Author Archive
Who I am Now
So I’m in my apartment right now drinking some excellent white wine from the Grapefull Sisters Vineyard and thinking about the trip. My life feels so empty right now. Even though I have plenty of friends, none of my friends understand Wanderlust in her entirety.
I’m having my period right now so I’m not biking anymore until my crimson waves are over. My body feels week and is urning to bike. Everywhere I go I see bikers and I wish I were them taking the road. My internship with PEP ends mid-August and currently I am in the middle of searching for another job. I seriously am considering being a bike messenger.
I miss being surrounded by 10 other people. Its really lonely here in the big apple. I’m craving an adventure. I’m thinking about joining a cycling club, but I know the cycling club will not be able to replace Wanderlust.
I was speaking to my Grandaddy on the phone the other night as I was making dinner, and I was talking to him about biking. I told him he should bike more, like he should go to the store via bicycle instead taking his car. I told him I’d bring my bike home when I go to visit Ohio at the end of August and we could ride together. He thought I was crazy, and I said that I wasn’t crazy, I was just really into biking!
I wish all the other Wanderlusties were here with me in New York. I wish we could recreate the magical world we had for 6 amazing weeks. I feel so changed. I feel so awake. I feel so different. For example, even thought I’m looking for a new job right now, I don’t want just any job, I want a job that will make a difference and change the world. I don’t want to sell out. I want to be helping and not hurting the world. I don’t want to me a money hungry consumer. Yes I still love to shop and everything, but I’m more consious now where I am spending my money.
I am really trying to teach others everything I learned on Wanderlust, especially the Non-violent communication stuff I learned. I think its very powerful for one to express their needs to others. I am working on being a better communicator.
Everyone knows how I want to be a real estate developer, now I want to develop commune group living communities…I’ve been researching it for the past week, and I really want to learn more. I’m actually considering attending Burning Man now…..uh-oh world…watch out THA KJA won’t STOP!!!
hahhah well I know I just typed a lot of random thoughts and everything, but I though the world needed to hear what was on my mind.
Stay healthy, stay engaged, and never forget!
-Tha KJA aka Kathleen aka K. Dot
Pieces from my life post Wanderlust….
Hello Hello!
I miss everyone sooo much!
First things first…
So I’m really into biking now! Its so in my body! At first I HATED biking but now I do it everyday. I took my bike on the Metro North up to the Fordham campus in the Bronx. I didn’t want to waste money on a gypsy cab from my storage facility to campus, so I biked from the storage facility 2 miles away with a backpack on AND a tote bag hanging between my legs as I dodged out of busy traffic. I was really proud of myself 
I’ve been biking to and from my summer classes everyday. Last Wednesday after class was let out at 9pm I returned to the bike rack on 60th and Broadway (a VERY busy area) and found that my beloved ligths, pump, AND cyclometer were stolen. I cannot believe someone could be so rotten and swipe such petty items. It was dark outside and I really wish I had my lights as I biked home… But I’ve grown and matured due to the trip, and I hope whoever took my bike accessories really needed them and I hope the items are put to good use….:)
So this morning as I was getting dressed to go to work I was watchng the Reigis and Kelly show and during some small talk they mentioned a dog that was lost in Queens, NY and was found 5 years and 850 miles later in Georgia….so all you wanderlusties who thought I was CRAZY when I said that dog Sam was Diamond, realize that really I’m not crazy and that WAS Diamond my beloved dog…..:)
–Kathleen Adams aka K.Dot aka tha KJA
“Unbreak my heart”
Our last morning of Wanderlust 2008!
Erin here- Kathleen is singing Toni Braxton (oh yes, she’s magically tonedeaf!) and we’re all sitting around the breakfast table musing on what these final hours of the tour feel like. Kathleen’s friend Mona (our fabulous SheBeast volunteer van driver for the day, i.e we all want to bike into NYC together) asked if we think we’re in the best shape of our lives. A whole slew of answers is given- not just a resounding yes. ( I would say my thighs have never been so girth-y and phat -a significant fact from a soccer player of 23 years). So yes on my last morning I’m musing on how strong (physically and emotionally) I feel and being reminded of how I’ve changed. At the start of the tour I rode fast!, pounding along the route. But by this point i’ve slowed my pace way down. strolling and dancing on bike (yesterday we enjoyed mad nineties tunes through philly- our Sound Can is fixed and restrapped to the back of Nora’s bike Rhonda- thanks again Petri!), trying to take it all in. i feel powerful, full, confident and able to stand back and pause thanks to Wanderlust. This makes me stronger as a leader, a group member, an artist, as a community organizer, a critical voice, and as a woman committed to anti-racist work . I feel more competent and find myself looking at experiences in a comprehensive manner- I’ve been forced to accept the glory and the flawed nature of something large, complex and ultimately satisfying b/c of the inherent beauty in the dialectic. My heart and head have been trained to work together in a whole new way. Yes! I return to another world and have decided the only way to re-enter is to ride into New York in the Amphibian suit!!!
