Friday morning I woke up and had nowhere to ride. I got up and saw about half the group board the vans and get taken to Logan Airport in Boston. Then I did a final laundry, so that I would not have to carry five days of dirty cycling clothes with me for the two weeks Karen and I plan to stay on the east coast. (I also didn’t want to hear her comments about having to wash the socks I wore on the beach yesterday.) I said goodbyes to the rest of the riders, those who had families at the wheel dipping and had other plans for getting home. It was a sad time as I am unlikely to see any of these riders again. That seems to be how it is so often in life today. People come together to work on a project and when it is finished they separate often never to interact with each other again. Certainly there are those among us who can keep those bonds of friendship despite the obstacles of time and distance we face in today’s world. However, it seems that this is getting harder today and it has never been easy for me.
As we rode across America we came upon a great number of small towns, each seemed to have a neatly kept graveyard, with monuments, both large and small, to the former residents of the town - the ancestors of the current residents. There was a stable sense of community. We also heard it in the roadside stores and restaurants we visited; people knew each other and talked about the things that were going on in their lives. We only heard snippets of conversation, but they were between people who shared a common history. It is something many of us who live in urban America never experience.
That day I saw two examples of community through the eyes of my wife, Karen. First we visited her aunt who is 95. She is mentally alert and in good health except for macular degeneration that has taken most of her vision. She lives in an assisted care facility but is far better off than most other patients. One of her two sons visits her regularly and Karen sees her whenever she is in Boston. However, she has become isolated as she has no one with whom she can recall shared experiences. The other example happened at dinner. Karen and I dined with one of Karen’s high school friends, Julie. They had been good friends but had had little contact since high school. Although their lives had gone in very different directions there was an immediate reconnection. They were able to recollect about their time together and had interest in what each other had done during the last 40 years. When they talked about Karen’s mother Julie recalled many positive experiences. I hope that after tonight’s conversations Karen will have a more balanced view of her mother.
The lesson for me is that I have very hard time fitting in to groups. I am far more likely to look in from the outside, than to be part of an inner core. On the bike trip I never rode consistently with any group of riders. I can say that this was because I never found riders who rode at a pace and with a style that I was comfortable with, but it is also true that I tended to be less than willing to alter my riding styles to fit with those of the other riders. It has been one of m major failings in life and in the end I can only hope that I will not become truly isolated and without any community of friends.
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