whether war or acceptance is the future of the cats’ relationship.  Mimi, in particular, seems to be in high dudgeon.  She is mad about being kept in after her escape earlier in the week.  Then there was that rotten visit to the veterinarian.   Riding in the car is always a hated experience for this cat, and it is made much worse by getting shots.  She seems under the weather and lethargic before the entrance of the new cat Bailey.  When we leave, she is sulking on top of the entertainment armoire.  I try to coax her down for a goodbye snug, but she is not having it.  All we can do is hope for the best. 
The exit from Matrix was far from smooth. The thanking process after the fund-raiser had major problems, made worse by critical absences by staff, contractors, and volunteers.  A task that should have been done easily, well, and quickly stretched out for days, then weeks, leaving me to sign apology notes and re-issued thank you's late, late, late on Friday night.

It excites the fear in me that has been sitting at the base of my spine for months.  Will anyone, in the words of my favorite Marge Piercy poem, “do what has to be done, again, and again” for Matrix?   Will it be the first order of attention for anyone?   Then I wonder:  Is that even required? 
I am depending on a kind of radical trust to step away, even though there is a nagging voice in my head, whispering fearful doubts.    I make myself remember all the heart and time and effort staff and board have brought to Matrix for years.   I tell myself to get over myself and quit being such a narcissist. 

I close my mind to this riddling voice.   I know, oh so well, that my work-life has been unbalanced and unhealthy for years.  I have to let it go, for my own good, if nothing else.   This is not easy.   It is necessary.   It is better to believe in good.   Good comes best where good believes most.   Or so I tell myself.

We got on the road at 11:08 am.  Our goal was 11:00 am.  By the time we get to Chelsea, it starts to dawn on us that we have left.  Wes gives me a fist-bump.  It is not long before I am sleeping fitfully in my seat.  I wake up with a sore and clanging neck, but see that we entering the big forests of West Michigan.   We peer up the Kalamazoo River, looking either for kayaks or for remains of the devastating oil spill.  Neither can be seen.  We wait for the turn south that signals the approach of Lake Michigan.
We make the turn and look for exits to the Red Arrow Highway.  We have traveled this country quite a bit on our way back and forth from Wyoming, and seeing our favorite shops is a welcome relief.  We are on our way to our 1st nights lodging when we see the turn off to the Warren Dunes State Park, with one of the finest beaches on Lake Michigan.  Shall we?   We shall.

We turn from the prescribed path, and in a few moments, we are taking our pasty white, excessively large selves gingerly into the brisk, clear waters of Lake Michigan.  We both know that a sudden plunge into the water is the best way, but we dither and giggle and squeal as the cool water laps against ever higher parts of our body.  It is not long before we are swimming and floating, marveling at the mountains of sand and the thousands of people up and down the shores. 
For the first time in days, I can feel my neck release.  Out of the water, we relax on the sand, and people watch with great delight, then decide to swim again. On the way out of the park, we stop at a farm stand and buy fresh picked strawberries and cherries.  Both are incredibly sweet and delicious. 

A few hours a later, we are in our room.  We are pleased that the trip is already working.  The trip to lake is just the first step of giving ourselves the time to be fully alive, not embedded in our fear or bound by the knots of our own making.  

It is early morning now.  The sun has not yet risen.  I have awakened nearly every hour all night long…still agitated by the amount of adrenalin coursing in my stress-addled veins.  When this day finally arrives, it brings a new order,  a day in which time is no longer the enemy, but a delicious new freedom to explore and just be.  It’s about time.

Friday, June 21, 2013

T-3: Almost Gone...And Beyond.


It dawns on us---two days ago---that there is life after the bicycle trip.  I am busy packing up our house, removing all the little, ridiculous tchotchkes that are full of our life’s stories, when it hits me that we have given not one thought to what happens when we are done cycling.

