“Recycling” by Geo Davis (Featured in Midlife Crisis Postponed)
“We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” ~John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
It might be time to reread Travels with Charley: In Search of America. My first experience with this invitation to wander was 30+ years ago. It was one of the more memorable books on my high school summer reading list.
So many times I’ve learned and relearned this truism well articulated by Steinbeck. We head out on a journey, an adventure, even just a get-from-point-A-to-point-B excursion overconfident that we can anticipate the scope and purpose of the peregrination. But the journey, the adventure, the excursion inevitably adapts us to its mission rather than the other way around. This has certainly been the case with 40×41, and this evolving, unpredictable, protracted expedition was largely catalyzed during yet another trip, a few days during which I accompanied John Davis on his TrekEast pilgrimage.
The illustration above, a visual poem I called “Recycling” remembers that pedaling conversation — dialogue internal and external — which took place while cycling bucolic byways in New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire. I will wrote more about this trip soon…