So, it begins.
Here.
A half-decade, or more, past, it was just an idea: barely formed - that it was time to start doing the things I have always wanted to do, while I still could. For almost a decade, mortality has been stalking me in ways I didn't foresee in my mid-forties. And I wanted to make sure I could both enjoy some more of the planet while I was able and share it with people I cared about. And this was one of the things.
It has been a long time since I first read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (this will be referred to henceforth as ZATAOMM), but I still remember what it was like to be riveted to the floor of whatever room I was in and unable to put down a story, and an idea, that enabled so many of my own feelings and thoughts to coalesce into something... not just coherent, but New.
Today (and by "today", I mean "in these times" - political, social, technological - the seeming rapid acceleration via Moore's Law and the shiniest of handbaskets toward Something Big...) I feel the need to examine the lessons of Robert Pirsig's epic ride across the "high country of the mind" ever more viscerally and urgently.
Because, for those who haven't read the book, it is primarily concerned not with Zen, or with motorcycles - but with finding new ways to see. And I think we, all of us, desperately need a new way to see. To see each other, to see ourselves, a new way to interact without the rancor that we have insisted on in our pursuit of the Next Big Thing.
So, the Plan.
First it was just this:
1) Get my bike in order,
2) Pack up some camping stuff, and
3) On the 50th anniversary of the original ride, follow Robert Pirsig's path across the top of the country, and the figurative top of metaphysical thought, and see what has changed, and what has stayed the same.
4) Keep a record, take a lot of pictures. Maybe even take some video.
5) And then, share as I went, charging some small fee for the experience of following me, as I had emptied all my savings into surviving surgeries. (Yes, there is such a thing as a medical credit card - and now its the only credit card I have.)
Good times, right? - A vacation, and a travelog, and rebuilding my savings and credit rating, all from the seat of a motorcycle. Pirsig's ride takes 17 days - I could probably get work to spring me for three straight weeks, if I wheedled sufficiently,...
But then, things started changing.
I kept getting busier, and the busy was good - I have had the most active five years of my theatrical career in my fifties, but it has meant that some things got shoved aside. Like writing, which I used to do far more often. And riding. And traveling to see loved ones.
And then, it was finally time for my knee surgery (well, it had been time for a while, but, procrastination becomes exponentially easier when it involves putting off a major surgical procedure that promises pain, and more pain, in the service of mayyyybe getting a long-term benefit... did I mention the pain?)
So I made the appropriate appointments, and started making the preparations. And scheduled the date.
And then, November of 2016 happened. Now, I was much less convinced than my friends and betters that it couldn't. Whether it's because I am extra-brilliant, extra-paranoid, or just more jaded about the general foibles of the fat middle of the bell curve, I don't know. But I saw it coming before most of my friends did, which is to say, before it actually happened. Remember: that means I saw it coming before the current President did, according to most accounts. So i am not surprised, really, that he often seems to be unhappier to be there than many are to have him - I don't think he ever intended on being there.
I emphasize this not to proclaim my abilities as a prognosticator, but to downplay the degree to which it affected my course. The election of 2016 would only figure into my plan later...
Because, wait:
Back in October of '16, I met up with a dear friend, and she brought me a book we had just started talking about - yes, it was slightly dog-eared copy of ZATAOMM. Because I had been talking about this ride, and she had just read the book, and loved it, and shouldn't I have it so I can take it with me instead of my signed First Edition which would not weather the miles well...
Because that's how Tricia was.
TRIGGER WARNING: If you know Tricia McCauley, you may want to avoid the next paragraph - because here and only here do I discuss at all the things we don't discuss.
***On Christmas Day, 2016, Tricia McCauley was abducted, raped, and murdered on her way to Christmas dinner. If you didn't know her, or know of her, you must trust me when I say there is probably not a person of any age or demeanor who deserved less to meet this end. But that's what happened. And it rent a jagged wound through multiple communities: Washington theatre, the yoga community, the herbalist and healer community; all mourned, and mourn still. We held each other, we wept together - some of us lashed out, but a surprising super-majority just buckled down to healing and loving harder. Many of us still don't have a safe way to contemplate such horror, more than a year later. But we have each other.***
So, now, Tricia is a part of the memory, and purpose of this whole journey, this Ride.
I'm going to back up again (because that's what I do) and talk again about my riding. This past year was taken up with a lot of things - mostly healing - first, from the knee surgery, then from the other knee surgery, since the first one wasn't... optimal. But it was also the first year in... eight? that I didn't do something I have done every other year: I have ridden in Dick Gelfman's Ride Across Maryland.
Mr. Gelfman stared the Ride some 20 or so years ago, as a charity event to benefit breast cancer research (a cause I know is very important not just in its own right, but to many, many of those dear to me and reading this.) and treatment in Maryland. It grew and grew until, in its peak years, it began to look like a mini-Sturgis or Rolling Thunder, heading to the Maryland beach for one weekend, and raising money for breast cancer research along the way. Then, a couple of years ago, because Dick was getting on, I suppose, and perhaps to try and continue the growth after a couple of missteps along the way, the Ride merged with the Ulman Fund For Cancer Research. For a couple of years, it looked as though the partnership might work to everyone's benefit, but, last year, it was announced that the Ride would not be happening. So that's why i didn't ride - not because I couldn't, but because it didn't happen. As far as I know, it is remaining on hiatus this year, as well.
Riding for charity has become something that I identify with; I loved that I had found a way, a couple of times a year, to make my hobby pay off for others, and you all - my friends - the people who stop by my FB page and read my little rants, were a big part of that - for five years running, thanks to you, I was one of the single largest individual fundraisers for the Ride. I miss that.
But in truth, I am still fighting my way back from a year of emptying every cent I had saved into health care
Then it occurred to me that I could roll a whole bunch of things I wanted to do into ONE - because those who know me, know I'm never as energized as when I am trying to do too much.
So, the New Plan:
1) See above. Do ALL that.
2) Raise the goal substantially - actually, more than double it.
3) Donate 1/2 of every dollar raised to The Tricia Fund. (See link and explanation below.)
4) In each state through which I pass, plant something in T's memory.
5) Along the way: engage in as many honest, open, conversations as I can with people from each walk of life - conducting a sort of informal survey: not political, so much as spiritual/educational. I am not sure what the questions will be, but they have to be conversational, and give me (us) an idea of what people who are not us want.
This was going to take a lot more than three weeks.... but then came the last big change.
In August, i officially left the bender JCC after 14 mostly productive and fulfilling years, to switch careers (or at least focus) in the Theatre Department of St. Mary's College of Maryland, where I used to have an ongoing guest relationship. Which, among other things means:
I get Summers Off.
And the last piece has fallen in place.
I have all of July at my disposal, and all of June to prep. So: screw Pirsig's ride*. I'm all of three hours from the Atlantic Ocean; why not ride to the shore, and start from the beach? Good bye, Ride Across Maryland; Hello,
The Ride Across America
-OR-
Dr. Incorrigible's Ride-Along Blog
So, welcome, and hop on board. Hold on tight.
Because: Roads?
Where we're going, we Don't. Need. Roads.
*Don't worry - I'm still doing Pirsig's ride.
The Tricia Fund
The Tricia Fund
