Wanderlust

It’s Nora, bringing you, once again, some morning group blogging, this time from (k)notsquat, the fabulous collective that has been our home in Philly. We’re just two days of riding and less than 100 miles from New York City, and it feels strange and unexpected, to me anyway, to be so close to the end of Wanderlust. We had our last meeting in Philadelphia last night, and it was incredibly inspiring to meet the activists and educators who came out to talk with us. The meetings were an experiment - both in whether or not we’d be able to organize meetings in cities we weren’t from, in places we’d never been to, and an experiment in creating space. It always felt to me like I spent so much time working with people that I never got a chance to talk to them about why they were there. I don’t know what kinds of connections or realizations will come out of the conversations we’ve had, but I do know that I come out of every conversation feeling like there is a movement, a network of people working together to create a world in which women have the resources they need to make healthy decisions about their bodies and their lives.

Mel here, *drafting* off Nora’s thoughts (see bike nerds, I AM learning some lingo). Someone at last night’s meeting said they were feeling depressed by the state of affairs in Philly and they wanted me to tell them an inspirational story from somewhere with a “stronger” movement than Philly. I responded that the inspirational thing for me was not a particular place per se but the fact that people came out in each place we passed thro and opened themselves to meaningful exchanges. In every single meeting, people came to talk about their struggles to promote healthier bodies and lives for women, and they came open and willing to connect with each other as well as with perfect strangers from out-of-town (who on top of it all probly didn’t smell very good). In almost every place, people expressed a sense of isolation. I tried to explain to the group I was talking with last night the kind of feeling it gives me when I move thro community after community expressing the same sense of isolation and yet there are all these people at all these meetings, and they’re doing and thinking and going against the grain of their community’s espoused values. That’s the heart of it, for me anyways, and I look forward to spending more time thinking about Wanderlust and all the ways that it has inspired me.

Kathleen here!–I’m almost home to New York….its so close its as if I can taste it! The ride into Philly was really long….a 70 mile plus day of up and down hills IN THE RAIN and without food for the first 6 hours of it. I was soooo tired at the end of the day. I was a bit skeptical when I got to this place we are staying but then I warmed up to it once I found out more about what this house is about….Yesterday I spent part of the day checking emails and relaxing!!! I later biked thru Philly and visited a medical museum that was pretty cool….but overpriced. I then went shopping for a new outfit (all my clothes are so nasty…plus I needed an outfit for our New York welcome back party). Our meeting that night was jam packed with interested people from the Philly area who are interested in what we are doing. One of my mom’s friends, Ruth, came and it really meant a lot to me. Later we went to a bar and the chef gave the pizza to us to for free! That was really nice We were all giddy and I got up and started dancing and as Erin was spinning me I fell FLAT on my face and almost hit a table. Everyone at the bar stopped. Good thing I wasn’t hurt too bad. Only my pride was bruised a little, lol…. My knee hurts, I have like rug burn now! We met some cool girls from Drexel last night at the bar, and they danced with us and got caught up in all of the craziness of us wanderlusties. Wow…..I’m really sad…

More to come, from the rest of the crew, but now we’re off to Princeton!