Life is life

 First, a brief update on the tail end of my ride...

Meeting up with my family on the last few days of my ride, in Greenfield Massachusettes, at my Grandmother's house, was fantastic, and my mom biked with me for the last few days on the way home. She was incredible, and wouldn't stop saying how surprised she was to be biking 30, then 50, then 65 mile days. We stopped at the Kroka Vermont semester graduation in Marlow, NH, on the way back, which was a perfect way to bring the ride to a close and reconnect with the people that inspired it in the first place. 

It has been four months and six days since I last wrote, roughly the same amount of time I was on tour for. It's a strange thing to think about, but the truth is, my life has been just as fulfilling in these last four months as it was during the time that I was biking. Though I've been doing the least unusual things I could possibly be doing, working during the summer, and now studying at the University of Vermont, I have come to appreciate the way in which many of the beautiful principles of human kindness exist everywhere, not only on rain drenched nights in Eastern Tennessee when the only camping option is swamp. 

And yes, the speech did eventually get written. 

Over the summer, I spent a lot of time with two little girls who live down the road from me. We went to horse camp with our neighbor Nancy some weeks, and other times we had the week to ourselves. We swam a lot, made fairy houses, and even spent a few nights out on the Green River Reservoir. The time I spent with them was an extremely valuable lesson for me in the enormous amount of energy it takes to be a parent (or at least a substitute parent) as well as complete joy. We had so much fun together, the girls' parents paid me well, so I was able to make a decent amount of money this summer between babysitting, gardening, house cleaning, and other odd jobs. 

I was also able to participate in most of the Village Harmony Session II touring camp, interning as a food coordinator in exchange for tuition, which was a complete joy. Village Harmony is a world music singing camp that I have done for seven summers now. It is such an important part of my life, and I have had the wonderful opportunity to work for the organization as a food coordinator/chef/odds and ends person the past two summers which has been a real gift because I would not have been able to afford to go either summer. 

Home sweet home...the beaver pond by our house. 

Between working as much as I possibly could, Village Harmony, and a brief trip to Acadia with my family at the tail end of the summer, my first days at the University of Vermont came up quickly. It has been an odd but relatively smooth transition into college, though being a part of an institution that is very much a corporation has been difficult. I am in the Rubenstein School for the Environment and Natural Resources which is fabulous, the mission of the school really resonates with me and I have a few particularly wonderful professors from the school. 

I am taking Natural History and Field Ecology, Race, Culture and the Environment, Accelerated Biology, Fundamentals of Calculus, The Pursuit of Knowledge, Music in Live Performance, and Orchestra, which is kind of a lot of classes to be taking. It means that I have to plan my time very carefully and spend most of my day doing schoolwork, which is a bummer when it is beautiful out and my bike is feeling lonely. Nevertheless, the coursework has been engaging and I am glad to be doing it. 

In short, I am glad to be where I am in my life right now, and I thought I ought to let y'all know since I have been silent since the end of my bike tour. 

Peace, love, and simple joy,

Sonya 

Northbound Train

I'm in New England! Northampton Massachusetts at that, a place I have been to before. The culture shock is only just catching up with me, I keep expecting to hear that wonderful Southern drawl, or see a Sonic drive through, but I do love being able to identify most of the trees I pass. Traveling 800 miles in under 24 hours by train was a bit of a time warp.  

In the last few months, time has been connected, for the most part, to distance. "April" is a nearly useless prompt to help me sort through the memories I have accumulated throughout this trip, but "New Mexico"or "Peace Pagoda" immediately brings back a flood of vivid images, for my location has been much more important than the time of year on this journey. But now, all of a sudden, I am back in familiar territory and the date has crept its way up the scale of relevance in my mind. 

It is a huge transition, but one that I have been processing for a long time already. The quiet evenings at the peace pagoda, the loving support of Heather, Michael and their son Sather during my stay in Celo, slowly churning my way up Mt. Mitchell, hours of stimulating conversation with an incredible warm showers host near Charlotte, all have helped me to come to a place within myself where I am ready to return home. 

In the past 230 miles of my bike trip, the imminence of its end has prompted me to relish biking. From Celo, I went North on the Blue Ridge Parkway so as to climb the highest peak east of the Mississippi and get at least a taste of the Blue Ridge. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a view at the top, but I enjoyed the climb and exhilarating decent accentuated by an impending thunderstorm which was courteous enough to save its showers until I had my tent set up and dinner cooked. I even took a shower in it! 

The next day, Saturday, it continued to rain throughout the morning, but I didn't mind, and by the afternoon it was sunny enough to dry my tent out during a long break in the afternoon. North Carolina's mountains softened into hills as I made my way east, but the area was still beautiful and the quiet secondary roads a joy to ride. My last night of unplanned camping, I was offered a place to stay by a local power company worker who had done some touring in his youth. So I pitched my tent on a soft spot of lawn and ate a delicious bowl of teriyaki chicken and rice for supper; the generosity of everyone I meet continues to inspire me. 

