Category: 2016 Northern Tier: The ride

Three mornings ago, I rode past a penny.

It lay on the shoulder. Deep hues bounced up as I glided past.

“Penny for your thoughts,” my mom would say, driving down country roads between the corridors of pine and rolling hills of central Florida.

I’d squirm in the passenger seat, trying to find a casual link or shady corridor among my own rolling thoughts, some avenue from where I could respond.

—

On clear mornings and before golden hour sunsets, you could see the Orlando skyline in the distance, rising up to the east.

—

Right now, I wish I could find that link between my thoughts. I wish I could find some coherence of meaning, some definition, something to grasp. It keeps escaping me.

For two weeks, the chaos rattled in my stomach. Nausea followed confusion. Confusion followed heartache.

—

There is a knot between my shoulder blades. It presses down, a shotgun shell rolling around below my neck. There is a shortness of breath, a gasping for air, for a lifeline. There is the taste of deep loss. There is a rejection of every swallow. A thousand deleted words and broken thoughts.

On uneven stretches of road a penny bank rattles behind me.

—

I still don’t know what to say.

These are the themes that have overwhelmingly defined this land:

Fragmentation.

Isolation.

And now, in the plains: distance.

If you go back through the posts, you’ll see it. The glacial rubs, the sharp peaks. This is a land of ancient shadows. Of mountains and valleys scoured by memories of hard water.

Fragmentation. Isolation.

In the plains, there is distance.

And here, in the distance, that skyline seems so much farther. Here, in the plains, those Orlando sunrises are lost in the ochre of clouds pinning down the far ends of wheat fields.

—

To my Orlando friends, to my Orlando family: I am so sorry.

I have wondered what I could say. What sympathies I could send. In what way I could relate some story of our journey, some story where I could find meaning on the highway, meaning in the mountains, meaning in the rivers, meaning in the plains.

I have looked into the swirling currents, the windswept hills. I have looked down dusty gravel roads and traced the weathering of wood on old, leaning barns.

I have picked up the riverstone etched by time and been left wanting.

I roll on, under the heat, my stomach knotty with slivers of pine, my pedals tracing circles around the same empty space. Under the sweltering of the sun, my thoughts slip into the waves of heat. They dance in a mirage above the wheat fields. They spin. They Pulse.

—

I am unable to write. Unable to find purchase for a penny.

Fragmentation. Isolation. Distance.

—

I have been lost, traveling the wrong road.

What relatability could I hope to find? My life experience is so, so different. I have not been in your shoes. I have not ridden down your road.

To my same-sex friends, to my trans friends, to my friends of color: I am so, so sorry.

Your loss is deep, and it is very much yours.

Your community is broken, and it is very much yours.

How important that is: community. How important that safe space is.

Every day, we roll into a different town, sleep in a foreign place. We pass under the farmers co-ops, faded logos on grain silos. We hear the laughter of children let free for the long summer evenings. Every day, we slip in and out of small-town communities, staying long enough to be noticed, long enough to be welcomed. We spin through four-street towns, separate but no different.

Still, I am white.

Still, I am cis.

Still, I can not find purchase in your history, in your personal experience, in your lived exclusion, in your wondering pain.

I ride a different road than you. A road that promises a certain societal safety, a certain nod of the head from farmers, from mothers, from police. I ride a road where I am not seen as a threat, where I am not looked at with fear or disgust.

I ride a road laid down by your suffering, by the injustices against you.

By the injustices still against you. By the exclusions still against you. By the physical harm still against you.

—

May these roadside wildflowers bloom for you. May this river run for you. May the red-winged blackbird alight on cattails for you.

May the sun rise for you.

May you find community and may you find empathy.

—

Twice now, three times now, we have been told to stay away. Just pass right through that town, they say. Don’t stop. And, if you do stop, don’t linger. They have called them drunken Indians, they have called them criminals and thieves. They have left them half dead and said:

Cross to the other side of the road. Pass by on the other side.

Where is the Samaritan? Where is the oil and wine?

—

I walked into the shop in dirty boots and blue jeans. I walked into the shop with oil under my finger nails. I walked into the shop holding the parts they said I needed.

Still, I didn’t feel full. Still, I didn’t feel adequate to stand amongst these men with crescent wrench hands, pneumatic voice boxes and baseball caps.

I could name the manifold sitting on the bench, I could put it in place.

I walked into this shop dressed the part of the manly man, carrying the parts of the manly man. Still, I felt weak and little, like it was time to turn around and carry my problem to a world of different suppositions. Like who I am was being torn down and rewritten. Like my comb would be cut for bloodsport.

