R+ 43: Shedding a Skin

 Detroi:t 1/30/14

We have been back in Detroit nearly six weeks.   Finally, I am settled enough to write.  The need to re-organize and empty my house was a powerful urge during the first weeks of our return.  Although our house-sitters did a fantastic job of caring for our animals, house, and yard, some deep non-rational urge required I take everything apart, clean, wipe, re-fold, re-stack, re-arrange and otherwise re-connect to everything we touch or use in the house.

In the kitchen, every shelf, every drawer, whether visible or no, was emptied, cleaned, and re-ordered.  I have a mania for categorizing, so all the copper pots, cast iron, and Creuset were cleaned, polished or re-sealed and put in their specific shelf.  All of the storage containers were re-united with their lids and organized by type.  All of the food shelves were scrubbed and organized by food type.

I crawled all over the room, scrubbing the floors and the woodwork, wiping down doors, cleaning, wiping, touching everything.  In the midst of all this, I get rid of excess.  The memorabilia, the little tchotchkes and doo-hickeys, the piles of paper, the “I might use this someday” stacks of this and that---all gone through, much of it removed. 



This continued throughout the house, especially in the much neglected basement.  I spent days setting up a new work space and clearing out and organizing a portion of the house that had become a repository of good intentions, tired memories, and lost dreams.  One distressing day, I pulled apart the hardware cabinet, to find that our circular saw, sitting in its cardboard box, had been both wet and occasionally used as a kitty box.  It was rusted and filthy; a few of its blades were so gone to rust they could not be rehabilitated with WD-40 and steel wool.

There, working in my nightgown and bathrobe, I rubbed and scrubbed the goo and bubbles on this tool, regretting our neglect.  I emptied a small wooden cabinet of its mittens and gloves, then spent hours sorting hinges and sliders and hasps and whatnot into their own categories and finally into their own marked drawer.   Screws, nuts, bolts, nails…mixed randomly into jars or piled in their half empty boxes were separated, organized, and marked. 

I repaired or removed chairs and furniture that sat for years in the basement awaiting attention.  I removed videos, and books, and papers by the box-full.  Every piece of clothing in our drawers and closet were taken out, examined for fit, repair, and cleanliness.  Most of my clothes are much too big now.  I took sack after sack of clothes to the Salvation Army until I am in a “pant crisis”—I have only two pair of somewhat too big pants suitable for work.  I have only three pair of pants for casual wear.

Out go shirts, and shoes, and jackets, and purses.  Gone are briefcases.  Wes spends days pulling apart bags and bags carrying the scripts, rehearsal notes, promotional materials, and associated palaver from years of directing and producing plays.  All of the artwork and photos that had been waiting years for frames have finally been displayed.  Yarn and fabric in the box I mailed from England (in 1983!) are put in project boxes, still awaiting their encounter with the sewing machine or knitting needles.   I pull down a box of dog and cat grooming supplies, accumulated through years of living with animals.  We take leashes, collars, a dog shaving set, brushes, groomers, on and on, to the Dearborn Animal Rescue group.



High School Sports

We pull down books that have sat on the shelves in the library for years.  Out go the stacks of audio books.  All of them good, sometimes great books.  We ask: will we read this again?  If the answer is “No,” out it goes.  Good bye to multiple copies of anything, detritus of years of teaching.  We debate: shall we keep this set of Carlos Castaneda books, remnant of our life in the 1970’s.  Wes says “Let ‘em go,” but oddly enough, I say “Keep.”  I want to see if I still find any shred of truth in those trippy old things.

Down on our hands and knees, we clean and scrub and repair and wax and buff long neglected floors in our library and dressing room.  To our embarrassment, we think this may be the first time we have done the floors in the dressing room, although we have lived in this house for more than 20 years.



The floor is finally done!

We start the long process of going through boxes and boxes and boxes of papers.  The first box is one gathered by Wes’ mom and returned to us during the traumatic days of cleaning out the family shed after his father’s funeral.  There we found every letter we had written to them through all the years we had been married.  There were missives from our first years, travelogues of our time living and biking in Europe, painful letters from our disastrous foray into Houston, accounts of buying this house, promotional materials from Matrix.  Even more remarkable, Wes found letters to his parents from the young woman who broke his heart.  There were long missives from Wes on the road, hitchhiking his grief away in Europe, escaping from the inevitable but brutal end of that foray into mismatched love.

A letter from the road 1982
 

There pages and pages of clippings from Wes’ days of high school sports, but not a thing from his days of high school theatre. There were long-lost pictures of children and relatives and olden days of yore.  Wes sorts through these artifacts.  He wants to throw away all the sports stuff, but I convince to keep it.  In a few years, it may have more meaning for him than it does now. 



On and on the cleaning and sorting and arranging and disposing goes…right through Christmas…right through New Year’s…right up until I return to work.  It continues a bit at time, even now.  We are making our slow way through the storage room downstairs and know we have the giant problem of the unheated but stuffed attic awaiting us when the temperatures finally climb out of the icebox.

