Biweekly Update From Ira's Inter-Temporal Search for Going Home #4 [Ultimate Ping]

Hey hey, Tonight I made it home from the Inter-Temporal and I'm grateful to sleep in my own bed (see here for some high-brow Ivy research that states the obvious which your grandmother could have told you about how it takes a night to adjust when sleeping in a new location), get back to my kombucha brew, see my NYC-based peeps, and have a piano in arm's reach. I can't say that I'm as excited for these New York City tennis court wait-times but they're my New York City tennis court wait-times so I'm prepared to mitigate. When I thought about what I was going to say in this update I considered all the different ways I could make grand statements about life and philosophy by zooming in on and personifying the relatively trivial parts of my week because after all I spent the week celebrating birthdays (happy birthday to me, happy birthday Dad!) and in Vermont... Then on the other hand, I could give the Biweekly what I know they really want which is the white-hot takes on the most dramatic 10 seconds of the whole week which involved me going over my handlebars as an 18-wheeler passed on the left: <ol> <li>After leaving the birthday-fest at my parents' shack I started the 129 mile journey to Bellows Falls on bike (minus the first 40 miles that my Aunt Kate graciously drove me and some middling 25 miles where I Ubered after my legs gave out which was many a mile after my ass gave out); for whatever reason I guess I can't just jump on some bike that hasn't been touched in years and crank out random numbers of miles in random directions. Kate dropped me in Orwell where I met Andy whose the quintessential New Yorker defected off to Vermont for peace and quiet and now lives in a house between two lakes - Sunrise and Sunset. When he heard about my ride to Bellows Falls, as if by some act of clairvoyance or perhaps the spirit of Chekhov himself came down into Andy's body to impart the Act Two cautionary line, he warned me about which roads have the best shoulders and I remember myself almost chuckling out loud about shoulders, who gives a fuck about shoulders!! As it would turn out I would not three hours later as I ended up on Vermont 30-S which is busier than all the other roads I'd been on, and you guessed it, has a shit shoulder!!!</li> <li>I'd been riding for a while at this point, troubleshooting this and that as I went - I just need to get to a paved road and then it'll be easier, I just need to get these brakes adjusted and then I'll be making better time, I just need to find some water because now it's getting hot, etc... I'm always good about checking over my shoulder to see what's coming but I'd never had the experience of turning my head to see an 18 wheeler accelerating right at me from directly behind - no honk, no indicator, no waiting for me to turn and show that I see him, no nothing. My body, as if by manual override, gave a hard "NOPE!!!" and yanked me off the road but my wheel caught just perpendicular enough to send me sailing straight over the handlebars, here the <a href = "https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PZ3OpdLzKyMEv6HDSzeAJJNMx01d5E6B?usp=drive_link" target = "_blank" rel = "noopener">pics</a> for the curious: I landed on my left hip and scraped my knees/hands pretty good but mercifully didn't break any of my stuff or the bike in any way that totally stopped me from riding the rest of the week (although I think I jacked the fork in a way that made it way weaker, read on).</li> <li>I can't remember ever being so far out of control - out of control of my body, out of control of my mind, out of control of time, and out of control over where I was going - be it where I would land or whose path I was going to end up in. Usually in close calls I still have some decision-making ability and some amount of autonomy but this was truly a Jesus-take-the-wheel situation. Hat tip to the multiple Vermont cars that stopped and made sure I was okay and another tip of my hat to myself for getting back up on the bike. I had another much less epic wipe out right at the end of my time in Vermont, which was probably a result of the fork being weakened before, when I was coming down a measly hill with no handlebars and my bike scooted off the road in just the right way for me to barrel-role over the handlebars again into a big ass stack of leaves, despite only going something on the order of five or six miles an hour. This is when the fork really got shanked and the front wheel went where it went, all to the tune of $320 worth of damage that could no longer be denied.</li> </ol> In addition to this prime cut of road-meat close-call, I can also confirm that Grafton is another victim to the epidemic sweeping the nation which is pickleball (rip one of the courts I played on as a kid all those summers and summers ago) and when I asked the woman at the general store about news of Grafton she looked me dead in the eye and said "you and I both know there's nothing going on here." I'm grateful to be home so that I can get back to my routines and integrate everything I saw, learned, felt, and fell in love with into my day-to-day - traveling without coming home is running and every now and again we need a yank from our routines to scare ourselves senselessly enough to come back willing participants. This little tour was just what I needed to brace myself for another year in the public ed trenches, armed with memories, renewed connections, adventure, and a few more weeks of survival under my belt that will hopefully help me navigate it all with just a little bit more elegance and poise that only comes with traveling. Until the next tour, Ira