Memoirous

People keep saying I’m brave. I’m not tracking—I mean just because I rode my bike across the United States by myself at age 61? During a pandemic? Riding a bike felt natural and it helped me forget about Covid. If anything I was safer, out in the countryside, away from crowds. Nothing beats social distancing like riding solo. I could go all day without talking to a soul. How is this different from quarantine? At least while on my bike I felt alive, strong, capable—if even at the time I doubted my ability. Sitting in my tent at night, watching the sun lower and dusty dusk filter around me, the quiet all around, I knew I’d done this, my body had gotten me to this place. I loved that feeling of self-satisfaction. It’s what’s missing in my life now.

Recently I learned a new word: derecho. Noun a line of intense, widespread, and fast-moving windstorms and sometimes thunderstorms that moves across a great distance and is characterized by damaging winds. On a Monday, August 10, I was outside helping a young neighbor ride her bike. At one point we sat on the curb in the eerie stillness before a storm and looked up at the clouds. Something was coming. Later in my studio apartment I had to turn on the lights. Outside, late afternoon, the sky had turned the color of nightfall. I went to the other side of the building onto the fire escape on the west side. A slab of grey-green clouds were building up, streaked like marble. I expected staggers of lightning, the rumble of thunder, but they were mysteriously silent. It seemed to take a long time for something storm-like to happen. Then. Came. The wind. I rushed inside and watched as if a paper shredder had been turned on, churning up tree tops and roofing. As someone who has camped for...

Ever since I could remember I’ve had a job. The strictures of time bracketing my day. Chunks of hours devoted to being at an office, in a kitchen, on the phone, stuck in meetings. Those things seem so far away in 2020. Even the concept of routine is now distant. For those who have been reading about my bike journey and those who have read my bio know: I get up early. Call it anxiety but I like to get up and get things done, that way the rest of the day can be given over to projects that don’t seem so tangible. Like writing, for instance. Much of writing is about being able to explore, play. What can seem more lazy than just sitting and thinking. Yet that’s what a writer does. They have to be able to think and have the ability to focus. So flipping 300 or so pancakes is the visible and the plotting is the invisible. Both are working, just one gets the most attention. Rightfully so, I mean who doesn’t love a pancake. This summer none of this is taking place. The writing lately ...

So many times during my trip people asked me WHY? I didn’t always have an answer, or want to answer honestly. I mean, there were so many reasons to do it—or not. It wasn’t exactly apparent during a pandemic why I was subjecting myself to danger. Or why in the face of 30 MPH winds, or traffic, or just the daily physical grind, I was doing a cross-country bike tour. Even the word tour wasn’t quite it. That word evokes vacation, being a tourist, discovery along with relaxation. Whereas most days that was not the case. Some days I just pedaled to get anywhere but where I was, pushing through exhaustion and boredom. So why? And, why now? The short answer: When I was 16 I wanted to do this trip, but I couldn’t get my parents permission. Now at 61 I was free to do it. But it goes deeper than that—at 61 I was able to do it. I appreciate the fact that I am healthy. So many people because of one reason or another could not just get on their bike and ride from Chicago to th...