Throughout all this, several questions arise.  Why do we have all this stuff?  Why did we keep all this stuff?  What do we need to carry us forward now?  During our 20’s, we were footloose and fancy free.  We moved all the time, shedding possessions with nary a thought. (Although we now regret some of our thoughtlessness: we shed a western couch and chair my mother had carried from the earliest days of her marriage to my long-deceased father.)  We were in full explorer mode.  Life was out there and we wanted to go meet it.   We’d store the books and papers, garage sale our meager possessions, and hitch-hike off to our next adventure. 

By the time we got to Detroit, in 1989, that pattern was well past tired.  I was 33.  I wanted a home.  I needed a nest.  We set down some roots.  For twenty years, we built a home and a business and a career.  We weaved connections, and mounded up piles, and plugged along.  Until it was all much too much.

The bike journey put an end to all that.  Across the miles, pedal after pedal, the junk in our minds, the globs of fat on our guts and butts, were slowly burnt away.  Returning to our home, it was painful to see how constipated and fussy we had let every part our life become. 

So out it all goes.  If it has meaning, or purpose, it gets to stay.  Goodbye to all those old and tired patterns, so long to all that “just in case” keeping.   Good riddance to “woulda, shoulda, mighta” piles of papers, books, and clothes.  The Third Third of our life is upon us.   Leaner, cleaner, clearer…those are the watch-words for this time of life. 

But my-oh-my, do we still have a long way to go!  Just as I am still sporting plenty of flubber jiggling on my gut, butt, and thighs, my house is still crowded with plenty of stuff.  My mind still cavorts in eddies of worry and piles of fear.   There’s a lot more scrubbing, and cleaning, and clearing to do.  It’s all of a piece, both within and without, to come to the place redounding of peace.

T+125: Fellow Travelers, Pt. 2

Des Moines, Iowa: On June 23, Wes and I stayed at this same Candlewood Suites, en route to Wyoming, where we would pick up Wes’ bike and make our way to Portland, Oregon.  It is now October 25, and we are making our way back to Wyoming, to drop off the bike and finish writing the story of our travels from Portland to Portland.  In many ways, the trip began on that night in June, when we watched the movie, The Journey, with Martin Sheen.  That movie resonated throughout our trip….the times of just going, the moments of grief or of jubilation, the tender and touching connections with people who walked…or in this case, cycled…into our lives, and left such a big impression.

 

We had just got on the Erie/Niagara Trail and were making our way along the eastern coast.  Our goal was Niagara Falls, but it was far and we were tired.  We couldn’t find one nice thing to say to each other.  All the petty grievances of constant companionship were at the front of our minds and quick off our lips that day.  Why can’t Wes eat one meal without spilling food on himself?  Why does Shaun always dawdle and delay and mess around when we need to be going? 

About five miles in, a youngish man, full beard, chestnut colored hair, riding a bike with full panniers, rides up alongside us.  One of his panniers is a rectangular plastic box. Normally, one buys kitty litter or soap in these containers.  Here it was bolted to his bike rack.   Seeing that he was a fellow traveler, I launched into the regular litany of questions.  Where are you coming from?  Portland, where he lives.  Where are you going to?  Rhode Island, to meet his girlfriend, although his original destination was Portland, Maine.   He and a group of 4 other bicyclists set out the third week of July and have been pretty much following the Northern Tier.  However, the group has been splitting apart.   Two split off in Montana, including the girlfriend he was rushing to meet in Rhode Island on October 8.  The other two he left in Minnesota.  He has been traveling alone for a while now.  After experiencing what Wes describes as “Existential Angst” (Why am I here?  What am I doing?)  during a particularly difficult crossing of Michigan, he has chat stored up and is anxious to talk.

And talk we do.  His name is Bruce.  He is originally from New York, but has been living in Portland for some years.  He is an emergency room nurse by trade, but a mountain climber/adventurer by avocation.  This is the first time he has taken a major bike trip.  He has been camping and eating rough most of the way.   A light day for him is 70 miles.  It is clear that he has slowed down to ride with us; Wes and I are pumping as fast as we can to keep up with this slender, strong man and his light, modern bike. 

We talk of our trips and compare notes.  Bruce is a mountain climber and backpacker.  He has been on many trips, but even he found the ride over the Cascades a challenge.  He was eaten alive by mosquitoes in Saco, MT.  They stayed on the freeway all the way across North Dakota, never venturing into the back ways and farm routes we explored.  He left his friends in Minnesota so that he could make time across the mid-section.  By the time he got to Wisconsin and was going to take the ferry at Manitowoc, it had broken down.  It was not at all clear who or how or what was going to be able to fix that 100 year old coal fired ship.  (I wonder what has happened to family associated with Two Guys taxi; ferry traffic was the mainstay of their business).  He took the hovercraft over the lake, landing at Muskegon.  He wandered through busy roads and surly people in our home state and was glad to be out of there.

He was bee-lining across Canada and anxious to get to Niagara.  Despite having been raised in New York City, and having travelled extensively throughout the state, he had never seen the falls.  After that, he was off to the Finger Lakes, Ithaca and Cornell, then lickety-split across the Catskills to Rhode Island.  He had a ride of about 700 miles to do in 8 days.   Of course, this makes Wes and I feel like a couple of pikers.

After we wore out the topic of our trips, we soon turned our attention to politics, the economy, our personal history…and more.  The conversation continued apace as we rode the fifty miles to Niagara Falls.  It continued as we explored the town and ate dinner together that night.  It didn’t stop until we said our good byes the next morning from the hostel in Niagara Falls.

