Done Deal

this price was waxing and I was tired of wavering. now I can apply my energies to the going.
First flexibility test: adjusting to Firefox 4 and the updated Alaska Airlines website. awful awful awful.

not yet a rag

one of my most treasured possessions needs Hospice. it's just about to be "just a rag" although it will never be just thoughtlessly used. In fact, I couldn't bring myself to tear it up right now. I just inhaled the smell of it deeply, folded it, and put it in the return-to-anchorage pile. because it's not yet a rag. it's still a mendable shirt. Last summer I darned a few holes in the gauzy and faded back of this plain, cotton, pale lavender, long-sleeved shirt from india. or was it nepal?.  I can't remember if it's five years old or more or less. but I know it fully represents my bicycle journeys in Central Asia. and it represents me. a bit worse for the wear, but still has potential, has uses, has value. A most treasured value. experienced and rich.

Three weeks from Thursday, two weeks from Tuesday

I have done this enough times now that packing up for a bike adventure takes very little time. In fact, last Friday night I went through two years of accumulated stuff and sorted it into the standard groups: give away, store here in Boston, return home to Alaska, and take on my bike trip. I packed up my panniers, saw that there was plenty of room for food and water, and then unstuffed my sleeping bag to let everything rest on the shelf for 5 more weeks until my trip. On Sunday I cleaned and dismantled my Bike Friday Pocket Llama, set it in the suitcase I got through freecycle, found that it passed the fit test, and reassembled the litttle blue bike. I've been riding it to work and for errands. Amazingly, Boston is shedding its reputation for "Boston drivers" and is becoming a world class, bicycle friendly city. Truly transformed. Meanwhile, I continue crossing things off the list. Three weeks from Thursday I fly to Anchorage to transport my possessions back home and meet my mysterious next door neighbor.  Two weeks after I return, I fly off to Russia for my next adventure.

It's a pity I have only 7 weeks. I know for most Americans, that's a heck of a vacation. But for most cycle tourists, it hardly feels worth the effort. I still have a slight ambivalence about the journey, to the point that while I have purchased my outbound BOS-MOW flight, I have yet to buy the return KHV-SEA and SEA-ANC legs. I tell myself I am waiting for my visa. Which I would've had by now if I my corpus callosum had been a bit more robust. You see, the organizing side of my brain set my passport over in the growing pile of Things To Take On My Trip to Mexico With My Mom during April vacation. Meanwhile, the planning side of my brain picked up my passport and entered all my vital details into an on-line form, and then sent it off for a Russian visa- all quick-like, using a laser printer and FedEx. The night came to pack for April vacation and I could not find my passport anywhere. I found a few other missing items, but my roommate and I tore my room apart and found not a trace of the document. I guess because Mom and I were only flying to Phoenix (and taking a bus tour to Mexico from there) that it didn't occur to me that I needed it for the vacation. Meanwhile, it was en route to DC to the visa service company. I managed to intercept it before it actually reached the embassy, and it was re-routed to the Phoenix hotel before our bus departure. So there was a two-week delay in even applying for the visa, and it won't be until May16th that I will have it in hand. I don't think I'll postpone buying the return ticket that long. I need to spend the money to know the trip is really happening, so I can get on with the business at hand. The purposes of the trip.

I suppose starting this blog tonight is one of the main purposes. To write. Those of you who have ever seen my slide shows or heard my stories or read my travel emails or gotten some of my original postcards are the ones who have encouraged me to write. "You should write a book!" you've said. "I'm going to write a book," I've said. Well, the time of going has arrived and the netbook has been purchased. A bit of techno-tweaking and I should be set to actually write. I hope the train segments are long enough. I hope my audience is present and listening. I hope there is no electronics theft or damage. I hope I have enough power. But I feel confident at least in starting my story by going back to the beginning. And by the time I arrive home, I hope it will be completed.

Of course there are other purposes: being in the landscape, enjoying the sky, making my body strong and lean, speaking Russian, speaking Mongolian, crossing the originally intended border at Tashaanta, now that it's open to foreigners, seeing the Gobi Altai, and of course, eating as much as I want and losing weight. But the strongest purpose is to go back the way I had intended to go on my very first trip of naivete,  finding an understanding of what has motivated me to ride,  exploring issues of rootedness and restlessness. And also to find my voice and my audience. In the end it may be an audience of one- but I want to see what I have to say and to see if I can make sense to me.