Tag Archives: travel writing

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A very hilly introduction to Oxford, but I’m here. I’m also still waiting to hear back from several CS’ers, so I have not yet a place to stay. But!, I may be saved as a woman at a local cafe has offered me a couch, so long as her girlfriend OK’s it. Swell. And very generous of her.

The battery compartment door to my camera was found mysteriously open when I arrived here. Perhaps I inadvertently slid the catch while repositioning it on my back. I must be more mindful from now on.

However, on to what matters, like this morning. This morning was glorious, or, perhaps not glorious, but very much fine. I awoke early, around 6:30. Startled a woman as I opened my tent—she hadn’t notice it! Though she did see the bicycle. This is what she tells me, anyhow.

A soft sunrise behind some trees. Pastels obscured by a vague, cloudy, glaucous sheen, like I was staring through an infinite number of powder-white dandelion heads floating somewhere a ways away up in the ether. Dewey grass, dewey tent interior, every bloody dog in the neighborhood barking, the single Mockingbird unable to sing a single song but alternating from one obnoxious noise to the next… All the people so friendly, so friendly though.

I remove my gear from the damp tent leaving it to dry, and transport my bicycle and everything over to the covered area with picnic tables, by the bathrooms, and begin to make a cup of coffee, then some oatmeal, musing all the while on this bike trail. This miraculous bike trail! that runs from Houston clear up to New Albany—43 miles. How wonderful it is. How it is necessary that there be more of these spread all over the nation in one interconnected spider’s web so that pedalers near and far can make their way safely from anywhere to anywhere. Anyway, on this trail, in the town of Algoma is a small shop of food and sundries. The man there tells me he gets visitors from all over the continent—from as far north as Canada, and even Alaska once, criss-crossing the United States. He even gets group rides of twenty strong coming out of Memphis some weekends. “Must be good for business,” I remark. He agrees. Though I guess that doesn’t mean more quality product. Can’t fault the man’s amiableness though.

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Stopping at a gas station just outside of Macon, MS the sun begins to reveal itself, or, shall I say, the clouds begin to thin out, to depart, one or two at a time like a multitude of veils gradually being lifted from a face. And as the sun—the stunning, single eye in a face without imperfection—in the multitude of moments beat down upon me, and seemed to increase the level of humidity by several percentage points, I could only think that things might get very uncomfortable today, and that I’d likely be very wet when setting up camp tonight. But, later—not long later, either—pedaling along the highway 45, on the little wedge of shoulder left me between the rumble strip and soft, shifting, gravel bed I thought how wonderful it is that at last, after four days, the sun is finally made visible and all the world shining under its radiant light, and how miraculous it is that I am in Mississippi even though it is entirely meaningless because, what are these lines that draw boundaries around the masses of land that are really only one mass of land, but which we have felt the need to separate and call them states, anyway…

I’m camping tonight at a cemetery about a mile and a half outside of Starkville. According to Google it is a park, well, it is named Memorial Garden Park, so it’s not Google’s fault. A bit misleading I think, however, it provided a quiet place for me to set up my tent undisturbed, and the adjacent property is a smallish farm—mainly brilliant green, hilly pasture with a smattering of trees, and cows grazing contentedly. In the center of the cemetery stands a statue of Christ, his hands broken off. I’m uncertain how that might have happened, whether it was intentional or unintentional, but there he stands sort of gazing off, down the hill, across the road, into nothing. It is perhaps not the most inspiring statue I’ve seen, hands or no hands. Hell, I’ve seen more inspiring statues without heads or arms, just a torso, or a fragment of a face. What’s important is the feeling and talent of the sculptor. This just reminds me of some dumb knick-knack one might pick up at a souvenir shop. No matter. When God, or the Tao, or whatever is within you and all around you, whether any particular statue or sculpture is good or bad makes no significant difference. It just provides material for thought and speculation, for having opinions and writing about them….

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Camping at my first church since I was in North Carolina.