Like us, Bruce was using the bike trip to sort out a life change.  He had been an emergency room nurse for some years and had been satisfied with it.  He had recently purchased a house in Portland, and now at the age of 40 (he looked barely 30), his life of work interspersed with adventure was no longer working for him. He had become frustrated and disaffected with the branch of medicine in which he was working.  When he was younger, he had liked the adrenalin rush and lack of relationship at the core of that type of nursing.  It wore on him now.

I told him that my sister was a nurse and that she has found a great deal of satisfaction, after years of bouncing around the profession, working as a hospice care nurse.  She really enjoys that it is patient and family-centered.  Bruce says he has thought about it and is going to think some more about it.  This conversation occurs as we are on the most eastern reach of Erie, as we are cruising past giant houses on the Niagara Recreation Trail, 40 miles into our common ride.

Bruce is a generation younger than us.  His view of his prospects and future within the American economy is sobering.  He has an enormous student debt that he believes he will never be able to pay off.   He feels good about the house he recently purchased, but allows that he is the only one of his friends to make that commitment.  He has no pension plan, no retirement savings, nor any expectation to ever receive Social Security.  He feels his best strategy is to make the most of each day, no promises given nor expected.  He doesn’t perceive a social contract beyond his circle of friends and family.

We are surprised by this.  He allows that it would be a good thing to feel as though one were getting and giving in a web of mutual support.  It’s just that he has never seen or felt such a thing.  He is not a member of a union, and doesn’t think he knows anyone who is. 

It would be tempting to say that Bruce is alienated, but he is not.  He is a free agent, and ok with that.  He benefits from white privilege and knows it.  We all know that we move more freely than any person of color.  A case in point: the night before Bruce camped (illegally) in the closed Peacock Point Provincial Park.  Local law enforcement saw him there and shined a light on him, then moved on without saying a word.  Would that have happened to someone who was not a white male on a nice bike?   It is not hard to think of scenario where the answer would be “No.”

He is an alert, educated, compassionate guy.  He lives simply and tries to pay attention to his choices.  Part of the reason he has the plastic box pannier is a commitment to living without waste.  What surprises us, over and over, is the lack of collective conscience or experience.  He was self-centered, but not at all narcissistic.  Being for himself and himself alone was not driven by ego; it was the way he was trained to be.  It was how society asked him to perform.

He was truly surprised when I told him about our life in Detroit and that I know at least 100 people by name in my immediate neighborhood.  Detroit is incredibly rich in social capital, I tell him.  The kind of art-making, storytelling, urban agriculture, mutual protection, and social activism that makes up our daily life in Detroit sounds appealing, but utterly foreign, to Bruce.  I do understand that social capital is required and present when financial capital is absent, (otherwise known as “making a way out of no way”). In addition, it is easy to disengage from the social contract when one has financial means.  What bothers me, truly saddens me, is understanding that there are a large number of young people who don’t see themselves connected to any larger whole. 

As we get closer to the falls, all three of us get more and more excited.  This is a momentous point in our trip.  Already we are seeing all sorts of signs of this area’s pre-American Revolution past.  When we cross the border tomorrow, we will enter one of the original colonies.  We are amazed at how little we know of War of 1812, which is remembered and celebrated all throughout this region.  I say to Wes, “Just think! When we cross the border, we will actually be in the Atlantic United States.”  (I will soon discover the folly of that statement.)  We stop to take pictures of the corner of Lake Erie with Buffalo, New York in the distance.

We bike along the edge of the Niagara River.  The river is big and powerful, with enormous rocks which generate ferocious rapids.  It is easy to see why this river created such a barrier.   When we get to the town of Niagara Falls, we find ourselves in a huge sea of humanity, even though this is mid-September. It is impossible to cycle in this throng, so we dismount and pick our way through the crush.  

The range of people here is astonishing.  There are women in gorgeous saris, groups speaking in the clicking tones of very South Africa, many, many Asians, some speaking Japanese, some Tagalog, maybe some Vietnamese, Korean, and Chinese as well.  There urban folks and country folks, the tight pant set right next to the baggy pants brigade.  There are busloads of seniors, mamas attempting to corral little ones while pushing strollers.   Young lovers kiss in front of the falls while someone takes their pictures.  There are folks in wheelchairs; people conversing in sign.  I saw one family pushing what looked like a gurney with a person tightly wrapped in a handmade quilt toward the guardrail.  A woman, whom I took to be the grandma, held the wrapped one’s hand and issued a running commentary on the sights and sounds.  Every complexion, every size, every age is represented: what a global mosaic.

Everyone takes turn pushing up to the guardrail to take a look at the awesome horseshoe falls.  There is a full 180 rainbow over the falls and a light mist falling over this human sea.  The city stretches behind us with high-rise hotels; helicopters circle endlessly and dip in and out of the water’s mist.   Boat with names like the Maiden of the Mist chug towards the cataract at the base of the falls.   On the edge, at least 300 feet above, we can hear the faint squeal of the crowd on the boat as they move into the fall’s spray.  The whole experience is giddy, surreal, slightly euphoric. 