We will be returning to our cabin in Wyoming after cycling.  We will be there in November and December---it will be winter in the mountains.  We have never been at the cabin in cold weather, so don’t have things like winter coats there.  So now we are also packing for the Wyoming sojourn, realizing that we will need computers and our electric toothbrush and other daily living items that will not be a part of our bicycle trip.

This daily living has been much the focus of the past few days.  Since Wes’ Birthday/Retirement/Bon Voyage Party last Saturday, we have been filled with almost unbearable feelings of love…for the people who came and shared their stories of travel and transformation, for our wonderful old house, our lush backyard, for goofy, unbearable, delightful Detroit…and for our animal family.

The best it has looked in years.
Wes and I had a two overwrought days on this last point.  Our kitty Mimi left the yard while Wes was busily painting the porch (which looks the best it has looked in years).  This was Monday afternoon.  She didn’t come home for dinner, usually a sure attraction.  We called her often throughout the night, all the way up until after midnight.    The next morning, we call and look, out into the alley, up and down the streets, growing ever more anxious.  No Mimi for breakfast; no Mimi by lunch.  I put out an APB on the list-serve, a great Hubbard Farms resource, and attach photos that grab my throat: Mimi just awake after sleeping in one of my hats, staring contently at the camera; Mimi, managing her daily toilet in the comfort of our bed.   Wes, sighing, says things like, “We may just have to accept that she is gone.” 
The cat in the hat

We continue looking and calling, but now it is like a millstone.  What if she doesn’t come back?  What if she comes back and finds strangers in our house?  This is not what we wanted.

Wednesday, about lunch, she comes sauntering back.  Wes is finishing the last of the painting when he hears her demands to be let in.  She is dirty and hungry, but fine.  We guess she got locked in somewhere.  Perhaps someone saw my post on list-serve and let her out of wherever she was.  Wes feeds her, locks her in the house, and comes over to Matrix to tell me.  He has tears in his eyes, and we hug in relief, knowing our cat is home.  She is now on house arrest.  Such is the punishment for wandering kitties.

There is a terrible poignancy about this moment of preparation.  It is true that we are leaving the things about our life that have worn us down…the long hours, the burdensome stress, the wear and tear on our bodies and minds.  But we are also leaving so much that we love.  We have a fine life here.

Although outsiders wouldn’t recognize it.  Life is kind of easy here in Detroit.  Wonderful, beautiful houses can be had for pennies on the dollar compared to other cities.  The climate is pretty great.  It gets hot…but not for long…it gets cold…but not for long.  It is not the unbreathable sweltering sauna of Houston, or the 10 month icebox of Wyoming.  We don’t get floods, or tornadoes, or hurricanes, fire, or mudslides.  We have lots of water.

Things love to grow here.  Wes and I still flinch as we kill volunteer trees in our yard.  In Wyoming, trees are great treasures which require much nurturing and tenderness.  Down on the Detroit river bottom, we are in an endless conversation with plants that take seriously God’s admonition to “Be fruitful and multiply.”

We swim in swirls of living, breathing art and culture.  There are more house concerts, films, poetry readings, garden plantings, neighborhood clean-ups, marches, and processions, community sports leagues, home tours, and history walks than could ever be attended.  These events are put together by swarms of community building, good hearted, do-gooders. 

Yesterday in a meeting with a potential board member, he said something that so typifies the Detroit ethic.  He said, “I just believe, that we all have to do something, even just one thing, to make the place we want to live.”  It is so true.  We know hundreds of people who are playing their part, doing the one thing they can do, from making sure the corner lot is mowed, to organizing massive protests, to babysitting the neighbor’s kids, or cats, or house, ---creating a list-serve where I can post my cat’s absence.

We know, in profound and necessary ways, that we are all in it together.  We have learned, by brutal necessity, that our survival depends on each other, and that there is no government, here or beyond, coming to do much of anything for us. 