Many miles today. Miles through bleak suburbs choked with strip malls, empty parking lots, bad traffic, bad shoulders, familiarity and despair. Miles through farmland; wide, open spaces; countless cows grazing the lush, green pastures that are everywhere speckled with flowers—purple, waxy-yellow, and chalky-white—like a million smiling faces, and, when the wind blows, a million waving hands like those from the friendly drivers who pass me opposite; the wire fences; copses of trees; the grey clouds bunched, bulging, heavy with rain that never falls, stretching on forever all day. Miles, though fewer, through the cityscape of Selma, her streets and buildings saturated in civil rights history; boarded up houses; nice, clean, proud houses with neat landscaped yards; empty buildings; broken windows; no doors; amicableness; amiableness; junk cars; the criss-cross of railroad tracks; the Edmund Pettus Bridge where the blood flowed one day like the river runs beneath it; marvelous architecture; and damn good ribs. I also saw a banner, on it the word HOPE. More and more large towns and small cities I see today are full of hope, and desire change. Call it “the people.” They are the hope. The people are the ones, the only ones, who have the capability to turn around a city’s fortunes, and they must turn it around, because if not, then what does this word, “hope” mean, what is it for, and what does it represent? It is like a false idol which one worships, makes offerings to on every first and third Sunday, and second and fourth Wednesday. It is a place where the people might get together to sprinkle water, light incense, and talk. Talk, talk, talk; and talk is just masturbation. There is a sprinkling of seed, sure, but no fertile ground for it to settle, fertilize and grow. It brings forth no fruit, bears no children. It merely feels pleasant for a short while. It is a drug. And an addictive one at that because it requires a minimum of effort and no commitment. It is a mouth that talks, yet has no voice.

Where there are people there is hope. But where there are people there is, too, complacency.
 

 
A bug shimmers under my light, wings and carapace glinting. It flies ever so lightly, so gently, into the mesh door of my tent — bounces away into the dark. God, what magic this world contains. Magic on the minutest scale. It is not necessary that there be large explosions and a shower of sparks, though that is fine too. There is magic right under our noses. The real magic is in the looking.

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Larnie’s BBQ, Selma. Massive portion of food in front of me—ribs, fried okra and sweet tea. I’m awed, though concerned about how I might continue cycling after filling my stomach so. The two pieces of white bread with the ribs so that I might make a sandwich are a nice touch.

I did the 90km from Montgomery in about three and a half hours. I am excited, partly because I’m eating delicious BBQ, but also because I will likely be able to put in another twenty or so miles today. I should arrive at Dale and Amanda’s in Gainesville tomorrow evening.
Selma has a rough history, as many southern towns have. I’m referring of course to racial discrimination and Jim Crow law, but Selma has a particularly storied past when it comes to the south and the civil rights movement.

Throughout the early twentieth century, before, during, and after both world wars Selma, as well as many southern cities and towns, enforced Jim Crow laws ruthlessly, and with violence if necessary. During the period after World War II there was a movement towards equal freedoms and rights for blacks (largely because it was due, but also because many fought in the war, so to come back after fighting for one’s country only to be treated as lesser than another because of one’s skin color was a slap in the face and a punch in the gut, and that’s putting it lightly) that only strengthened as the years went by and nothing was done. Essentially, among a number of smaller, though no less important, protests and acts of defiance by blacks across the south, this led to the the Selma to Montgomery marches, led in part by Martin Luther King Jr., and which are most well remembered for, aside from the successful march on the third attempt, the police brutality events of “Bloody Sunday” (the first attempt at the marches when local and county police accosted the marches at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, beating many of them with billy clubs, and throwing tear gas), and the killing of a white minister by members of the KKK the night after the second symbolic “march.” The third and final successful attempt at the march would eventually lead to the passing of the Selma Voting Rights Act of 1965, and laws that would give the same freedoms that whites enjoyed to blacks.