I need to find the ladies room, so make my way through a cavernous hall, jam-packed with people.  It is tricky and takes quite a while.  While I am gone, a young man with a bike pulling an overloaded BOB trailer introduces himself to Wes.  He is Japanese, quite young, riding a single gear bicycle.  He has just begun his trip and is headed west, on the opposite path we have just traveled.  Wes and Bruce try to get this young man to join us at the hostel for the evening.  However, the wind has shifted and the light mist has become the equivalent of a heavy drizzle.   Just as I return, the young man bows deeply to Wes and Bruce and disappears into the crowd.

It is getting late; we need to get to the hostel and get our dinner. As we ride, we worry about this rider.  How will he ever make it over the Rockies and Cascades with a single gear?  And it is much too late in the year to be staying so far north.  He told Wes he was carrying 35 kilos on his bike…80 pounds and no gears as fall is coming on… with limited English.  Ay, ay, ay….

After we check into the run-down hostel with just a single staff on duty, a jocular, sandy-haired native of Ireland named Eric.  The hostel has all sorts of signs of events and tours it is offering on Fridays.  This Friday, there are none.  Wes and I have (over) paid for a private room; Bruce sleeps in the men’s dorms.  We walk down to Queen Street for dinner.  This area used to be the hipster/bistro/quaint shop district of this tourist town.  Now, most of the shops are closed and our steps echo as we walk.  We go into a brewpub, eat pretty average bar food, and listen to a group of Canadian physicists talk about US and Canadian politics.  Bruce is happy to be sleeping inside and eating at a restaurant.  Both have been rare events on his journey.   We take our leave.  Bruce wants to go listen to some incredibly loud rock music (we heard it three blocks away) and sample the local beer. 

Wes and I are very much aware of our age as we say good night. The 70 mile ride with Bruce has pushed us pretty hard; we’re beat.  Wes is complaining of a scratchy throat and watery eyes.  He thinks he might have picked up a germ while we traversing the crowd.   We wonder at Bruce’s endurance, although we do remember our last bike journey from Montreal to Halifax and back to Quebec.  We camped and cooked our own food the whole way.  Such are the strengths and fleeting ways of youth.

The next morning, we are off on our bikes before Bruce, although we are sure he will overtake us and leave us behind.  We stop and ogle the whirlpool vista, where the river makes sharp turn.  At another vista stop, we mis-communicate and run into each other, wrecking both of us and causing a group of seniors who just exited a bus to come running over to see if we are all right.  We are a bit battered, but more embarrassed than anything.  The bruise on my knee and gash on Wes’ finger will take the rest of the trip to heal.

Crossing the border is hectic. We are the only bicyclists in a swarm of motor vehicles.  We wait behind a group of motor cyclists from New Jersey, who have been out on a 1000 mile weekend jaunt.  They will ride 350 miles back home today.  One of them is long-haired, good looking, perhaps Tongan, and he is fascinated by our trip, but wants to know why we haven’t used it to raise money for a good cause.  He didn’t like our answer that we were using it to make a change in ourselves.  As he rode off, he said, “Next time you do this, make sure you benefit someone else!”

With that, we enter the last phase of this trip.  We are tired, but think we are almost done.  We are wrong.  There are many more challenges, some of them as hard as any we’ve faced, in the last days of this journey from sea to sea.

 

Posted from Centennial, Wyoming

T+109: Pet Cars, Lawn Fetishes, and Muer Fish Dinners

Mile 3883, NORTH CREEK, NY:  We are on the shores of the Hudson River, and hope to pass into Vermont tomorrow.  The round of bad weather has lifted; we have been traveling through the beautiful and nearly empty Adirondacks.  We have been re-building our mountain legs, and will need them as we go through Vermont and New Hampshire over the next few days.  The days are getting shorter, as are the miles we need to cover to get to Portland, Maine.

 

When we leave Imlay City, we travel on a back road to the small town of Capac, where we plan to cross I-69 and enter Southeast Michigan.  As we are cycling along, we begin to be passed by a large number of gleaming cars of all ages.  Not only are there restored Model T’s, there are also coupes from the 1930’s which have been turned into hot rods.  One is painted brilliant orange and decorated with purple flames.  There are woody station wagons from the late 40’s.  There are WWII Willy’s Jeeps, 1967 Impalas, 1965 Mustangs and hot pink Thunderbirds. There are Ramblers, and 57 Chevy sedans and Edsels. There is a 1975 Ford truck just like the one we owned when we moved to Detroit.  There are antique firetrucks and American cars and trucks of every conceivable year and make.  About 75 percent are lovingly and historically restored.  The rest are customized in some fashion.

We cycle through the town and there is an army of men directing traffic and closing streets.  Even though the car show had not yet begun, we saw many hundreds of vehicles parked and moving through town.   The drivers were nearly as diverse as their cars.  Certainly many were middle-aged and older white males, but there were also young men and women, people of color, couples, and families.   The cars were almost exclusively American made.  We did see one brave young hipster driving an early 60’s Mercedes-Benz.  Every single car was gleaming and polished.  Where they were parked, they often had their hoods lifted to show spotless, often chrome enhanced engines.   We are biking through a sea of pet cars, and stick out like sore thumbs.  These are not cars as a tool of transportation, but cars as objects of love and creativity.  These are hobbies and obsessions.  I puzzle about the dedication it takes to bring a 1937 Packard back to life.  Just finding the replacement parts must take hours and hours and tons of resources.  Even as we leave town via a back road, we still pass cars making their way to this event.   I later read that this little town of 2000 hosted 1500 cars at this event.

