Archive for May, 2008
What a wonderful world
There are more stars than you would believe overhead, and well fed campers are climbing into bed. We just got back from the Stagecoach Restaurant in Stockton, Alabama, which is full of some of the most warm, generous people we’ve met so far. Today was our day off the bikes, so we took advantage of our leisure time to get to know each other more and break out the costumes (and the fire dancing equipment). We were probably the biggest show that Stockton has seen in a while – Erin broke out her Dolly Parton costume, circa 1985, complete with frizzy blond wig and heels. The rest of us were dressed in an array of brightly colored wigs, boas, and assorted accoutrements. We walked into the Stagecoach and a woman poked her head out. “Ya’ll the ones that’s biking to New York City?” she asked. We told her we were, and she said “You go on in now. It’s on the house.”
We paraded inside and proceeded to stuff ourselves with one of the best seafood buffets I’ve had in my lifetime- boiled shrimp, catfish, clams, and all the fixin’s a group of hungry cyclists could dream of – slaw, grits, green beans, baked beans, and peach cobbler for dessert.
On the way out, we stopped to take a picture at the buffet, which was in the shape of a stagecoach (complete with awning, or whatever you call the thing on the top of a stagecoach), and Miss Nancy, the piano player, broke into “what a wonderful world”. All twelve of us linked arms around the piano and sang together “I see skies of blue, and clouds of white, the bright blessed day and the dark sacred night, and I think to myself, what a wonderful world.”
I feel so incredibly lucky to be on the road with these women – I have already learned far more about myself than I ever thought possible, and we are already so much deeper into this living, this life on the road, than I thought we would be only five days in. It’s funny how hard it is to anticipate what it will be like, because it’s always beyond my wildest expectations. Tomorrow we hit the road again, and I can’t wait.
For those of you who are reading this before June 4th, we’re still looking for a place to stay in Birmingham, Alabama, next Wednesday June 4th, so if you know someone who can host email me at wanderlust at protectchoice.org
Mobile, and the third day
It’s Nora, again, writing and yawning at the same time. We just rode up from our first meeting in Mobile, where we met with three activists from the local NOW chapter. I’m writing from the main hall of the Unitarian Universalist church in Mobile, looking out at the Zen Altar and Vanessa in front of me, organizing her clothes, watching Paris and Erin change a bike seat while Heather examines her camera, Elisa writes, and Megumi climbs into her sleeping bag.
It’s pretty amazing how fast we’ve formed a community, out here on the road. Yesterday I rode with the group for the first time, and the feeling of riding out in a tribe of women was like nothing else on earth. We slid down the Gulf Coast, flags flapping in the wind while construction workers gaped and drivers gave us incredulous looks. Twice, now, I’ve told people what we’re doing and once I’ve explained that we’re riding for reproductive justice, they’ve said, “Oh, is that like pro-choice?” We talked yesterday, as a group, about how to frame what we’re doing in a way that allows us to talk about reproductive justice in a way that resonates with people while not sounding like we’re just trying to avoid saying choice or abortion.
Tonight we talked about what reproductive justice looks like in Mobile, and it was an amazing, thought provoking conversation. At the beginning of the conversation, Mindy, the Mobile Bay NOW President, talked about how frustrating it was that in 2004 the March for Women’s Lives happened, the largest march in US History, and no one noticed. I saw heads nodding – many of us were at the march, and several people organized contingents.
It got me thinking about the difference between a march and a movement. I think that one of the reasons that the March for Women’s Lives wasn’t successful was that it became a cause instead of an effect. All of the organizing went into getting bodies to the march, as if the accumulation of bodies on the Washington Mall would somehow impact the space time continuum and/or public policy. But here’s the thing- marches are only effective as a demonstration of a movement’s strength. And that march wasn’t so much a demonstration of our movement’s strength as it was a demonstration of the fact that it is indeed possible, with enough planning, to get 1 million people to be in the same place for six hours. This doesn’t change the fact that the march was a powerful, life changing experience for many people, but it doesn’t make it a movement.
In this room, people are slowly gathering for our evening check in, and I’m so tired it feels like my eyeballs are going to fall out, but the riders have promised they’ll post more tomorrow.
There was a nice article about the ride on the NY Times Summer Institute website, which you can check out here.
And so it begins
It’s Nora, perched on a bunk bed in an air conditioned quonset hut the likes of which we hadn’t seen in days. It’s sort of incredible, really, that the twelve of us seem to be getting along given that we’ve spent the last three days in 90 degree heat without any air conditioning whatsoever. We were talking earlier about how much air conditioning changed life in many parts of the world, brought people in off their porches and closed doors, divided neighbors. Was it worth it? Right now, my answer is a big emphatic YES.
But enough about air conditioning. There are much more important and less frivolous things to discuss.
