I am back, and on RAAM.

Day I 6/16/11

One the move, pale blue light greeted by the song of birds awoke me at four thirty this morning, my dog put his wet nose to my face, and his old breath gasped me to a complete state of alert. I know in his old bones he felt the expedience of my departure. My mother was all teary eyed, she rubbed them and told me it was just morning tears, she is emotional, I do not spend enough time at my folks place these days, she understands, but she shows her true emotions, and that’s one reason I love her. I haphazardly run a tooth brush across my teeth, spit down my chin and think of when I can sneak a smoke in before my flight. Or was I trying to quit this week? Roadrunner is playing in my subconscious on repeat, New England in early morning chrome blue haze highways before the hustle and bustle of the day to day. I realize I am at the airport in no time, my mother’s eyes are the most unique blue I have ever seen them, the light of day is growing to a hadean orange and settling into its virgin yellow of day. I speak in a low grogie, terrified tone, almost upset and under my breath to my mother, I will be fine, and will be back in ten days or so.
I have a hit or miss relationship with travel, at times its like a great one night stand, everything goes smooth, everyone is happy with the arrangements, wires are crossed correctely and the grand scheme of the universe falls into place, and perhaps, because all went well, you can do it again sometime. Other times its like getting drunk a little to early thinking you can keep your cool, when your spilling your drink on everyone and the bouncer has his eye one you, you get kicked out, scream to the streets in rage, fall down and end up sleeping alone on your front lawn. Today my travels are going like a night with a good shot, no chaser, and a conversation with the knock out sitting next to me at the end of the bar.
Logan is tame this early in the morning, everyone, myself included, looked to have just be drugged and walks in a sedated slump of too tired to care. My communication for the day was mostly with computers and the, hey how are you with flight attendants who are miserable their job doesn’t hold has much prestige as it used to. The machine spits my ticket, scans my brain for terrorist activity and I’m boarded.
Flying out of Logan has always been a great joy, looking at the shore line of a state I hold dearly and being able to identify, and have a story for every little nook and crany of it is a pleasure in itself, I could take of and land all day for that view, and pay the same price. Today is a little different however. Today I am leaving for my very firsrt cross country adventure. A few months back I was offered a spot and a wrench (Bike Mechanic) for a group of fine gentlemen doing the Race Across America, RAAM for short. I was floored at the chance to do something I had been working for years to do, be a wrench for a team of sorts and travel, all because of an almost indescribable love for bicycles. After a few meetings and some training and practice, Rich, Jim, Dan and Bruce are ready to go, and Brian, Andrew, Dylan and I are ready to get them from point A to B in as flawless a manor as we know how. I had a lot of time to think on this day of travel and mostly day dreamed and tried to make sense of the country swimming under me as a flew across it. A country that in an engrained way, means a lot to me, but I am so unfamiliar with. But, I guess that is what is behind the urge to get out and see the country that burns in every fiber of the youth, or at least my beat generation ideal of youth today. An urge just as engrained and submerged beneath the conscious, deep in the matters of brain and soul, a need to discover a country so large that has existed our entire lives in our back yards.