Horses and Goldfish……
It’s Nora, bringing you Friday morning group blogging, from a goldfish farm that is also a horse farm.
No one is entirely sure how we ended up here, but here we are – in Bunnlevel, North Carolina, at the Little River Trails horse camp and goldfish farm. We’re sitting in an enormous square dancing pavilion with more picnic tables than we know what to do with, and we realized last night how drastically our standards have fallen when we’re excited that a place we stay has both more than one shower and more than one electrical outlet. We may never leave.
In our last two weeks, we are traveling through almost as many states as we’ve passed through in the first three and a half. More than anything, this trip has Abeen a lesson in geography, and it makes me think about the ways that physical space determines our reality. A shocking amount of the country is full of not a whole lot, and we’ve spent more time than not traveling down deserted rural roads through farmlands and past abandoned country stores. Over the next two weeks, though, we’ll be riding into the Eastern Seaboard and thickly settled suburbs, through almost a state a day.
So from Wanderlustland, our thoughts on geography and the places we’ve been.
Mel and Elizabeth here, who don’t like Fayatteville. We had to ride Critical Mass thro the city because the cars apparently didn’t believe it possible that single file bicyclists and two lanes of traffic could coexist. And even the fuzzy navel sno-cone that Elizabeth got was gross. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the Grapefull Sisters Vineyard is a Wanderlusty favorite. It was located in coastal North Carolina, and could be described as Paradise. We REALLY wanted to stay there forever! Amy and Sheila told us about their adventures taking out cotton on the family farm to replace it with native Muscodine grapes, which they then used to make amazing wine. We know, we got to do a wine-tasting. Sheila is getting into the SLOW food movement, and told us about her efforts to support and promote locally grown wines and grape varieties (check out ncwines.org). Amy stood in her kitchen while we were sampling the Southern Charm variety, and told us how she had hammered nails and set installation in every wall of the house, although we don’t know who installed the Futuristic Robot Shower and Bath Tub. It was complete with flashing blue lights, music, a radio, a mysterious lady bug button that we never figured out, shooting jets in every direction, and at least three Wanderlusties at any given moment (to save water, duh!).
Elizabeth says we find ourselves so much in the moment from place to place and the trend is for us to feel so elated when arriving safely at the next destination that we say “this is the best yet. Let’s stay here!” This has something to do with the weird way we experience time here, which is as a continuous time warp. Heather says “every day is a full experience unto itself and unique from the previous.” When trying to explain the nature of time on the trip, Elisa joined us to say “It’s like time is inverted and making love to itself.” We don’t know what day of the week it is, or what hour when we arrive at camp at the end of the day.
Mel loves watching the moon, which looks a little different from every camp site. Because we’re outside all evening, we can even watch it move across the sky. Other natural phenomena enjoyed by Wanderlusties are the Atlantic Ocean at Myrtle Beach, the varieties of birds and their night calls, and the insects.
Becky now…We all have different feelings about the bugs. Every location has its own variety of mosquitoes, ants, bees, beetles, moths, spiders, and odd flying creatures. We’ve all been bitten by mosquitoes and ants and hardly recognize our own legs because of the bite scars. The South Carolina mosquitoes were fat and black and totally immune to DEET. The bumblebees in North Carolina are huge. Horseflies sometimes follow us as we bike, nipping at our backs. But some of the night creatures have been fascinating and beautiful.
Speaking of night creatures, we heard our first bobcat cries when we were at Jones Lake. They sound like screaming women and it’s pretty spooky.
Here at the fish farm, we’ve enjoyed watching beautiful eastern bluebirds who have taken to dancing around the mirrors of our van.
Because we each take a turn driving the van every couple of weeks, it’s become clear how differently we see the world on bicycle than in a car. From a car, one sees lots of billboards, but from a bicycle those are barely noticed. Instead, a cyclist notices the road, its bumps and curves and hills and trash. A cyclist notices flowers and trees and cows and dogs and ducks. When driving the van, we mostly see buildings and road signs and distant landscape. It’s fun to travel so slowly, waving at people on their porches and appreciating what a diverse country we live in.
