Jeremy's mother made me breakfast and sent me off with an apple (and waited patiently in the driveway of their Pennsylvania home for the duration of the 10+ minutes it took me to start the bike). After this, there was no stopping for food - only for gas, a quick stretch, and a bathroom break. I had anticipated a kind of bittersweetness upon return - back to life, the "real world", the low after the high - but, as I crossed the state border and hit reserve for the first time of the trip, I could only laugh maniacally. I stopped immediately off of the Masspike, stripped to a flannel, and rode the bike straight to my parents' residence in Cambridge, to be hospitalized immediately at the repair shop down the road.
I am back. It has taken awhile to update this blog, as I felt the need to step away from it when I returned (coupled with limited internet access). Something about forcing words out after a full day of the road night after night for a month that makes a mental recuperation the savoriest of luxuries...
I have many words about the journey, too many to recollect at present. Now that it has been a few weeks, I am no longer in the same state of mind to conclude with a duly triumphant ending. Below are some excerpts of a journal entry from the evening after my return to the cottage where it began - the closest I can intimate the sentiment of return before months and months of letting it all sink in:
Back. A fasting/interruption of ritual has brought me home. It was with me all along. Now, peace within, strength without.
The excellence of the excellent adventure - any excellent adventure - is the miraculousness of one's chance to be All; as transient as it is timeless.
Autumn's crisp burst has now receded. Still some color, and solar warmth intercepting the chill of the shade. Crunching footsteps through falling leaves, like so many purged thoughts reverberating in the delight of leaf-wading for its own sake. It is its own metaphor.
The night I returned to the cottage, one dahlia I had planted was left, in full bloom. I picked it. The next day, I returned to the farm - the previous night's frost had nabbed the remaining dahlias. A sign perhaps...
Since the inspiration does not quite flow in the same vein subsequent to real-time, there is not exactly a wrap-up proper to this blog. But inherent in what here may appear a lack is an apt invitation for the next excellent adventure. There are, in the course of a life, blatant adventures of various degrees - some like this, others grander, others more simplistic. All of which, within context, are excellent. But the excellence described above - one's chance to be All - is ongoing. Not even death is conclusive. One need only remain open to embrace the mystery that forms the bedrock of all we think we know, and every day is an adventure. Thank you for being a part of this one.