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Crazy winds. Crazy, crazy winds all day. Hills for days too. Despite all that, not bad. Columbus, GA. Stayed at a Super 8 last night. $75 after taxes ($5 + 16% city tax). I’m a little sick of this. I’m going to have to endeavor to stay away from cities if I don’t have a host. Columbus, however, was enroute to Auburn, so….
Leaving Columbus now. There is some sort of festival downtown. Streets packed full of pedestrians. Tables setup along the sidewalks selling a whole variety of things: soaps, oils, clothing, jewelry, furniture, antiques, tchotchkes, so on…

I stop at Iron Bank Coffee, named for the fact that the building was once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away a bank, for a shot. It’s bad, despite the roaster being Counter Culture. This is an unfortunate regular occurrence in the so-called “specialty coffee” world. Lack of education and knowledge. Laziness. The space the cafe occupies is marvelous though. Enormous; voluptuous; high, high, ceiling; loads of windows to let in that light that is loved so much; long communal tables, or variously shaped tables pushed together or pulled apart; whatever you can sit on; separate rooms in the old bank vaults (doors still attached) in the back; a glorious array of various chandeliers suspended from the ceiling; original hardwood floors.

Speaking of old things, so much of the city is. It’s not surprising. It was obviously once a hub of industry on the Chattahoochee River. Now many of the buildings are abandoned and falling into ruin. They provoke a certain sadness in me, but there is also something beautiful about these disused, dilapidated churches, factories, houses, apartment buildings, etc. The decay, the negligence, the faded bricks, the worn paint, the broken windows, boarded up windows, the tall weeds, the shattered signs, the signs that now only glow with a dull, attenuated light when the sun is at the correct angle with the Earth are wonders to behold. Is it because they tell a story? Or do they simply provoke questions, wonderings about something that once was but now is not? What were these buildings like during those years when production was at a high? What was the city like? How were the people? It seems to me that these buildings and signs are incapable of telling a story at all, these silent buildings and mute signs. They’re like a blind man with his lips sewn shut, resigned to his fate, unable to control his own destiny. But, it is very easy for one to create a story for himself simply by imagining, and that is something so easy to do if one stops to look, reflect, allow the mind to wander.

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From Americus to Columbus today. Georgia countryside is gorgeous under a pristine blue sky—succulent, green grass; explosion of wild flowers on tall stalks, along the highway—except for the interminable fields of turned over red clay, some pale, ghostly, almost like sand—spirits of what once was before they were stripped of life, poisoned with pesticides and fertilizers—others dark and rich, never, or only very recently, been planted. But where these fields meet an undulating green ridge of trees, and then the blue wall of sky is something quite lovely to behold, and beautiful in its own right, like the greatest flag unfurled, and being wapped in that flag; I can touch it, feel it all around me. In places it is all that is—just a field of color transmitted across the thinnest, most insubstantial vastness of space, like the synaptic gap between neurons. An existence swallowed up by the pupil, focused by the lens on the back of my eye to the forefront of my mind…

These thoughts occurred hours ago, being penned now at Annie D’s, a tiny, Southern as Southern can be restaurant in Buena Vista. It’s all that’s here in town as far as I’m concerned, and that’s perfectly fine. Never had such a good Half ‘n Half, as they’re known in The South. That sweet tea! Hot damn! Charming place even if the walls and floorboards are filthy, even if the blinds are hung crooked and look as though they might fall off their brackets at the slightest touch. No frills. Stripped down. Plate glass windows on every wall yield so much natural light not a speck of dirt goes unnoticed. Ketchup and hot sauce in hand-labeled plastic bottles in the center of every cheap, masonite table. One in every three of these tables covered in a table cloth. Styrofoam cups. Plastic plates. Smiling faces. Happy people.

 

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Dinner. Texting. Red lentils and rice with raisins, tomato, turnip, garlic, and curry powder. Forecasting rain. I would prefer not (always). The most charmingly cheerful birdsong earlier at sundown. Now it’s just distant dogs and the occasional car or truck, and the electric buzz of insects.