When they fabricated the hardware I needed, I paid and I left. I stepped out into the hot sun where I am self-identified and the sun accepts that, where generations of assumptions burn and fade, where I am not a marionette stuck in uncomfortable mimicry.

Hi, my name is Matt and I am fine with he or his or him, I say to the bluebird and the bluebird continues to sing.

I step into a shadow where victim’s names blow on the salty breeze, where attacker’s presumptions found purchase for bloodsport, where Levites and priests crossed to the other side of the road.

In that shadow, I am white.

In that shadow, I am cis.

In that shadow, those victim’s names are not my own.

Far off in the southern distance I can see a train gaining speed. It is long, about fifty cars strong. Out of the corner of my eye I continue to glance towards it. It is fast, but so far off that just a slight glance forward and the blue sky, clouds and green flats fill the view. The train is always there. It rumbles through the night as we sleep in city parks 50 yards away. It blows beside us, and shakes the chrome of my bike. I can feel the vibration through my leather gloves. The train has been our constant. Its sound as it approaches from in front or behind consumes every thought, every sound and demands that its presence be known. The train awakens me, and reminds me of the mountains I have left and the mountains many miles ahead. I look at the train as it passes. I speed up and try and take pace with the train. It over takes me and leaves me with the quiet road and sky.

I roll with the hills. My gears switch up and down with a slight slide of my hand and my legs break free and glide with the bike. The bike moves me up the hill. I no longer fight or flee the steep slope in the distance, with my mind and body I gain strength in each stroke. My legs press and push and my breath slows and deepens and I am transported back to the strokes of freestyle and backstroke and how all bodily movement reaches a point of fluidity. The hills roll by me and I continue to seek more. More miles, more sky, more of this sweet westerly wind that slowly guides me through towns, pass pastures, into the expanse of open air.

I slowly creep up on a herd of horses. They glare at me, ears up, tails brushing mosquitoes away. I whistle at them. I whistle at them, until one of the them decides to run. I throw up my arm and salute his speed. His ability to get all the other horses to follow behind him. They are running next to me and the wind in my hair and the strength of my legs push me forward and for a moment I feel like I am one of them. Wild and fast and full of the freedom that only comes from a sky that never ends and a view that softens the soul.

I see six motorcycles coming towards us. They ride two wide and by the gear on their bikes, I can tell they are out for a long ride. I get excited and throw up my arm displaying an up-side-down peace sign. We have been invited into this silent language of bikers, much like the hand wave of the jeep tribe. They all look with recognition, appreciation and acceptance and welcome me into the two-wheeled tribe. They have become my candy during the day. With each motorcycle that approaches, I greet them with anticipation for the long road ahead gaining each mile two wheels at a time.

We stopped at Spencer’s Hi-line Bar and grill last night in Chinook for some Montana micro brews and the owner, Mark, a retired elementary teacher and cyclist told us he used to have a sticker up in the bar glass window that read “four wheels for the body, two wheels for the soul”. He then told us to be sure to camp on the east side of the city park, so we wouldn’t get watered by the sprinklers during the night.

Today,  Matt got his first flat. We passed the rodeo in Saco and as the sun set, his back tire blew. Standing over the bike while mosquitoes swarmed around us, he quickly pumped the new one up.  We have biked 115 miles.  We passed the city park where we were supposed to camp. We never saw it. We turned down this gravel road that looks like the road on the map that will lead us to the end of our day. To the place where we can set our tent up, crawl in and let our bodies rest. This road goes to only barns and rustic houses. The sun has set and we are still looking for a spot to camp. I turn my lights on and the horizon fades to dark. I still feel the road below me, but my senses switch from sight to sound. I no longer see the road ahead. At 10pm we roll our bikes down below a bridge, and in the tall, tall grasses lay our bodies to rest. My eyes close, as my ears continue to alert to the footsteps all around me.

We stopped in Havre, MT today after 35 miles this morning to get our bikes tuned up. I am really trying to get a post written and updated, but pedaling in the heat across the plains is exhausting and I can’t get my thoughts straight. We’ve been fighting a headwind the last few days; it’s supposed to turn around and give us a nice tailwind tomorrow. 70.5 miles yesterday into the small town of Hingham, MT, where an ice-cold IPA brewed less than 100 miles away was waiting at the Hi-Way bar.

Until I can get something written, I’ve added all of our locations to a Google Map. We’ll update it every day or as often as we can. Hopefully, this will give a good visual of our progress.

You can see the map below. It’s also embedded on the home page of this site.