sometimes a quiet moment under a full moon is all we need

There’s nothing like a rainy day to give you a chance to cozy up with a cup of tea and write. I’m currently back in St. Andrews, New Brunswick – and am setting my sights towards the general direction of home. Literally, I am at a turning point, as I reached the most easterly point of my trip and am turning back towards the west in the general direction of home. I also feel like I am at a metaphorical turning point. Having spent two months on the road so far, I am more confident now – both physically, and in my ability to simply figure things out, be it a place to stay or my next meal.

I will say it was touch and go there for a while. In fact, one month ago, I was here in St. Andrews visiting my friend Nicole who has been staying here all summer. I remember arriving in quite the wobbly state…my legs killed after a long day of hills, and my confidence had been shaken as my fears of regularly facing that kind of physical ardor alone on a bike were getting the best of me. In many ways, I was at a turning point then too…trying to decide how I was going to navigate the next leg of my journey. In the end, I recall giving myself a Reality Check and deciding to allow myself the flexibility to take some rides if I felt like it or was in a hurry to get from A to B.

That was at the end of July and since then I spent an amazing month traveling around Nova Scotia. I took my sweet time in that province, making new friends in Halifax, visiting a few farms, hanging out at a friend’s cottage, and summing it all up with the 4-day Tatamagouche Free School (which is kind of like summer camp for adults, but with more learning and better food).

I had taken a couple weeks off my bike during the time I spent at some farms on the South Shore. It was like we needed a break from each other anyway, you know, just to figure out what we both wanted from the relationship. And like they say, distance makes the heart grow fonder, and so by the time I was back in Halifax, I was eager to jump back on and take a couple days to pedal up to the Free School.

One of the best and worst things about solo bike touring is that you end up spending a lot of time with yourself. When you’re in the mood for company, this can be a drag. But when you’ve just had non-stop socialization for a while, rolling along with only the sound of wind flying by for a while can be rejuvenating. Being alone on a bike is also a great opportunity to get back to basics – back to the day to day challenge of survivl that seems to be handed to us when we have amenities and money at our disposal. And when it’s just you and your mind on the road for a while, biking presents a good opportunity to practice positive thinking. After all, getting caught in a negative mind space on a bike can be the difference of making it up a big hill or not. So, on day two of my ride to Tata, with the definitive threat of a small mountain to climb and the possible threat of a rainstorm looming ahead, I decided to spend a good portion of my climb counting my blessings. Here are some things I was grateful for that day:

• Date-almond-coconut logs. They look gross but taste awesome and their sugar kicks definitely helped propel me up the hills.
• The water-heavy air since it blurred the lines between the rain and my sweat.
• Kind country folks who always say hello as I ride by. They don’t do that in the city.
• Getting to the top of a dreaded hill and thinking, “was that all?”
• How a 60km ride over a mountain is really more like 30 since the second half is mostly just cruising downhill. (I got up to 51km/hr at one point! That’s enough to compete with cars in some residential zones!)
• Making up ridiculous songs and rhymes like the self-congratulatory one I cleverly crafted once I reached the top of the mountain. It kind of goes something like this:
  • I… did it.
  • I….Rock.
  • (repeat)
• This is the stuff artistic genius is made from folks.
• How 2 kms turns into 12, and then 20, and then somehow I get to 60 and I’m almost there.
• Arriving at the free school just before it started to pour, and taking refuge in the hay loft of a barn to nap.
• For not having a hay allergy.

After the Free School (which I will cover in a separate post), my next destination was Sackville, NB. There, I was able to take a couple days to rest by aching body (apparently a few weeks off a bike followed by a few multi-day rides is a wake-up call to your lower half). After four days of camping at the Free School, four days of riding, and only three showers amidst it all, my order of business upon arrival was as follows: 1) deep clean my body 2) deep clean my clothes 3) eat a big meal 4) sleep (on a queen sized bed! I didn’t realize how much I missed real beds…)

From Sackville, my next adventure was getting here to St. Andrews. My original plan was to take a bus. I’m kind of anxious to get to the next leg of my trip around Boston, NYC and the Hudson Valley, and it would have been a 4 day ride to get here by bike (through a possible hurricane as well). But the bus cost something like $60 and I’m not into spending money these days unless necessary. So I decided I would try my thumb at hitchhiking instead. I mean, why pay to sit on a bus by myself when all sorts of other people are heading in that direction anyway?

The trip was 350km and if taken in one go, would be just over a 3 hour drive. I had hitched for a few shorter distances, but this was by far the longest haul I’d attempted. I set down my bike at the first onramp of the day, prayed to the hitchhiking gods, held up my sign, and stuck out my thumb.

Plenty of cars zoomed by me that day. Many of them had plenty of room for me and my bike. Drivers and passengers stared at me dubiously as they passed, perhaps trying to gauge my degree of sketchiness, or visually reprimanding me for participating in the seemingly taboo practices of talking to strangers and having faith in humanity. But, six rides and six hours later, I arrived at the doorstep of my next destination.

I quickly learned that hitchhiking is portal into a world of people you are unlikely to meet otherwise. I’m used to being surrounded by likeminded folks so it was actually kind of a gift (if not reality check) to experience a diversity of perspectives in such a short amount of time. Everyone who picked me up was driving solo, five of the six were men, some were allies to hitchhiking, having done it in the past, and others just wanted the company.  There was an older man heading to visit his brother in the hospital; there was a truck driver on the way back from delivering a load of sod/grass to some rich guy’s private golf course near Halifax; there was a young woman heading towards St. John to console a friend who had just broken up with her boyfriend; there was the owner of a paving company who valued community and used his business connections to run charity auctions on a regular basis; there was a young guy, a former heroin addict and now an addictions counselor, that willingly fit my bike and my gear into his two-door sports car; and then finally a man delivering laundry to a hotel in St. Andrews who longed to leave his job and travel one day. I hope I helped sway him to do so.

I waited anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour for a ride. Each time I started to feel desperate someone would stop. The hitchhiking gods were working their magic.

By 4:30pm I got dropped off at the driveway of my final destination – Bantry Bay Farm, on the outskirts of St. Andrews. It’s a small organic vegetable farm that sells at the local farmers’ market and through their CSA. My friend Nicole is here too, volunteering for the month of September. Here, I will spend the next few days helping on the farm and planning for the next leg of my journey – the two month stretch that will bring me in the direction of “home.”

Perhaps the biggest shift within me these past two months has been this notion of “home.” Home was, at first, something I left behind, that I missed. It was my friends, my bed, my kitchen, my local food coop, and all the fun summertime things that I knew were going on in my absence. But now, after having moved around so much, having made so many friends, and having been taken in like family time and time again, I have become comfortable in my two-wheeled mobile home: the shelter of my tiny tent is comfort enough when I need a space to myself; a good meal is whatever I concoct out of whatever I’ve got; community is everywhere; and I am finding a deeper connection with the only consistent companion in my life right now – myself.

This morning I awoke to the steady rains of Hurricane Earl – decidedly un-hurricane-like at the moment. I’ll take this rare reason to stay indoors to cozy up with a cup of tea and catch up on journaling and some much needed Emily-time. Luckily, despite spending so much time with myself, we haven’t gotten sick of each other yet! That’s good, because we have a long way to go still.