Is it like this elsewhere?  I don’t know.  I sort of doubt it.  But we are heading out…in just three days, to see what life is like in the great beyond.  We come as sojourners, ready for discovery, but aware of the struggles, beauty, and joy we leave behind.  Already the trip is a blessing.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

T-9: Some Birthday


















 Wes  celebrated his 60th birthday on Tuesday and it was memorable---mostly for the wrong reasons.  On the positive-- if emotionally charged-- side, he taught the last class of his career on that day.  On the other side of the coin was the hot mess on our back porch.


Like all good maniacs, we are trying to address a big list of deferred maintenance issues before we leave.  One such issue is our back porch.  The plain truth is that the back porch needs to be pulled completely down and re-built.  Not only is it precariously balanced on a weak brick support on its southeast side, it is built so that it effectively blocks the light into the dining room.



We have wondered for years how to fix it because it has a critical, structural door to the basement that has to be accommodated into any rebuild.  The current porch is obviously not original to the 1908 house, and while it has some nice features, like an air-lock mud room, it is and has been a problem for at least 10 years. 

In typical poor Nethercott decision making, we chose not to paint the back porch when we had the house re-painted a few years ago.  We reasoned, “Why throw good money after bad, when we are just going to tear the whole thing off anyway?” 

So the porch has been sitting there, raggedy and unpainted, for years and years.  We finally figured out a solution, but of course, it will cost tens of thousands of dollars, so it’s not happening any time soon.  We decided to hire a local fellow Wes is friendly with to do the scraping and painting.  This neighbor is chronically un- and under-employed and was really struggling, so Wes thought this could help us and help him at the same time.

Unfortunately, hiring him didn’t involve checking out his painting skills. 

When I came home late from work on Wes’ birthday, it was obvious that the hire didn’t know beans from baloney about painting.  He had done a competent job scraping, and when it was done, just started painting, in the most higgledy-piggedly fashion, without cleaning first.  He commandeered one of my landscape tables, which was now covered in paint, spilled the paint bucket so that there was now a big splash of paint on the bricks, which he made no attempt to clean off, even though I had given him Goof Off for just such purposes.  He was painting over metal, wood, windows—unbelievably bad. The paint brushes are left to dry with paint on them.  There were five paint brushes like that.  Once a brush were fouled from the dirty wall, he just went on to the next brush.

So here I was bringing in bags of mulch and landscape stones, and a tres leches cake in a plastic container for Wes’ birthday.  It was already after 7pm.  It is all I can do to not go ballistic. 

Wes and I have some heated words about this mess on our porch.  Wes stands over the kitchen sink and eats his birthday cake while we figure out what to do.    We spend the next hour trying to salvage the paint brushes, remove the paint from the bricks and steps.  Wes ends the evening, painting the handrail, banister, and rail, while I strain and groan hauling 50 pound bags of mulch and placing rocks. 

We work until it is dark.  When we are done, the landscaping is finally done in the yard, the most visible part of the priming on the back porch is done, and Wes’ 60th birthday has come and gone.

Wes keeps telling me, “Go listen to the answering machine, it will make you feel better.”   I dutifully go listen, sweaty and filthy, and it does make me feel better.  It's our exchange daughter, Louise, along with her mother and father, calling from Germany, singing “Happy Birthday” in English to Wes, before dissolving in laughter.  It makes us laugh, and reminds us not to take it all so damn seriously. 

We take turns taking baths in our deep, wonderful, claw foot tub and laugh at ourselves—our epically poor decision-making, our constant efforts to do the right thing, (which often ends up as the wrong thing),  and our need to remember--- that in the end, our relationships buoy us and keeping us moving forward.   Such are the lessons of 60 years…I think they fortell some more lesson-learning coming up.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

T-17: OMG


The to-do list we’re working on is completely unmanageable. I move from obligation to obligation.  What has to be done right now?  What can be delayed a few minutes, a few days?  What is essential, what is not?  As I try to make sense of this, I feel as though I am in a haze.

