Waylaid
[ Day 6 – June 18, 2012 ]
My pre-dawn alarm came and went with little more than a rustle of bed sheets. I slept until eight, waking only to concede to an unscheduled rest day. I donned enough clothes to walk down to the lobby, bought another night’s stay, and hastily returned to my room to sulk and recuperate. I ate an oversized breakfast out of equal parts hunger and disappointment, and, lacking a better idea, went back to bed.
This second sleep did little to lift my spirits, and I idly passed the afternoon listening to music, looking at maps, and attempting to read The Brothers Karamazov, a stupidly ambitious reading choice for a self-supported bike trip. My room-side view of the Eastern Sierras—gorgeous by any account—only added to my frustration at being stuck in one place.
In less than 72 hours, my mood had shifted from elation to apprehension. It was distressing to be waylaid so early in the trip. I wasn’t worried that my chafing problem would require medical attention, but I was concerned that it would derail my plans. What had begun as an open-ended adventure—an escape from the confinements of urban life and the workaday world—quickly developed its own strictures of time and place. I was supposed to meet my friend Niko in Tahoe the following day, and with over 100 miles between my hotel room and our rendezvous point, this seemed unlikely. I had also agreed to meet my college friend Scott a week later, some five hundred miles beyond Tahoe. I needed to resume riding immediately, change my route, or renege on plans I’d made with others; none of these options were appealing. I felt trapped.
Waylaid
Adding to this feeling of panic was a sudden and acute loneliness. The solitary nature of the trip seemed to amplify my mood at every moment: being alone was exhilarating and empowering when things were going well, but thoroughly depressing during moments of difficulty. To make matters worse, I felt loneliness without longing for anyone in particular.
Luckily, I soon grew bored of my own sense of boredom and foreboding. My sense of panic was in many ways overblown, a case of wanting to have my cake and eat it, too.
I thought about the beginning of Gulliver’s Travels, where the shipwrecked Gulliver washes ashore Lilliput, a mysterious island occupied by miniature inhabitants. After a night on the island, he wakes to find that he has been tied down with strand upon strand of Lilliputian rope—mere string to him, but lashed so thoroughly that he is held fast to the ground.
In day-to-day living, we’re tied down not by circumstance, but by our choices. There are no Lilliputians; we tie own lashings, any one of which could be broken on its own, but together, hold us in place. I chose to meet up with my friends just as I chose my route. Circumstance threw me a curve ball such that I could not fulfill each choice as I had originally imagined, but nothing was ruined. If I could thumb it and catch a ride to Tahoe, I could enjoy another day off the saddle while staying on schedule. I’d hitchhiked before and thought I had a decent chance of getting picked up. This didn’t exactly follow the letter of my plans, but it followed the spirit. And besides, there’s nothing particularly inspiring or adventurous about sticking to plans, anyway. I dropped my rigid trip expectations then and there, and made a mental note to abandon The Brothers Karamazov on my way out of town.
[ Daily Miles: 0 ] [ Total Miles: 305 ]