Coasting
Greetings from the road!
This road trip, the one I have been actualizing for over a year, finally began in its most decisive form on October 17th, 2016. This is when my grad school classmate Tracey and I drive from my grandpa’s home to Tracey’s folks’ place in Pennsylvania, our first stop going South. Before that point, however, there was still much to do.
My YEA Camp friends had been planning a Philly trip, as a number of us would happen to be in the area the same weekend. I am there to attend a Resource Generation leadership retreat. At the retreat, we discuss the power of narrative, racial stratification in the US, and how to self-care when engaging in the work. I also further connected with a friend from Corporate Accountability International. But more on that later.
When I am not developing my political analysis and skill set, my YEA friends and I wander the halls of Bryn Mawr and eat vegan soft-serve and carrot dogs (steamed, savory carrots on a bun). This is wonderful.
Eventually, back to Jersey.
Jersey
Tracey and I had been discussing our disillusionment with New York, especially its Winters, for the past year. Tracey had also been preparing herself to escape. She visits me at my grandpa’s place the same day she begins a 21-day water fast, to punctuate a transition, transformation, end & beginning.
While prepping, always prepping, one of our grad program’s faculty members invites us to speak at the brick & mortar elementary school, where she also teaches. That was an obvious opportunity for awesome, so we do it:
We discuss talking to people about what matters to us, and about how to live sustainably, as well as out of a pickup truck. The students ask us about our fears and excitements. It seems natural, even obvious, to be open with them, but when one student reports back that we were the most honest speakers they had ever had, I think on how commonly we put on a show for young people, and hide our vulnerability from them — and how frustrating that is for a young person. I remember it. Then we wonder where teen angst comes from. (Answer: A lot of places, not just this.)
That night is Yom Kippur, and Tracey finds a nearby service. Though it brings back stuffy memories of being young in church and Sunday school, I manage to find a few prayers that particularly resonate with me.
Leaving the service, I back out of the parking lot, and I hit the rabbi’s car. (Good thing I anticipated my city-kid learning curve, and opted for good insurance coverage. I have also since installed brighter lights (myself!) and a reverse-view camera — professionally.) I am sure there is meaning here.
The night before Tracey and I head South, I have dinner with my childhood best friend, Zac, and his parents. They are a second family to me, especially when growing up. The year I spent trying to escape my home, life flung me into my past with not one but two high school reunions, living at my grandpa’s house, and more. And now, by some strange predetermined-by-chance miracle, the kind that convinces Dr Manhattan to come back to Earth, Zac’s parents had moved into the home across the corner from where I had grown up, well before meeting them. The live next to the yard where I would play, looking at New York City from across the Hudson, wondering how such a dirty-looking place could be so alluring and coveted. And here I am having a farewell dinner with them.
I give them a tour of the truck, which they enjoy. We walk by my old front yard, where my dad single-handedly built an igloo after my sister and I promised to help; the neighboring homes of the condominium, homes I warned about a dog-eating monster; around the community center, where I (or my sister?) had at least one birthday party; the playground, where I lost action figures in the sand; and the pool, where a bee stung me on my tongue after I sucked her up through the straw to my soda, and where my dad would give me mixed messaging in gender politics when he would proudly proclaim himself too much of a “sissy” to go in the “cold” water.
After dinner and drinks on the patio, overlooking the smoggy city I once proudly proclaimed myself strong enough to handle, I drive off, to spend one more night at my grandpa’s — my mom’s childhood home — before Tracey and I head South.
I often think on how, as hip as it sometimes seems to be flippant, irreverent, it just is not worth it.
Philly
The trip: is awesome. My friend’s parents had told me that my friend’s cousin, whom I once crushed on, works with an organization in Pennsylvania that does justice system advocacy. It turns out they are holding a protest the same time we will be there. After a night at Tracey’s folks’ place, Tracey and I head for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital, where we protest Life Without Parole, which we refer to as Death by Incarceration.