Here’s a quick overview of the many strands of action I am managing:
Preparing the house for house sitting: getting rid of all the excess that needs to go the Salvation Army, beginning to store all our personal items so the house sitters can have space for their goods; purchasing dog and cat food ahead, making sure all the repairs are done; making sure the animals are up to date with their shots; preparing the “care and feeding of house and animals”  document; getting a debit card to pay for animal expenses; clean, clean, clean… repair whatever needs repairing.
Preparing the yard for our absence: get all the beds in order, weeded, mulched, and organized; prune the overgrown shrubs; replace the rotten garden timbers with brick; make sure the tools, mower, hoses, etc. are in good order.
You may think this sounds over the top. It is to a degree, but it is also defensive.  In the years we have been using house sitters, we have discovered that sitters will do and allow things that owners never would.  A case in point: one year, we left the seldom used basement toilet with a wonky fitting.  We told the sitter to make sure the valve re-seated if the toilet was used.  When we came home, we heard water running.  Sure enough, the basement toilet was running and apparently had been for weeks, given the size of our water bill.   Another example: rare oh rare is the sitter who will maintain the garden.  For renters and sitters, watering and mowing the grass alone is pretty challenging.  If we don’t weed, mulch, and prune, we come home to a jungle with aggressive plant likes grape vines and coltsfoot, circling and killing our perennials.

Getting ready for the trip itself: getting the bikes overhauled and prepared for long-term travel; making sure we have all the maps for the trip.  (We just received maps for our routes from Portland to north of Seattle where we join the Northern Tier route we will follow across the country.  We also received the maps from Portland, Maine to Boston at the end of our trip.  www.adventurecycling.org). We have joined www.warmshowers.com, which is a website that connects touring bicyclists to people who are willing to let you camp or stay at their house. 

We still need make arrangements to ship our bikes and BOBs from Detroit and Laramie.  We think through the pack again and again: do we have the right clothes?  Do we need better rain gear?  What safety and health preparations are prudent and which are extra weight?  We have a flight from Denver to Portland, but how will we get to Denver from our mountain cabin?
Driving across the country:  We will drive across the country to our cabin in Wyoming before leaving.  We have a whole variety of furniture, dishes, and other materials that need to be packed to take to Centennial.  We think we will camp across the country, but because we will need to travel fast, we better make sure we have reservations. 
Wes’ 60 birthday/retirement/bon voyage party: We are hosting a party before we go, so there are invitations to be sent, food to be prepared.  We will spend the weekend getting the backyard ready for the party.  (See above)
Getting our bodies ready:  We both have had extensive dental work and mine is still not done.  I am still trying to get to the gym (although I am supposed to be there right now as I write these words) to continue my strength training.  We have also been trying to get as many bike rides as possible before we go.  I should go to the optometrist, but it is looking like that will wait.
Making sure the retirement and financial changes are complete: There is a mountain of paperwork, new insurances, changes of accounts and more that have to be managed.  Wes has been nagging me for more than 3 weeks to get my IRA transferred.  I say, “soon, soon” and keep it on my to-do list.  We need to make sure we can pay all our bills online, something we have never done to date.  So far that is a “soon, soon.”  But time is running out and I regret we did not do this change last January.
Of course, these are ONLY the preparations on the personal side.  The to-do list for the company and for Wes to close out 30 years of teaching are twice as big and twice as complicated. 
Right now, we are like buffalo facing a vicious snowstorm blowing in from the east.  There is nothing to do but put our heads down, accept that pleasure is not going part of the picture for a while, and keep on plodding to our goal.
So, while we can see that our escape is coming, we are deeply experiencing the tangling bondages we have so tightly wound around our life.  The irony is nearly overwhelming.  We want the weaving to stay intact while we carefully extract ourselves from the weave.  So many threads to unravel, so many threads to re-weave.