This trip has shown me how beautifully the concept of paying to forward impacts the world. Organizations like warm showers and the great capacity for compassion in the human spirit allow people to help each other out, and though the giver probably won't be paid back, the receiver can pass the gift forward and thereby spread the love. It is a beautiful way to live. 

The warm showers host I stayed with in Cornelius, North Carolina, reminded me of the brilliance of this concept as soon as I contacted him. A month ago or so, when I was realizing that I couldn't bike the rest of my trip with the way my achilles was hurting, I contacted him to ask if he might be able to help me get to the train. I knew it was a bit of a long shot, but Brandon immediately responded, "Don't worry about a thing everything will be covered, if you need the help. I am here if you need anything" and indeed, from the moment I arrived on Sunday to when the train rumbled out of the station, I was completely relaxed. 

We went swimming, ate amazing avocado, lime, kale, lettuce and tomato salads for lunch and dinner, and somehow managed to pack my bike into a rather small bike box. And all the while, we talked and Brandon's infectious positivity and energy renewed my zest for life. What a gift. I can't wait to host cyclists this summer!

This journey has been one of the most liberating, uplifting, and challenging experiences of my life. I have learned so much and come to love the bike touring lifestyle, so in many ways, it will be sad for my travels to end for the time being. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to seeing my family and friends, and to bringing the confidence and insight I have discovered within myself through this tour into my home life; though I will be returning to a relatively mundane life, I know that it can be just as challenging and exciting as the life I have been living during my travels. All I have to do is be present in it, for the very act of living is thrilling if you give it enough appreciation. 

Serendipity

The view from the porch

Sometimes, things just fall into place more perfectly than I ever could have dreamed they would. Like this whole bike trip for example. In mid December, I got home from Kroka with a vague notion that perhaps I might want to bike across the country somehow this spring, and now, here I am in late May, sitting outside in Burnsville, North Carolina at a dear friend's house having biked all the way from San Francisco, California. Well, not all the way, there was the train to Los Angeles and a few short drives here and there, but for the most part, I biked. Every setback, rainstorm, injury and blazing afternoon in the unrelenting sun worked out to be just what I needed to learn, grow, and develop my perspective on the world.

Recently, spending time at the Great Smoky Mountains Peace Pagoda felt like the epitome of the coincidental blessings of my journey. When I arrived, I could immediately feel how much I needed to be there. The gorgeous views of the smoky mountains, delicious food, meaningful work, and welcoming, kind and inspiring people at the peace pagoda all nourished me in a way that my body and soul was longing for before returning home.

Taking a trip to the stream on a hot afternoon...

At the peace pagoda, I was able to reflect on my journey and come to a grounded place within myself before it comes to a close. Denise and Utsumi, the two monks who have dedicated their lives towards the building of the Smoky Mountains Peace Pagoda, are inspiring and hard working people who bring to their work a great reverence for life's complexity. Nothing is forced upon the volunteers who come to work at the peace pagoda, and they give everyone room to savor the hard work as well as the beautiful area. They are practical people, but also visionaries who have never been stopped by the magnitude of the projects they pursue.

During work camps, which happen twice a year, anyone can come and help with the building of the peace pagoda and maintaining the gardens, temple and other structures that have been built to support the creation of the peace pagoda. When I was there, most of our work was confined to gardening and making parts of the railing for the peace pagoda because we were a small work crew.

"Parts of a railing" alludes to something small and delicate, like the rungs of a ladder, but the railing we were making is anything but delicate, though it is quite beautiful. Each of the pieces we made with molds for the concrete probably weighed over 70 pounds, and the larger pieces were most likely over 100. Every morning, after two hours of drumming and chanting, a walk around the property and a delicious breakfast, we would unscrew the molds, take them apart, wash, dry and oil them before screwing them back together and pouring freshly mixed concrete into them again to harden for the next day. It is a tedious task, but I did learn more than I ever have about the process of mixing, pouring and settling concrete while also gaining a true appreciate for the enormous amount of work that goes into building a 75 ft. high peace pagoda out of concrete.

The five days I spent working at the peace pagoda flew by quickly, but I was also happy to get back on the road when Monday came around. The ride from the peace pagoda to Burnsville was tough, 84 miles with many, many hills, but I had a hot shower, comfortable bed, supper and a few days of rest to look forward to when I arrived at Heather and Michael's beautiful home. These past few days, I have enjoyed spending time with their family and giving my body a rest before I head over to Charlotte to catch the train.

 As the days of this journey dwindle, I look back on all that it has taught me and marvel that such an expedition can work out so beautifully. I feel the tug of summer planning and the fear of losing the confidence in myself that I have gained this spring bearing down upon me, but if there is one thing I have learned, it is that being in the present moment is the only way to truly live, so that is the place I return to, knowing that in it I will find all the answers to my questions.

The temple, where we drummed and chanted each morning and evening.