The Company You Keep

How much time do you spend with yourself and no one else?  The typical answer I imagine is not that much.  We are by nature social animals, and we enjoy the company of others most of the time.  Every once and a while (and this measurement differs from person to person), we find ourselves alone, whether by choice or by accident.  On this trip, being alone is often a daily affair.  Sometimes it's because you can't keep up, or the others can't, and sometimes you just feel like being solo.  Either way, there is a great deal of time to yourself out here on the road.  You are probably wondering where I am going with this, and, given my past posts, I don't blame you.

On the way out of the Powell Reservoir (yes, I refuse to refer to this as a lake), I found myself alone in the canyons and desert, and I liked it, I cherished it, and I tried to keep it that way for the entire day. I realized one of the greatest issues with being alone is that many folks are not comfortable with themselves.  Sitting alone with nothing but your own thoughts for hours can be a scary proposition even to the most hardened individualists.  The fact is, all of us have things that we would rather not think about, that rear their heads when we are alone.  Try as you might, sometimes you can't fight the cloud away.  Nor should you really.  We are an amalgamation of all our experiences, good and bad.  You can learn so much about yourself if you take the time to delve into your own thoughts, even the worst of them.  Now I don't spend all of these rides thinking dark thoughts - far from it, but what makes it difficult to be alone are the dark thoughts.  If it weren't that way, no one would have a problem being by themselves, we wouldn't search out friends when we were in a low time.  I think it is unfortunate though that we avoid these moments merely because they are uncomfortable.  Discomfort leads to understanding and to change.  These moments are necessary for all of us to grow mentally and spiritually.

I have spent a great deal of time to myself in my life, so much so that it is no big deal out here on the road. In fact, I search it out from time to time.  Many people embark on journeys like this to find themselves - I applaud these people.  I wonder, however, why it takes such a major move for someone to find his/herself?  No matter though, at least they are trying to do it.  I think it is very important that we know ourselves.  I also think that the desert is a good place to do this.

The desert is a funny place.  It seems like only criminals and people that are a little insane are at home here...think Ed Abbey.  As harsh as all the environments that we have passed through have been, the desert is king.  As with everywhere else, the payoff is equal to the pay in.  I am surrounded by a maze of red and white stone canyons, junipers struggling to sip the few drops of moisture in the soil.  Actually it is funny - I described the beauty of the plains as it's haunting emptiness, and the rockies by its consumption of space - the desert, oddly enough - possesses both of these characteristics.  The colors are stunning - reds, browns, greens, whites - it looks like the face of Mars, but with small, stunted trees on it.

One of the aspects of southern Utah that I really admire is that this is desert living done right.  For millenia, humans have lived in desert environments, but the trick has been living within your means.  The desert teaches you that times of plenty are not guaranteed.  Life in the desert should be thrifty.  With the development of water moving technology we have moved away from this.  We have created massive kingdoms in the arid places of our country.  Southern Utah, however, is sparse - it's desert living as it should be.  Here in this beautiful wasteland, I and many others have looked deeply into themselves, plumbed the depths of our souls.  I suppose it is as likely to be a negative experience as it is to be a positive one, but I think that the overall effect should be positive.  I firmly believe that the better you know yourself, the better your relationships will be.  Maybe I am wrong, but that is what I think.

The climbs and the heat are brutal here, but they are infinitely worth it.  Anything that is worth doing is worth doing well.

Big Country

Slowly, out of the hot haze of the high plains, the Rocky Mountains emerged like foreboding clouds in the west.  We have been in the mountains for a few days now, and I am sitting in a coffee shop in Telluride CO.  Most of the group has fallen in love with one or more of the mountain towns we have been haunting - and to be honest, I don't blame them. I was a bigger fan of Salida and Gunnison than I am of Telluride.  Here's the thing - This town is full of people that are WAY to over-privledged.  Trustafarians.  Anyway, that is just the grumpy me speaking since, if I had the money (which I don't), I would be setting up shop in a place like this.  Aside from the expense and the people whose reality is on another plane than mine, this place is beautiful.  I met an older gentleman in Montrose who worked for Cummins Diesel engines, and he said that he had traveled all over the world, and the two most beautiful places, in his opinion, were Tibet and Telluride.  That seemed like a pretty damn good sales pitch.  I've never seen Tibet, but this guy was not selling me the Brooklyn Bridge about Telluride.  The town is nestled in a narrow valley, and surrounded by massive mountains in almost every direction.

This trip has taught me something about the worth of an object or an experience - it is directly proportional to the cost, whether it is money or, in this case, physical exertion.  I am still amazed that I pedaled myself to the Rocky Mountains.  I woke in the thin air at 10k feet a few days ago, crawled out of my home away from home, and it struck me again.  It happens every day, I realize how fortunate I am to be here, right now, not wanting to be anywhere else but now.  Kansas, Colorado, Kentucky, you name it, just here and now.  I don't do that enough in my life, and I hope that I will take that feeling with me, back to the "real world."  I spend too much time focusing on forward progress, institutional momentum as I like to say.Always moving forward, always up.  Here and now are places to get beyond.  Buying time in the future, paying with the present.  Not out here though.  I can drink in every moment anywhere from 5 - 40 mph.

