Mile 3580: Brockport, NY
100 days ago, Wes and I drove away from Detroit. 11 days later, we began our bike journey from
Portland, Oregon. It has been an
amazing, revelatory experience, but it has been a journey through and with
strangers. That’s what makes the time
spent in Manitowac, Wisconsin and Ludington, Michigan so wonderful and so
different. In both places, dear friends
came to see us, wish us well, and provide us respite on our journey. In both experiences, questions of making,
participating in, and sustaining community were central.
Robert drove all the way up from Chicago on a few hours
sleep to, as he said, “honor and support your trip.” In 2002, he had taken very nearly the same
trip by bike, going from Anacortes, Washington to Portland, Maine pulling a BOB
trailer. He, however, was traveling with
a group of 12, with a designated trip leader, and camping almost exclusively. We spent a fair amount of our too short visit
comparing trips---comparing the places and people that somehow touched us. They were traveling just after 9/11;
emotions were still raw. Robert did not
see the signs of economic devastation that we have seen nearly everywhere.
Also, his group was a company of strangers that came
together for a common purpose and experience.
There were big variations in age and outlook in the company composed of
11 men and 1 woman. It didn’t take long
for the group to divide into niches, then cliques, then factions. Robert ended riding the last part of the
trip alone, as each faction broke off and took their own journey. Ten years later, the group has not stayed in
touch with each other.
By contrast, this trip has re-knit my marriage to Wes. We are with each other 24/7, and lord knows
we can get on each other’s nerves.
However, it has re-acquainted both of us with each other’s
strengths. After years of marriage, it
is easy to focus the weaknesses, in each other and the relationship. Of all the gifts of this trip, the renewal
of our partnership and friendship may be the most important and enduring.
We also talked about Detroit—how much we love it, what will
become of it, and how it is so different from the way it is presented--- and
any place else we have ever been. Robert
came to Detroit as a volunteer in service.
That experience began an incredible journey. After living a year with the Capuchin
brothers in Detroit, Robert began the long, arduous path to becoming a
Franciscan brother himself. This is no
easy thing. The whole process takes no
less than seven years, which is huge at any point, but gigantic when one begins
after the age of 40. One might excel in
the schooling and service, as Robert has done, but finding a way to live in community
with other flawed and incomplete humans is challenging under the best of
circumstances. All these contradictions
and conundrums were presenting a huge challenge to Robert when we saw him. All we could do is offer our love and
community.
We could offer no insights on these conundrums, but all of
us could be super-fascinated by the process of loading four 80 foot wind
turbine propellers onto the Badger ferry. That was some feat. It took four semi-trucks and occupied a
full deck of the Badger. Wes and I
wondered if they came from the turbine factory just outside of Wausau.
The ride across Lake Michigan on the coal powered ferry
Badger was beautiful but boring. I
wasn’t willing to pay the highway robbers’ fee to get Wi-Fi onboard. It was much too windy to stay on deck, (which
I have done of previous crossings). I
didn’t want to play bingo, or watch the movies, or the football game. Both Wes and I would sit for a while, wander
for a while, read the paper for a while.
I was fascinated by the big group of ham radio operators who set up
several stations and broadcast throughout the trip. (In the Colorado floods, the older
technologies of ham radio and land line phones were the only communication
systems that didn’t fail.)
We visited a bit with a family from Wisconsin, who told us
they take a “mini-cruise” every year for the delight of their brother, a
vivacious middle-aged man with Downs who LOVED the boat, the views, the food,
and was happy to tell his family and those around him how good it all was. We mentioned that we thought Wisconsinites
were not cursed with self-consciousness.
One brother said, “I wish we had more.
All of it can just get to be too much!”
These questions of community were very much present in our
reunion with our dear friends Keith and Tada.
They drove over from Detroit, and arranged adjoining rooms for us in
Ludington, sweet things that they are. When the Badger pulled in, amongst hundreds of
small boats out salmon fishing, they were dockside, waving and smiling, taking
pictures and pointing us out to random passersby. It was wonderful to see them. In Ludington, we visited and talked and
ate. True friends that they are, Keith
and Tada helped us with our re-supply and maintenance tasks. It’s a true friend that helps you do your
stinky bike laundry. While Wes and Keith
did laundry and talked politics, Tada and I combed second stores looking for
fall clothes for our bike trip.
While on these errands, we hear that my brother Steve and
his cat had been airlifted from his canyon home in Colorado. The road is out both above and below his
property. There is no electricity, water,
or cell service and will not be for some time.
His wife has arrived from Maine: can they use our car in Wyoming while
they secure their property, then drive it out to Maine, where they will stay
the winter? Of course. It will also work great for us to pick up our
car in Maine. My brother Scott will pick
it up in Wyoming and get it to them in Colorado. I am proud of my family. The
crisis is now entering what will be a very long recovery phase.
Keith, Tada, Wes, and I also had an extensive conversation
about intentional and eco-village communities.
Tada has been fascinated by intentional communities for years and reads
extensively about their various iterations.
She is currently focusing on eco-villages. We talk at length about the various
permutations. Can community be
consciously created? What are the
elements of voice and choice, money and power that make or hurt the formation
of communities? Humans are weird and capricious, and (like me), so often
confused by what we want and what we need.
In my experience, managing the complications of an intimate relationship
between two people is hard; I can’t imagine negotiating financial, spiritual,
and residential intimacy with a group of people.
The four of us decided to walk out to the Ludington
lighthouse under threatening skies. We
stop at the end of the end of the jetty, admire the view, note the many salmon
fishers, and have a brief conversation with four men fishing from the pier
around the lighthouse. I tease one
fellow, dressed head to toe in camouflage by asking if he was hiding from the
fish. Tada sets down her big daypack
while talking to another fellow. All of
a sudden, the wind shifts. The front,
which was headed north, starts coming south.
It is clear we will be rained on in just a few minutes. We hurry down the jetty and back to the car,
but don’t quite make it before the rain begins.
Back at the motel, Tada realizes she has left her bag. Keith and Tada return to the jetty under
drenching skies to find that all the fishers have moved away from the daypack,
to the other side of the lighthouse.
They told them they feared it was a bomb. They didn’t quite believe it, but were
worried enough to move away, just in case.
All these conversations about community make me homesick for
Southwest Detroit, which is a real living community. It is a joy to live where people contribute
sports, and arts, and gardening, and history walks, and progressive dinners,
and help with building, cleaning, or kids for the good of the community. How all
these communities-- of friends, of family, of location, of choice, or shared
experience, or shared values—are sustained and maintained in the face of
inevitable human frailty is a big question in all these conversations.
We don’t have any answers as we climb aboard our bikes after
kissing our friends good-bye. When we
head out to the woods of Michigan, we feel quite acutely the loneliness of this
kind of travel. How wonderful it was to
be with friends, to share intimate news of our families, to talk at length
about our fears and joys. Travel is fun
and meeting people is great, but blessed are those who are held in the web of
friendship. We have been blessed by our
friends and we look forward to returning that blessing soon.
Posted from Fulton, NY
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