As we move across the landscape, we see a land use we have seen only rarely in this journey.  All throughout Southeast Michigan, we see houses with gigantic lawns, sometimes of many acres.  It is not unusual to see a house surrounded by a sea of featureless grass.  Very often, there are not even trees or ornamental plantings.  Because we are traveling on a Sunday, we see lots of people out tending these lawns with their riding lawnmowers.   We wonder, “What is the appeal of these very man-made, labor intensive mono-cultures?”   My guess is that these lawns are the anti-farm.  They prove that the owners do not have to depend on the land to provide them a living.  Also, lawn doesn’t just happen: it requires constant intervention and specialized tools.   Lawns are a metaphor for the dominance of the earth…and access to discretionary funds…and social isolation.   Because giant lawns are not productive, they are fetishes, imbued with power and meaning which makes their high costs seem worthy expenses. 

We follow the Belle River down to its meeting with the St. Clair River.  This is a landscape of large weeping willows and cottonwoods, interspersed with marshes.  Many of these marshes are inundated with phragmites, the invasive reed that can grow to 8 feet tall.  Where the water is further from the surface, there are big stands of oaks and hickories.  We cross the Old Gratiot road and feel positively sentimental.  We wind in and out of little towns and are tickled when we enter Macomb County.   We have wandered these environs quite a bit; they are a source of storytelling and reminiscence. (Remember that giant hill at Wahlberg’s Corners where we missed the turn to the Blue Water Bridge?  Remember the time we went walking in Algonac and all the canals were frozen?)

A cycling club from Mount Clemens, mostly on tandems, comes rolling by.  One pair slows down immensely to talk to us.  In mere seconds, the rest of the group is out of sight.  They are young-looking and fit 40-somethings.  They were surprised that we had come all the way across the country, but asked, “How did you find the time?”  Wes hollers, “I’m retired!”  The man says, “I guess we have a long wait ahead of us then.”  They wish us luck, wave good-bye and are gone in an instant.

Not for the first time, Wes and I wonder about the equipment we are riding.  A good road bike, equipped for touring, but not overloaded, can easily manage an average speed of about 12-15 miles an hour.  An excellent road bike without a load zips along at 18 miles an hour.  A tandem is faster yet.  Here we are, plugging along on heavy, slow bikes.  Now that we are pretty fit, we average 10-11 miles an hour.  Throw in challenging terrain, and our average rate goes down to 8 miles an hour.  Throw in our rotten state of fitness when we began and it is easy to see why we are still in Michigan on September 22.

When we talk to other cyclists, riding 70 miles a day is pretty standard.  We manage about 50.  There are some who ride 100 miles a day, though that strikes me as over the top.  Wes’ steel frame mountain bike Raleigh from the 1980’s is a relic.  My late 90’s mixte Trek is somewhat better.  I run the math in my head: how much further along would we be if we could average just 2 miles more an hour.  We are on the bikes a minimum of six hours daily, sometimes more.  Two more miles an hour would means that we could be 800 miles further along.   I tell Wes I am going to buy a fast road bike when I get off this trip.  He says, “Me too.”   About 30 minutes later, we ride past the bike club again.  They are in the parking lot to the St. Clair High School, off their bikes and getting ready to disperse.  We wave as we go by, and hope they notice that we may be slow, but we get there just the same.

We are excited to go into Canada and have looked for a motel near the Marine City ferry.  The closest bed and breakfast refers us up the road to the Blue Water Inn, which has an address in St. Clair, but is actually four miles up the river.  We are cranky when we get there, but our irritation soon turns to joy.  The room are newly renovated.  Unlike the kitsch filled bed and breakfasts or the generic plastic motels that have been our standard fare, these rooms are modern and urban and elegant.  We are the very end of the hotel and have a fantastic view of the river, though constant noise from the fans from the restaurant below. 

We have a delicious fish dinner at a River Crab, a Chuck Muer restaurant, watching the big ships move up and down the shipping channels of the St. Clair river.  We had hoped some friends could join us at this “pretty close to Detroit” moment, but we couldn’t give enough advance notice, so dined alone.   However, we have discovered a wonderful getaway just 50 miles from home which we will love to share with loved ones upon our return.

The next morning, we are ebullient as we make our way down the river path (another wonderful Michigan trail) to Marine City.  We have time to stop for lattes before we are one of two customers on the 10 minute ride across the river to Canada.   It has been fun and funny to be tourists in our own backyard, but we are anxious to see what other surprises await us as we enter that not-so-far, but still quite foreign, north shore of Lake Erie.

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Posted from North Creek, NY

T-30: Yes...but

Well once again my decision making is suspect.   I woke up the other morning and said, I am going to take a long loaded run….just to see if I can.  I had Wes drag my big yellow BOB bag out to the garage.  I attached the trailer and went zooming off.  It was an absolutely beautiful morning in Detroit, one of those clear blue spring days where the humidity is low and the air almost sparkles.