I’m camped at a public park in Abbeville, GA. It’s three or four acres, part of which is a little league baseball diamond, another part of which is a playground with maybe an eighth mile walking track around it. The rest is a field that borders a forest, picnic tables clumped together in places like a huddle of ducks in silent observance, or a group of old friends who haven’t seen each other in years.

The grass and dried, fallen leaves I see through my tent screen is unspeakably beautiful. Slender, curving pine needles intertwined and threading through the mat. The leaves themselves are small and slender too—some broken, crippled, others spotted, speckled like an old man’s frail arms. The grass that pokes up through all of those old, brittle, dry, dead things seems generally unhappy about the state of affairs, being as it’s mostly covered over by the old; slightly smothered, held down, but in places it has pierced the mat, the coverlet, the broad arms of the leaves saying, “Down! Down!”

Anyway, today was mostly hills. The last twenty miles I guess were relatively flat in comparison, though. I’m hoping not for a repeat tomorrow.

I mentioned in a previous post staying with Mac in Vidalia, “The Sweet Onion City.” It was a great joy, not only because it was a short day on the bike, and that I was able to catch up my journal outside, in the sun, poolside, but also because I was the guest of a great guy, a generous host, a generous man. Solid, dependable, friendly. It was good.

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“When you come to Savannah you going to have a good time,” sings the man in the park, as he folds his palm fronds, on a bench, beneath a tree.

I have concluded that he is correct.

Spent the day strolling around rather aimlessly. As perfect a day as there could be for it: sunny, cloudless sky, warm, dry, a bit windy, though pleasantly so for walking. I stop to read a sign in the square where the man is singing and folding his palm fronds. It is a plaque to commemorate the life of Tomo Chi-Chi, a member of the Creek Indian Nation. According to the sign post, he helped the English in the founding and settlement of Georgia, and was an “indispensable friend” to them. In return he received a thirty foot tall burial marker and an historical signpost recognizing this “indispensable friendship.” Since then, the Natives have been massacred, had their land stolen from them, and been pushed onto reservations. To borrow a well used cliché, he would be rolling over in his grave if he knew the atrocities committed against his people since his death.

I’m sitting on the cathedral steps writing these words and thinking of the atrocities the church has committed in its time—from The Crusades, to the KKK, and to certain discriminatory legislative measures passed in some states very recently. I’m thinking of the atrocities that continue around the world in the name of whatever religion, or by whatever government. The whole past of humanity is steeped in violence and bloodshed. Thousands of years of it, and thousands more to come, unless we blow ourselves to ashes before then.

Just now a couple walks up the steps and the husband curses reading the sign, “NO TOURING. WORSHIP IN PROGRESS.” Yes, you ignorant halfwit, the cathedral, while being quite old, is still a cathedral, which means that services may still be held there despite its status as historical landmark. It is something more than just a name to cross off your list of “Things To Do In Savannah.” It has a life of its own. There is a community that circulates in and around and through it, like blood beating in a heart, surging through vein and artery. Just because you are not a part of it, that you are a particle foreign to the stream of bodies regular to it, does not mean that it does not exist, or not take place. Come back tomorrow, or don’t come back at all. The cathedral will still stand, indifferent, unyielding, its people still coming and going, and, likely, other tourists coming and going as well, AT THE ASSIGNED TIMES. But, the cathedral, the cathedral sees you and laughs. A knowing chuckle.

Cycling back to Alex’s, I stop at Forsyth Park to stretch out in the grass, read a bit, watch the people there—some tanning, some napping, some reading, most conversing in groups, some playing frisbee, one girl playing with a bubble wand, many sitting on benches, many more in the grass, and the consistent traversal of so many more along the central artery that bisects the park and connects Gaston Street and Park Avenue at either end. A jovial scene, with the sun shining, the grass green, the temperature fine. A fitting way to end the day’s wanders, by not wandering at all, but just sitting still, reveling in the atmosphere around me. Peace can be easy to find, when you stop looking.