We hear from a former prisoner, a sibling of both a murder victim and a prisoner for murder, and a representative leading the effort to abolish Death by Incarceration. Then we walk into the state capitol, and sing protest songs outside the doors of the gathered legislators:
Tracey and I spend a few nights with my “true conservative” cousin, Vincent. He and I debate politics, even discussing gun rights/reform while he shows us his weaponry. In an effort to culturally exchange, we introduce him to his first intentionally vegan meal: a vegan Philly Cheesesteak. I believe the phrase used was: That’s not bad.
Baltimore
Tracey and I spend our time in Baltimore at my college professor’s home, as per tradition of my visiting Baltimore. Their family, made of a psychology professor, a theatrical director, and their now three children, is the kind that I would aspire to have, if I were going that route. We arrive late, but the two children old enough to run around walk into our room the next morning, while Tracey and I work from bed. Though it is parentally discouraged, I admit that I love the fun children clearly have in foregoing courtesies like knocking.
Tracey is still fasting, and at this point is conserving her energy as much as possible. I am impressed. I spend some time at the radically liberal, vegetarian, cooperatively run bookstore café, Red Emma’s, and even manage to score some used cooking oil. Tracey later tells me the truck smells like hummus.
Researching activism opportunities, we learn that The Humane League is leafletting at a farmers’ market, the same one where I had seen my college professor teaching his offspring how to mindfully eat fried mushrooms: Focus on the sensation. What are the tastes, and the textures?
The Humane League is a vegan advocacy group. Leafletting is one of the most effective practices in the community, simply because massive amounts of people are still unaware of how the animal agriculture industry violates our common values. So we help them out:
D.C.
Along the harrowing journey from Baltimore to DC, we are startled to see the Lincoln Memorial appear out of nowhere along the Arlington Memorial Bridge. I attend a rally I have mixed feelings about, but I appreciate the end, when the organizers wade through the reflecting pool to protest for #NoDAPL (#WaterIsLife).
I think it easy to be jaded by politics. Harder is finding renewable, inner sources to keep us going. The Lincoln Memorial, lovely, holds a complicated legacy for me. But this, means something far simpler and more powerful to me:
After the rally, Tracey and I eat at a fantastic raw restaurant, and sleep in the truck for what I believe is our first time since heading South. (We had plenty of practice in Jersey.) One of Tracey’s more bothersome fasting symptoms is how cold she feels, and she has a hard time sleeping that night in DC’s October. We manage to spend the next night with a college friend who works in law. We discuss politics, the legal system, books, and podcasts, a road trip game changer. She recommends Keepin’ It 1600, which we appreciate.
The next night, we attend a panel, co-sponsored by RG, about #BlackLabor in DC, and featuring the soon-to-be new executive director Iimay Ho (!). The panelists rock, and we learn much.
On another note, it is in DC that Tracey finally breaks her 21-Day water fast. She drinks a nice green juice, and grows sentimental about what a journey it has been. By this time, I myself am inspired by the process, and we are both juicing. Tracey out of a fast, and myself into one. (The idea is to ease your digestive system into turning off/on with the juice.)
Richmond, Virginia
Spending only one night here, the stay proves to be a powerful one. We sleep outside a volunteer firehouse where Tracey’s friend from a raw fruit festival volunteers. He tells his journey of struggling with health, and all the lifestyles sworn to be the cure. Tracey and I share our own journeys through veganism and other health-paths. Still in my juice fast, I notice myself not hungering for food as much as wanting it. The raw vegan icing on the raw vegan cake, though, is when he tells us we can plug our heated mattress pad into the firehouse outlet. This. Is. Everything. #TruckLife.
The next morning, I full-on confront my desire to feed when the café in the grocery store sells pumpkin pie smoothies. I make a veiled plea that it should count as juice, but Tracey confirms it does not.
Finally, finally, we reach North Carolina. Home of the magical Asheville. Home of the International Civil Rights Museum. Home of two RG friends, home of the first (only?) vegan social justice solidarity bar, and home of other progressive awesome.
It is also where we are when Trump becomes president-elect.
Up Next: Going Coastal.