I cycle down to the riverfront, where the first thing I see is a fisherman pull a 12 inch walleye from the water.  He is one of the many riverside and boating fishers partaking in the annual walleye run.  The riverfront is teaming with people, even though it is pretty early in the morning.  I am tickled at the range of people enjoying the sight of the glistening water. 

Underground Railroad Monument

There are all ages, all colors, women in hijab, and men in hard hats.  There are youth with pants four sizes too big walking along side hipsters with pants two sizes too small.  There are grandmas with squirmy little grandbabies sitting on lawn chairs watching their menfolk throw fishing line in the water and watch the red floaters bob, bob, bob downstream.  There’s a sailor all dressed in white  
scrubbing the sidewalk leading up the Detroit Princess party boat.  There’s even a few tourists having their picture taken with Underground Railway monument, standing alongside bronze statues, living and metal people peering mightily to the promised land of Canada just across the water.

I am a bit of spectacle with my full touring regalia: helmet and gloves, sun glasses, and most importantly, my low-slung bright yellow BOB trailer.  I see the occasional walker turn a full 180 degrees to watch me go by. It tickles my fancy to imagine they think me some exotic traveler making my way across the city on this beautiful morning.

I leave the waterfront on the other side of the Milliken State Park, past the swaying cattails and invasive phragmytes of the restored marsh.  I note my mileage (on my new bicycle computer, of course) and see that I have travelled just over 4 miles from my Southwest Detroit starting point.  I told Wes I was going to go down to the Belle Isle Bridge and back.  He shook his head ruefully, and said, “That far?”  I stuck out my chin at him: “It’s only 15 miles!”

I curve back to the riverfront by Stroh Riverplace.  I love this part of the Riverwalk, with its restored buildings, boutique hotels, boat slips, and Coast Guard station.  I am intrigued to see a Coast Guard cutter being lowered to the water.  The giant crane looks like a huge praying mantis.

I am still feeling good as leave the riverfront, cross the bumpity, bumpity cobblestone streets of old Iron Street, noting the ten or fifteen new murals depicting the strengths and beauty of Detroit on the sides of a rusting, wreck of old factory.   I am still feeling good as I pass by the big empty lot just before the Belle Isle Bridge.  Years and years ago, it was an industrial site for Goodyear, I think.  It has been too toxic for redevelopment and has sat fallow as long as I have lived in Detroit.  Today, it is abuzz with activities.  All along the fence is banner after banner proclaiming the upcoming Belle Isle Grand Prix.  The lots are being set up as service areas for the racing crews.

Well, here is where I made my big mistake.  If I had “the sense god promised a billy goat”, as my mother would say, I would have turned around right then and there, and started my homeward track.   This was the distance I told Wes I was going to take.  It was a good run.

But no.  Blinded by the beauty and ecstasy of my ride thus far, I turn my bike onto the Belle Isle Bridge.   It is gorgeous to look up and down the river.  There are geese, and swans, and ducks paddling with their babies. I am committed now.  The Belle Isle run, if I circle the island is another 5.5 miles. But hey, I’m feeling good, so why not?

I pull my trailer up the bridge, and notice for the first time, how much drag the trailer creates on a hill.  Flat Detroit is not very good training for the Cascades and the Rockies which start our trip, I note.  I huff and puff up the bridge, scream down the other side, pushed by the trailer, find the corner to the right quite a bit of challenge with the push of the trailer and drive right into….a construction zone. 

All along the river road, giant concrete barriers are being put up along the race route for the Detroit Grand Prix (http://www.michronicle.com/index.php/news-briefs-original/11459-chevrolet-detroit-belle-isle-grand-prix-revs-up-for-summer-classic).  The barriers block the view.  I weave in and out of heavy equipment, teams for workers, and trucks moving racing gear.  The workers stare at me.  I am sure they wonder what kind of fool would bring her bike and trailer into their midst. 

A few miles later, I finally leave the construction zone, then pull into the party zone on the riverfront.  It is a mess.  Even though there are garbage cans every 25 yards or so, there are cans, bottle, wrappers, dirty diapers, food containers and more everywhere.  On the grass, on the road.  It is disgusting.  This is the place where scads of teens hang out on weekend nights.  Every Monday morning, the place is a wreck.  By Tuesday, the debris would be gone, but now, with budget cuts, it is still sitting there on Thursday.

I leave the garbage zone and I notice that I am really starting to get tired now.  I have gone about 10 miles and it is starting to get hot.  I reach for my water bottle…empty.  I am not half way around the island, and I still have the whole way back to go. 

By the time I get to the Detroit Yacht Club, I am only ¾ around the island and I am pooped.  I stop in some shade, move my pannier to the other side because my right leg is hurting and record a note on my phone and call Wes.  I tell him to meet me at our favorite coney island in half an hour.  He asks me if I am all right.  What can I say?

The ride back to the diner is long and hard.  The river is still beautiful, but the temperature is up.  When I make it back to the Underground Railroad monument, I am in “just keep going” mode.  The tenth miles turn over so slowly on my bike computer.  When I turn away from the river and make my way up the gradual climb up to Michigan Avenue, my legs hurt, my forearms ache, and my shoulders are starting to knot. 

