Four months ago I would have considered eating an entire canteloupe in one sitting by myself a rather odd thing to do. Now, however, I can comfortably down two or three. That long road up the coast of Spain taught me a lot, and I learned that canteloupe (or melón, as they say in Spanish) maximized the edible volume to price ratio while still maintaining the minimum desired level of flavor. And so, as Michael and I journeyed northwards to France and then eastwards from Toulouse, my body learned that it would have to get used to this strange new diet (not only consisting of canteloupe, however, but also of canned octopus, boxes of wafers, and the like), lest I end up poor. I felt sorry for the strain I was putting on it, as I had just recently trained it to use toilets with no toilet seats while traveling across Andalucia.
It’s been more than a month and a half since I’ve been back on the US dollar, and I apologize for not having written sooner. I’ve gotten pretty used to speaking English again, though every time I hear someone speaking a different tongue, my heartbeat begins to speed up and I feel a soothing vibe of nostalgia pulse through my blood. It’s almost comforting, I’ve realized, to be able to walk down the street and not know what people are talking about. Instead, you have to discern everything by their facial expressions and bodily gestures. It adds a bit more life to conversation, I think, noticing things like that.
The trip has left a mark on my consciousness, no doubt about it. I can hardly view the world around me now as I had before leaving for Europe. The thoughts in my head that used to stand out as I moseyed about through my daily life have been replaced by thoughts left over from the trip. Having food to eat and a promise of a bed at the end of the night, safe from boars, wildfires, tractors, storms, criminals, and police never took on as much meaning as it did as we traveled across Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy. Now each night I feel thankful for the very roof over my head, although unfortunately gratefulness tends to fade over time. Such is the nature of who we are and cannot help but be. So, while I still bathe in the aura of wonder at the simple things in my life, I’m going to cherish i and try not to let it slip by. I know I’ve got homework and tests and jobs and general stress to take their toll on me in the meantime, but that doesn’t mean that the good has completely gone away on vacation. On the contrary, it’s closer than ever now. So many things that once went by my unnoticed have now fallen into that which I call the good. And it is good, no doubt.
In Europe, Michael and I spent a lot of time alone with nothing but ourselves and our thoughts. Each day’s long haul of biking from one town to the next was incredibly meditative. At times, it would seem as if all the sound and vision faded away from the universe, with the only remaining link to reality being the road’s white sideline that magnetically attracted the wheels of my bicycle, driving us ever forward. Aside from that, there was nothing except silence outside and the oscillation of musings zigzagging around inside our heads, spinning in circles and ricocheting off each other’s forgotten purposes. However, when that got to be too much, I would snap instantly back to the bike that carried me forward, to the road that led my way, to the countryside that surrounded me, to the Earth that kept me from flying away. And the wind would start singing again, rhyming its words with the hum of the traffic, and occasionally a butterfly would catch up to us and fly along the very direction we went, so that as we turned to the side, the butterfly would appear motionless except for the flap of its wings. To me, that was bicycling.
As I wrap up this final entry, I realize I musn’t neglect mentioning the people we met along the way. Joining Couchsurfing showed me that no matter what this world may seem like these days, from all the news stories and media, there are still a huge number of downright good-hearted people, people willing to take you in and feed you and be your friend for the night for absolutely no cover charge, people who will teach you French and serve you European delicacies and laugh with you the whole night long about nothing more than observations on the world. That was fairly comforting, just further evidence that no matter what hard times may come, we’ll always have something to look forward to, for nothing can extinguish the goodness of people.
Alas, if only I could describe it all, but that would take more words than a novel and more pictures than WordPress could reasonably host.
In conclusion, I’ve got to say that it was a pretty amazing experience. It’s good to be back home in Madison, of course, but damn, I’ll never forget that trip.
Also,
God bless America.
Amen.
