9. Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home

Home, it turns out, is more than this wonderful house on Rainbow Lake. I first felt it — home, that is — when I pedaled up a steep hill out of Pennsylvania and crossed the border into Maryland, the last full-fledged state of the trip. The American Lung Association of Maryland had posted welcoming and informational signs such as “If you had lung disease, this is the way you’d be struggling for breath all the time” and “Your Mother would be proud of you.” Turns out I don’t just cry over trains with lonesome whistles in the west. Turns out I burst into tears sort of in the east but south of the Mason-Dixon line when I feel like I’m home, in this case, Maryland. That’s where I started feeling home.

I felt home when I spotted Meg and Amelia (Meg’s niece visiting from Rome) on the streets of Boonesboro on Friday. They had driven down from New York to meet me, to haul my gear (and me) into D.C. to avoid all the mess accompanying the official end of the ride. The next, and last morning of the ride (Saturday), I rode my bike from the hotel at the edge of Georgetown far north on Connecticut to Chevy Chase Circle and beyond and turned around and joined other riders and followed the route to the Mall. I felt home and an incredible sense of accomplishment when I turned that last corner onto Constitution and saw and heard the crowd of volunteers clapping and yelling “Good job, Welcome home.” There was a certain sense of artificialness about it, but believe me, it felt good, and I felt home.

I felt home when at the closing ceremonies I spotted Kathy Doyle standing tall and calling my name in the crowd, and then Lauren Kalos, and Joan Lanigan, and Hallye Galbraith (and Peter) , and even when I didn’t see them but knew that the Pascuals were somewhere in the sea of people there to meet and greet their families and friends.

It came as no surprise to me that the closing ceremonies themselves were anti-climatic, not only for me but I think all the riders. Of course we were glad to see our loved ones, and it was a spectacular day on the Mall (who ever thought August 1 in D.C. could be humidity free and in the mid-80s?). And of course we really didn’t mind getting new shirts about 1000 feet from the end and riding together like good little p.r. soldiers. We smiled and perspired for CNN and the Washington Post, applauded the Big Ride crew madly, the American Lung Association with enthusiasm, GTE with a certain amount of gratitude, and the Pallotta staff with considerable restraint.

Of course, I was glad to get to my house on Rainbow Lake in Connecticut Sunday night. In fact, I was nervous as hell, wired with enthusiasm. I chewed all my fingernails off on the Garden State Parkway in anticipation of seeing my house, of walking inside, of getting into the Jacuzzi. When I got home on Sunday night, I walked in and turned on the music. Put some lights on and wandered about, touching this, adjusting that, marveling at this place, liking the fact that some of my treasures were just slightly askew. Books having been read, a night light repaired, the television table fixed, a treasured knick-knack in a slightly different place than where it might have sat for years. Held up to the light, examined by other eyes.

All the time I was away, I loved knowing that friends were here. It made me feel secure. It wasn’t just that the lights were on at night and burglars held at bay. I love my house so much and hated to be away from it to such a degree that only knowing that other people were enjoying as I would made it okay to be away. My only regret is that Brad Warner was a bit under the weather and couldn’t make it for the week in early July that he and Patty planned to spend here, but, hey, maybe they can visit in the fall, and the main thing is for Brad to be healthy.

In the meantime, I’m home and healthy as a horse. Disoriented, of course, and concerned about how my body’s going to react to days that aren’t spent in constant motion, eight to ten hours of pedaling and what amounts to isometrics. I like the shape I’m in, literally, and want to figure out a program to maintain at least some of this tone. There are bones in my shoulders that I haven’t seen for years, and muscles I have never known.

I am forever grateful that you helped make this possible. I like life-altering events, even when they’re subtle and only obvious in retrospect. Who knows what all — or even how little — this meant ? (There I go, Dude, being an existential cyclist) I don’t plan to get on a bike anytime soon, however. At least not before the weekend, and I doubt I’ll ever ride again for longer than a week (and I’m thinking southern France or on a rail trail in Quebec with wonderful B&Bs I read about last weekend in the Washington Post!).

But I’ll never forget this trip we took together across the top of America in the summer of ’98. Telling you some of what I felt and saw were every bit as much a part of the trip I took as the physical exertion and the fear and the pain and the exhilaration and sense of completion I felt every mile and every day and at the end. That you were — and are — there to hear me, to read my unedited entries, and to tell me things back is in the end what really matters.

I appreciate you very much.