I stop at a red light to catch my breath, having climbed the bank of the former Cabacier Creek.  While I pant, a friendly fellow tells me “You don’t need to wait for the light, there ain’t no traffic.”  I wait anyway, glad to be off my bike, even for a moment. 

I meet Wes at the Coney.  I am sweaty, sore, and beat.  I have cycled 18 miles without a break, carrying a 40 pound load.  Wes laughs out loud as we listen to the recording I made of my pitiful self at the Yacht club. “What did you expect?”

I say to him, “Well, I have answered my question.”  “What is that?”  “Can I do twenty miles in a shot.”    The answer is “yes, but…”  After I cycle the remaining two miles home, I have gone twenty miles, sure enough, but I will be sore tomorrow, and not worth much today.

Yes, I can ride twenty miles with a load, but I have also shown, once again, that I am poor, poor, poor at recognizing reasonable boundaries.   And not just on bicycle rides, I assure you.

 

 

 

 

T-46: The once and future city

Part of the reason we are taking our bike ride across the country is to see how other places operate, how they have weathered the disinvestment in public life that has been the norm for the last 25 years.  We have been so embedded in Detroit, which certainly is its own unique self.  We are interested to see if how it is in the big out-there.  Even so, very little riles me up quicker than folks who don't diddly about Detroit making big time pronouncements about how to "fix" the city. 

I recently read an article in which the writer was touting the influence and necessity of small entrepreneurs as the salvation of Detroit.  While it was a well researched article, it missed the boat because the writer was not much aware of the way in which life in Detroit has already left the 19^th century model of centralized commerce and government.  Detroit, both through choice and necessity, has found ways to invent key structures of daily life,  whether that is food, cash free economics, or a deeply rooted maker culture. 

One cannot tell the story of Detroit’s rebirth without discussing its central role in transforming the food economy.   With miles of open and incredibly fertile river bottom land, more than 2000 community gardens, and an active local food movement, Detroit is a the center of the urban agriculture movement.  It is not unreasonable to think it will be food self sufficient in 10 years.  And… this is a movement centered in the African-American community.

Another feature of life in this city is the robust social capital that keeps this place running.  There are time banks, thousands of grassroots block clubs and community groups which do everything from patrolling the streets, to tutoring kids, to running city parks.  Detroiters are past masters of “making a way out of no way”.  The resilience of the African-American community fuels this, of course.  The community has been ignored (or mistreated) by officials for so long, that other structures to solve problems are put in place.

This is what I call “the Auntie network”.  Battalions of kin and near kin organize the structures of life, from baptisms to funerals, from transportation to home repairs.  When you want something done, you engage families, not individuals, in this city.  When I say families, I don’t mean daddies and mommas and kids…. I mean grandma, grandpops, aunties, uncs, cuzzes (1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd) bros, sisters, and all their kin.  A typical family reunion can bring together hundreds of people…it is an organizing feature of the social, economic, and community life in the city.

Finally, one cannot omit the central role of the culture and arts in this city.  Singing, storytelling, painting, poetry, film, dance, and more... are daily occurrences made by all sorts of people.  With food being grown in the neighborhoods, folks that know how to get stuff done with little money or help, and super cheap housing, it is possible to live as an artist here.  I know this and see this every day, having founded and run a community based theatre for the past 22 years.   Matrix Theatre Company has employed thousands of artists and engaged tens of thousands of residents.  We see them go on to make art with and around us, year in and year out.

So, yes the structures of 19^th century commerce and government are broken and nearly gone in the city.  But a new, organic, self-determining and self-creating structure is already here.  Those who have eyes to see it, already do it.

T-693: The Detroit Virus

The reason we are going to cycle across America has nothing to do with needing to get out of Detroit.  On the contrary, we want more and more to stay.  Our friend Craig describes Detroit has having "dysfunctional charisma".  That is certainly true.  Is there a place that has more immanence, in which the future is more present?  Or that the past has more painfully marked?

 We moved here in 1989, one of the first to catch the Detroit virus.  We fell in love with it, with its potential, with its stark and beautiful contradictions.  Since then, we have transmitted it to a number of people.  They come to work at Matrix, or with Detroit Summer, or with the Mercy Volunteer Corps, or some organization working at street level.  They find what we did: that is possible---nay required---to do really important work here that makes a real difference in people's lives and the shape of the city.  Also, that is possible to find a whole bunch of people doing similar transformative work.  Care a lot about food?  You can be at the center of movement building a new food system tomorrow. 


Detroit is the first rural city and that is part of its charm.

Want to shape the way different ethnicities work together?  Come and do the work tomorrow.  Do you want to live in such a way that culture and cultural expression is imbedded in daily life.  That's the way we roll in the D.  Once you get a taste for it,  once it gets under your skin, you will find yourself staying or wanting to return over and over. 

Want to break away from mindless consumerism, me-firstism, and deadening conformism?  Come on down.  There's hardly a store where you can spend your money.   You won't long survive without social capital in this environment where being connected and having relationships is the truer form of currency.   And to what will you conform  in this wilding ecosystem?  There is no monoculture, just the bumptious biodiversity of a vibrant ecosystem.

