Wanderlust

Mel here…

I miss you Wanderlust! In Oakland, working too much and trying to not get *too* overwhelmed in this gigantic family reunion that is overtaking my life and lasting over a week. I think this is FAR too long for any kind of family gathering (except of course a Wanderlust one), but that’s just me….Anyways, I took out some of my overwhelmed frustration on the road today, but as a road-rage biker Naw, just kidding- I didn’t cuss at anyone loud enough for them to hear! But damn, after Wanderlust I feel super strong and super fast on my bike, it’s totally empowering, and then in Oakland you have all these (dare I say this?) wannabe bikers who are SO slow and weave back and forth, and all this traffic that thinks you are also slow and don’t know what you’re doing, which means they don’t actually pay attention to your signals! But not to worry, since I always wear my helmet and I know what I’m tryin’ to do out there so cars and slow bikers can’t get in my way

I wanted to be able to post something rather extraordinary, something that could approach the extraordinariness of Wanderlust, and yet now that I’m here writing I just feel overwhelmed because how could I even begin to approach the extraordinariness of Wanderlust, much less explain it in words? I think that what’s needed at this moment is a list. I’m not sure what exactly this is a list of, but I know that these following things are on it:-

-bicycle tattoo with six stars over my right kidney, drawn by Alex who is also left-handed and loves birds almost as much as i do

-New York hustle bustle concrete jungle, me walking zoned out in its wake, dreaming of bicycles and remembering i have a life waiting for me on the other coast

-a greeting from one of my students the first day back at work: “you flew all the way home to us, melon! your wings must be SOOO tired!” (they long since identified my bird alter ego)

-riding Remedios to work and friends and errands thro the streets of Oakland, feeling kick ass and listening to Paper Planes by M.I.A. on repeat while i slam up the steep hills

-delicious breakfast at Blackberry Bistro with my parents, my sister, and…my girlfriend (this is after they were visiting for the huge family reunion and came early to my house to bring me coffee as a sweet surprise but instead caught me and Remedios coming up the steps to my house after a night out at my girlfriends’ house….at which point, i decided honesty was definitely the best course to follow and i told them i had spent the night at someone’s house and then i told them her name and THEN i asked them if they wanted to meet her for breakfast the next morning, at which point my mom answered “i KNEW it would be a girl!” and my dad did his best accepting shrug, which after seeing it several times i take to mean that he is totally freaked out by me being a dyke but he really loves me and is doing his best to be supportive)

-looking at the full moon out my window: feeling again the moon/ stars/ dark sky/ rustling leaves/ shared lives/ communal slumber

-Monterrey Market in Berkeley, eating peaches and drinking peachy drinks at a celebration of the 40th birthday party of my best friends’ Sun Crest peaches, tears coming to my eyes as she beats loud and angry on her taiko drum while her dad reads about destructive hail storms, and then later she talks about power & privilege and a food revolution and- eyes closed- i touch hands with a stranger, following an exercise she makes us all do, and i feel wanderlust rising within me and i feel her powerful dynamic energy and i realize it’s the same thing and damn that’s like a mind orgasm

-hot tubbing with my family and sharing a glass of red wine with my mom (Grapefull Sisters, Noras’ aunts’ house both come to mind)

-browsing the library catalog this afternoon for “Dreaming the Dark” by Starhawk

Maybe I’ll get the neck tattoo after all. Maybe the list’s name is: Until Wanderlust ‘09. Maybe I’ll do a solo, self-contained tour up to the Arctic Circle and back in Sweden.
Maybe I will start making good on my dream to “write something.” Let’s go tho, y’all, cuz i’m ready! xoxo mel

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

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!!!

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!