The Rockies are breathtaking.  Have you ever looked at a scene, and it was so beautiful that it borders on painful?  I know that sounds funny, but the mountains are so massive, like sleeping giants, felled long ago.  It brings tears to my eyes.  The landscape is rugged, unforgiving, but it holds so much for you if you put in the effort, slow down to see it, make the journey the destination.  Anything from the smallest flower to the behemoth mountains erupting out of the valley floors.  It was amazing to see the change in the landscape, as the mountains heaved themselves from the high plains of eastern Colorado.

I mentioned that many places form the patchwork of my "home," the quilt that I have been stitching for 30 years now.  It is no wonder that a place like the Rockies has burrowed in under my skin, or anyone else's for that matter.  Some places, like the plains for example, need explanation, the Rockies are not that type of place.  What explanation is needed for wanting to live so close to heaven, taking flight without leaving the ground, surrounding yourself with vast wilderness, the stuff of life, of the world?  Like the plains, life here is a struggle, to be eked out of the landscape, but the rewards are more tangible, less hidden.  The other day Seth commented that he didn't think anyone could stay angry if they lived here.  They would wake up on the wrong side of the bed, but as soon as you walk outside and are bombarded by the majesty around you - poof - anger gone.  I think Seth is onto something there.  Who needs therapy, slap a snow covered peak in my backyard, you keep the pills.

I am going to leave you with a little Shakespeare this time, something that was flying through my head as I was pedaling closer and closer to heaven.


To all those brave enough to do something amazing, to push the boundaries -




"And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
    Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

Humility

I have a fair bit of familiarity with the Great Plains of the United States.  This is something that I didn’t think would ever be the case for me.  I have spent the last 5 years in southeastern South Dakota on the plover project, and I have seen many young men and women scratch their heads at the idea of someone living in this environment.  Before I go on, I want to make one thing clear – I do not subscribe to the idea that the Plains are impossible to live in – to the contrary, I can clearly see how someone might choose to live here…maybe not me though. 

What I have learned is that the plains teach one humility.  Jokingly, I told someone yesterday that many have fought with the plains, none have won.  The landscape here is so massive, fields of wheat, corn, pasture, and sometimes, if you are lucky, native prairie.  As far as the eye can see, nearly unbroken expanses dotted intermittently with barns and homes.  Life here is hard-scrabble, a tooth and nail fight against overwhelming odds.  Drought, wind, ice, heat, all conspire against you.  Ask any of my technicians from years past how I feel about the wind.  Few would be short of an answer I suspect. 

Here I have gone and started out so negatively when I said that I wouldn’t do it.  The point is, if you stand long enough somewhere, you will begin to sprout roots, whether you like it or not.  And when you have rooted yourself in the soil of some region, it’s hard to remove to somewhere else.  For example, the first full day in Kansas we met a very nice man on the side of the road that proceeded to tell us about how his great-great-etc. grandfather had homesteaded the land behind us.  For those of you that do not know what that means – look up the Homestead Act (or ask your child that just finished American History).  Here is the secret, when you and your fore-fathers have poured your heart and soul into the land, it is hard to divest yourself of it.  Those of us from other parts of the country have a similar story, but the human cost per acre is just greater here, thus how someone could stay in the face of what we may perceive as insurmountable odds. 

So many of us speed our way through here, as if this were a place to be avoided, not a destination.  Indiana’s welcome signs say “The Crossroads of America.”  Someone should tell them that announcing that all roads go through here, none of them stop is not the best advertisement.  These are the states that the rest of us roll up our windows, turn on the cruise control at 80 mph, and crank through them to our destinations.  A friend of mine has this as her email signature "Anyone can love a mountain, but it takes a soul to love the prairie."  In some ways I think this is true, but perhaps it is just a matter of settling down and seeing the beauty.  You have to search for it out here.  There is no massive mountain, forever sea, these are not the accoutrements of the prairie.  Stand in the middle of a vast field (preferably of native prairie grasses but, as I said before, that is a tall order) where the vegetation is not above eye level, and look around.  Be swallowed whole by the intensity of space.  The prairie is awesome for other reasons than we are used to.  Usually we love things that consume space.  For my money, I find a naked prairie much more impressive than Times Square, but it takes all kinds. 

Now I am sitting in a town park, hiding from gusts of wind that are reaching 45 mph, watching trees bend under the intolerable weight of that wind, snapping back into place as it relents if only for a second.  We have fought with Kansas, the wind of the prairie, and we have lost, like so many others have done before us, and so many will do after us.  This is the way of the prairie and it is not for the weak of heart and constitution. 

I am listening to some on the team asking that same question that I myself once asked, that my technicians have asked, that many of us ask when we pass through this part of the country – why would anyone live here.  The answer is easy if you take the slow route through here, take the time to explore, to notice the clouds (best I have ever seen), the silence before a massive summer storm rolls through, the nicest people I have ever encountered, the history of struggle, the oceans of wheat blowing in the wind, the silence of the night, like no other silence – not just quiet, but the absence of sound, the side of ranch dressing with EVERYTHING, the family roots in this soil, so thick that they are emerging from underneath, pushing through here and there.  And these are just some of the reasons that people stay here, some of them I will keep to myself, my own private prairie poetry.

As we pass through this landscape that miraculously has become a part of my patchwork home, I will be content to know that at least part of me is home – the humble part.