None of this freedom is free, of course.  This is the city of do-it-yourself.  And that means policing your own neighborhoods,  organizing your own recycling, creating your own recreation leagues,  cleaning and mowing your own streets.    You will pay taxes and wonder what you get for your investment.

You'll have daily contact with people this culture serves not at all.  Everybody here is just trying to make a way out of no way and some of the choices are terrible.  There is no doubt that Detroit will give you a daily dose of ugliness to go along with its freedom and social vibrancy.

I don't think you ever recover from the Detroit virus.  Every where else seems pale and innocuous and inhospitable by comparison.  We love/hate/need this place.  It is a power spot whose vibrations are both thrilling and exhausting.

No, we prepare to ride, not to run away from Detroit, but to run towards our selves and in so doing, run on a purer fuel when we return to the exasperating, endearing, delicious, delightful wreck of a city.

T-712: A Long Way to Go

So today I took my first longish ride.  I needed to go to Polarity Therapy at Our Lady of Rosary Church. This is an energy based body work is offered as a community service by the Polarity Center, which believes that healing work should not only be available to those who can afford to pay. I have been using the service for at least 5 years. It has helped me immensely.

 I needed to 5 miles each way.  Typically, I got a late start.  I needed to go the five miles in 30 minutes.  This is a brisk, but not unmanageable pace.  It is necessary to keep pushing.

Our Lady of Rosary (aka Our Lady of the Freeway)
is a social justice catholic church by Wayne State

I have been slowly but surely switching over to bike as my primary means of transportation.  This process was in place before we made the decision to take the Portland to Portland trip.  The ever increasing cost of driving (on our bodies, on the earth, and on our wallets) combined with a scary wreck that totaled Wes' truck facilitated this decision.

I have found living without a car in Detroit far easier than I thought it might be.  It is in fact, much easier than it was when I tried it in the early 1990's.  The city is much more pedestrian and bike friendly than it was those years ago.  Detroit is good city for biking.  Despite the almost complete disregard for bikes held by most drivers, the streets are quite empty.  It is possible to cruise backstreets with nary a problem, save avoiding the potholes and broken glass.  It is pretty flat.  There are a lot of trees.

The Hub is one of great places of Detroit, where biking is a
means of  remaking the spirit of the city.

I was struck, again, by the way  rhythmic movement promotes meditation.  I easily slipped into a reverie state when biking, even while biking in the city.  On my way back, I stopped at the City Cafe in Tech Town had a great sandwich while listening to the staff fuss at each other, while I fiddled with my new phone.  I then bopped down to The Hub, the great bike shop in the Corridor.  It began as a community volunteer effort about 10 years ago. I stopped by to get a new rear-view mirror.

It was a classic "nothing is as easy as it looks."  Getting out the remains of the old mirror,  and finding the right combination to get the new mirror to situate took nearly an hour.  The bike tech kept apologizing, but between the biking and the polarity, I was feeling so content, the fiddly, fussy problem didn't make a dent.

I was able to watch the passing parade come through the shop.  In the time I was there, there must have been at least 30 people in and out.  Young, old, all sorts of colors and shapes.  A pair of highly tattooed Euro-hipsters slid in.  The one with long, unkempt, blonde braids asked to trade work for parts.  They struck me as part of the Crusty Tribe, especially as they announced they had just come to Detroit a week ago.

Immediately after they left, two young girls came into the shop.  One was wearing a hijab and had fancyish mountain bike which kept throwing its chain during shifting.  Not only did the staff adjust the cable on the shifter, he also explained how it worked and to fix it in the future.

Next was an older gentlemen who looked life a 1950's jazz musician, complete with a pork pie hat and pleated pants.  Improbably, he was riding a hard tail. I wondered if he got it from his grandson.  A tall elegant man next brought in a beautiful, magenta Schwinn Le Tour from about 1976.  Everyone oohed and aahed over this great American bike.  The only female staff came out and shyly flirted with this tall fellow, who must have been at least 15 years her elder.  Both were flattered by each others' attention.

In comes another fellow wheeling a battered mountain bike.  As the staff begins to tighten the back axle, the man yells, "NOOO...it ain't straight."  Sure enough, the wheel wobbled at least 20 degrees as it barely turned on the axle.  Could it be straightened?   Not without great effort, but the staff went to work tightening rusty and loose spokes, making a way out of no way, finding a way to keep it going against the odds.

Shortly, there after a couple looking for a specialty  item. They were referred to another bike store in the city. In and out, people flowed into to this somewhat gritty community bike shop in the heart of the Cass Corridor. When at last the mirror had been installed, and I was on my way out, one staff member sighed at me wearily.  "I hope it rains....maybe then we'll get a break and can do some repairs."  In the time I was there, all were constantly making repairs, juggling multiple demands and personalities in quick order.  I suppose he meant he wanted to work quietly and meditatively on a single task.

I jumped on my bike and sped off through the city where nearly all the traffic lights were out. Drivers were obviously a bit alarmed at having to negotiate every intersection.  I was reminded again about the beauty of biking.  The sky was blue, the air was cool, the miles smooth.  By the time I made it back home, I had ridden 12 miles, but had seen the richness and variety of community life in our city.  I am sore tonight, but glad to feel parts that have been in disuse and unseen.