Vanessa Renee here now. Watching the landscape change from fields to trees, from skyscrapers to old abandoned barns is my favorite part of each day’s ride. Arriving at Grapefull Sister’s Vineyard two days ago to a beautiful view of corn fields and grape vines is a memory that will stay with me for a long time. Amy and Sheila have created a little piece of paradise on the land that I can’t wait to return to some day.
Shelby Knox, chiming in this morning. I left Texas for New York City about a week after graduation, happy to leave behind the politics, some of the people, and the long, hot, never ending stretches of road that dominated my childhood. Riding through South Carolina and then North Carolina, I have experienced an unexpected nostalgia biking past farms with flags and people waving from the porch, and going into the only grocery store in town, knowing that the owner will relay our visit to his family over dinner because we were the only outsiders to pop in for the day. I find myself for the first time since I moved away starting sentences with “In Texas, we…” or “Because I’m from Texas…”.
I feel in my bones and heart the gentle hospitality, the willingness to help, some of the judgment and the same fascination with people whose reality is almost unimaginable, which I felt for the first time when two New Yorkers came to my small Texas town to tell my story. I couldn’t imagine their life, or what mine would be just five years later, but I suddenly saw that my reality did not necessarily hold true everywhere – and set off on a journey to discover as many realities as possible, intuiting that was the way to make the world a more just place in some small way. This journey led me to feminism, to progressive politics, to the reproductive justice movement, and eventually to Wanderlust, where my reality has coincided with that of nine other amazing women, each of whom has taught me so much already and who I am honored to pedal, discuss, disagree and grow with everyday. Just as the geography changes as we ride, I can feel the geography of my heart and mind expanding, becoming hilly and mountainous in some places and flat and calm as the old Texas roads in others. I want to thank each Wanderlustie for creating a space in which this is possible – and encourage all of us and every person reading to continue to look past your own reality and inside of other people and their worlds. This is amazing, and there is no place I would rather be.
Kathleen here! Geography…hmmm…. Myrtle Beach was a challenge for me. It was so busy and congested. We busted out about 25 miles or so in a urban area crossing over in dangerous traffic on highways and bridges. I never felt my heart beat so fast before in my life! I loved the difference in scenery when we made our way to the Grapefull Sisters Vineyard. It was all pure farm land. Though I consider myself an “urban gal” it kinda made me want to settle down some place quiet and live on a farm and bake pies! The journey to the horse farm was not so peaceful. I had an anxiety attack biking through the thick traffic. It seemed as if the drivers wanted to drive us off the road! Why can’t we all share the road?
Speaking of the horse farm….This nice lady pulled up on a golf cart with a little brown dog. I asked her what kind of dog it is and she said she had no clue but the dog showed up about a year ago. (I’LL UP DATE MORE ON THIS STORY LATER WHEN I HAVE MORE TIME TO TYPE….)
Today we are making our way up to the Chapel Hill vicinity and I’ll blog later on what the terrain was like!
More from Georgia…..
Tuesday, Hard Labor Creek State Park
It’s Nora again, bringing you morning group blogging from Hard Labor Creek State Park, which was a Civilian Conservation Corps project during the Depression. After a much needed break, we finally rolled out of Atlanta Monday morning, through some serious suburban sprawl and at least one unfortunate sharp object that attacked Heather Mooney’s wheel. We also got Megan diagnosed, and although she did break the arm, it’s not nearly as bad as it could be.
We’re in the market for a tandem, preferably a recumbent tandem, that Megan and I can ride from Charleston to New York City, so if you have one we can borrow we’ll pay for shipping!
It’s striking how much wealthier Georgia is than Alabama, and how much development there is. What were recently forests have been converted into tract homes that advertise “granite countertops” and “side by side washer and dryer!” It’s much harder to find covert places to pee, leading at least some of us to semi-traumatic dreams about peeing in public. We spend more time than you would imagine thinking about places to pee, and the development has led to some close run-ins with homeowners to whom we’d rather not explain what we’re doing in their front yards.
We’re moving into Georgia pine forests, on our way to Augusta tracing the footsteps of General Sherman’s march to the sea. Although I thought that the South was just always hot, apparently this heat is more oppressive than usual. It was easily in the triple digits yesterday, and we spent a good bit of time resting in the shade.
It’s been interesting traveling through the places we’ve read about in textbooks, seeing for ourselves the landscapes that are overlaid with the story of this country. We talk as a group about the ways in which we are playing out history, both the valuable, empowering traditions of women and witches and mothers and the negative, debilitating history of mistrust and isolation that is part of our legacy. We struggle with the ways that we are not as good to each other as we should be, and we are working to create a space and a group that honors each of us, our histories and our truths.
