The End of an Era; or, And Now With Sincerity We Begin Our Journey

One week ago yesterday, I graduated from Ithaca College. Four more years of my life, spent, in what felt like the blink of an eye. Four autumns, with hundreds of thousands of leaves fallen on the ground; four winters, each one as frozen and serene as the last; four springs, which ushered the origin of ten thousand new flowers. Yet there were only three summers spent in college, summers spent working, researching, living comfortably in a familiar apartment in a familiar place.

It is this fourth summer: the tail end of a structured system; the drinking end of a glass, full up to the brim with an education, constrained on the sides by semester beginnings and ends, the butt of which was my birth, the opposite end opening outwards into the future. For the first time since I've had volition and intention, I find myself absolutely capable of employing both towards whichever end I choose. In order to make the leap from the world of higher ed to the world at large I signed up for this Bike and Build trip. The motivations for this are legion; but chief amongst them is a desire to see the world with clarity, to engage with life in earnest, and to work towards changing its inadequacies.

My journey will take me from Providence, RI to Seattle, WA; from the land of the Adirondacks, across the rolling hills of New England, through the flatland cornfields of the Great Plains, across the mighty Rocky Mountains, and towards the Pacific Northwest, where half-mountain glaciers leak icy water towards the sea. My ultimate destination will be this land of watery verdure, latitudinally in line with where I've lived the past four years, yet an entire country away. Ambitions are high to keep a travel journal, both online and on paper–time can only tell as to whether or not this goal will be seen through for more than the first few weeks, but for the time being I'm fueled by two travel memoirs I'm reading and will likely be bringing with me: The Good Rain by Timothy Egan, a natural history of the Pacific Northwest; and Turn Left at the Trojan Horse by Brad Herzog, a travelogue that runs opposite my own route, from Seattle to–as it happens–Ithaca, NY.

Soon enough, my trip will be on the road. In less than two weeks I will be in a peloton of like-minded individuals, speeding westward on the strength of our conviction–and our calves. I'm as excited and frightened as I can stand to be. And now, with sincerity, we begin our journey.