We left New Orleans this morning, a tribe of women moving, building a movement as we move through the world. It was one of the most powerful moments I’ve ever experienced, knowing that we were bringing a dream to life, knowing that no matter what, the ride would change our lives and the lives of those we touched.
I feel so deeply, deeply grateful to all the people who made this trip possible, especially the crew in New Orleans without whom I don’t know what we would have done. The story of New Orleans is amazing, fantastic and absurd all at once. I was fortunate to meet a woman named Amy Marlow last summer when I passed through Delaware, and she made me pancakes and we decided to be friends even though we lived very far away from each other. She ended up in New Orleans, and when she heard I was coming there to start Wanderlust 2, she invited me to stay with her. Of course, I turned into twelve, and we turned the house into a chaotic mess of women and energy bars and bike parts for three days. Amy not only didn’t complain, she cooked for us, drove us around, and was generally more wonderful than I thought humanly possible.
Amy, of course, doesn’t exist in a vacuum, which meant that we also spent the weekend being treated to various and sundry bike repairs from Ric, our official Wanderlust mechanic without whom many of us would probably not be here today, Noah, who works at city health clinic and talked to us about the state of health care in New Orleans (in a word, atrocious), and Alli, who took us on a historical bike tour of the city on Sunday exploring the politics of Katrina, the recovery, economic justice, and New Orleans.
I know some of the riders will be able to share more eloquently than me about the experience of being in the Lower Ninth Ward where the levee breached, but I will say that it felt important to be there, to start our trip bearing witness to the ways in which the catastrophic failure of social, economic, educational, and environmental systems turns a force of nature into a natural disaster.
In many ways, Katrina was just a day in America writ large, a massive example of the kinds of small scale disasters that happen every day. And make no mistake about it, Katrina was massively devastating, and impacted the lives of millions of people in sudden and irrevocable ways. But it reminds me why of all the reasons to write and to ride, this one seems most important.
I ride for reproductive justice because it connects issues in way that is resonant with the lived experiences of people I’ve met, and it holds bodily autonomy as the central, critical nexus of our activism. Without being able to become a parent, express your sexuality, not become a parent, and have control over your body, it can be incredibly difficult to make decisions in other areas of life. And just as the politics of Katrina fell along racial and socio-economic lines, the heirarchy of decision making power in our society often falls along those same lines.
I ride to find out if those lines are fixed or mutable, and if we can use this trip to begin building a movement that encompasses a broad vision of what reproductive justice means.
Do you have specific things you’re interested in knowing more about the trip? Leave a comment, let us know, and look forward to many more posts from the intrepid Wanderlust crews about our daring adventures and explorations.
nola to louie and a full day of cycles
today was… OUR FIRST DAY OF RIDING!!!
a triumphant blast out of NOLA, a few intimidating bridges, countless dead animals carcasses on the side of the road, and all the bayou you can shake a stick (or maybe a bike flag) at.
it sure was a full day (60.1 miles by my cyclometer’s count, maybe a few less according to Google), and i, along with many others, have the tender quads and sun’s cruel markings to show for it. quite a few of us, despite consistently lathering up the sunblock, are feeling the heat now radiate off of our cherry-colored skin. c’e la vie, as they’d say in hospitaple new orleans.
now as we crash out in an air-conditioned tent provided by Mission on the Bay Christ Episcopal Church, i feel grateful for the comfortable pace with which we’ve eased into this trip. two and a half days in the crescent city allowed us to not only learn some things about the weather, culture, and history of this intense area, but also let us obviously get to know each other, and become a much more close-knit community than i would have thought possible in such a short period of time.
and the good feeling we share seems to be bouncing back from the people we’ve randomly met so far along the road. tonight we discussed how best to communicate our trip message and goals to those who flit in and out of our path, if only in three sentences. there are elements of not wishing to “scare” people off with pro-choice talk while still being honest. and truly, how to explain the complexity of a movement that is so new, and can encompass so much- a real human rights initiative. these ideas are constantly evolving, so lets just hope those with any interest keep checking back in with this blog (like the courteous firemen we met today)!
there is way too much i’d like to add right now, but my bunk bed is calling my name ever so invitingly. all i can say is i’m ready for the next adventure, and perhaps a few more traffic-filled bridges.
elisa
And so it begins
It’s Nora, and although I’m sure everyone has stories already to share with you, I’m taking a moment away from post-dinner conversation to go over the route planning for Monday and Tuesday. Everyone arrived safely, and we are almost all together and ready to go, with some minor exceptions. Things here are wonderful and absurdly hectic, as you may imagine, but we’ve fallen in with some truly amazing people who’ve been making us welcome, fixing our bikes, cooking us dinner, and inviting us to parades. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Today and tomorrow are orientation and getting to know you days, and Monday is our big launch, so we may not have a lot of time to write between now and then, but we look forward to bringing you the full and uncensored story of Wanderlust as it happens. And also pictures, I promise.
