Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My Journey Now

Except for this ashtray...

I stole that title from a Maya Angelou book. I couldn’t help it—it has stuck with me since I first heard it back in the early 90s. I’ve always considered it the ultimate packing advice.

photo credit: mrgiarc, Wikimedia commons

Around the time that collection of essays came out, I spent a couple of weekends in Sagaponack Bay. One of my housemates for those stays was Dan Buettner, later to become famous for pioneering the idea of Blue Zones and longevity lifestyle. Also for dating supermodel Cheryl Tiegs. When I met him, he was just “an adventurer.” It said so on his business card. That summer in the Hamptons, he was taking a break from cycling continents. He’d already pedaled across Europe and Asia and down North and South America. Later that year, he was heading to Africa to ride his bike up Kilimanjaro.

The thing I remember most about him, though, is that he arrived at the house for a monthlong stay with a carry-on shoulder bag that couldn’t have weighed more than five pounds. Someone who had biked from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego in Chile doesn’t carry anything more than he needs. Sure, Dan, I want to know how a healthy lifestyle and diet can extend my active life into my 100s, but I’d really like to figure out how to travel that light.

I’ve become something of a bike tourist myself. I measure my rides in states or countries, not continents like Dan. I love mapping out a long ride and heading out to pedal for a couple of weeks. I’ve ridden from San Francisco to Los Angeles, Buffalo to Albany, and a couple of other tours in the US. Last year, I rode the 850-mile length of the Rhine River, and will tell that story in future posts.

Carrying all my stuff on the back of an old steel bike made me rethink my needs. Dr. Angelou might have gotten away with nothing, but a cyclist does have some requirements.

The older we get, the less stuff we buy, generally. (That’s one reason why, until the drug industry began advertising in 1997, no one cared about advertising to the post-55 demo.) The idea of relocating only intensifies that sense. You don’t want the weight of objects to tether you to a place. The prospect of a move to Europe only emphasizes the allure of that efficiency, that fleetness, that tiny footprint.

…And this Paddle Game.

For many writers, it’s the books that weigh them down. But after running a book festival and producing public radio programs centered around writers for a decade, books became just objects to me.

There were days when a dozen would show up in the mail. Or I’d go to an event and an author would hand me their new book hoping I’d put them on the radio or give them a slot at the festival. Almost always, these were from authors early in their career. Each of those copies are packed with the author’s dreams and aspirations. All those books weigh too much. I don’t want to carry those with me anymore.

I do have around 2,000 albums—I hauled many of them from my parents’ home to college in 1984, and after four years of working in a record store during college, I hauled a much larger collection to Atlanta when I finished school. For those who collect “vinyls” these days, the packed shelves can invoke awe and wonder. For me, they serve as a sort of an autobiography, telling me my own story in a private language. Each one has a time or a friend associated with it. But they feel like a kind of dead weight. Such it is with the past. Although I know that I can hear almost any song just by calling it up on my phone, I let the mass of these objects keep me anchored. I don’t want any more, though. My shelves are full.

Nowadays, I try to keep a practical mindset. I try to limit my purchases to the tools I need. The devices that allow me to work, to stay in touch with friends, to navigate through the world. A good knife and skillet. The bike I ride in the morning. A good pair of shoes. These are the things I use every day, the things I want with me. Of course, paring my possessions to such a minimum is a dream. We acquire things in the course of our days, just because. Once, a crow cawed at me from the power line above my head. When I stopped and looked up, it plucked a feather from its breast and floated it down to me.

We can’t refuse the gifts we’re given.

I like to think of myself as a bike tourer. Bike tourers carry only exactly what they need, no more, no less. But feathers are nearly weightless.

Song of the Week

This post requires a road song and there are few road songs I love more than this one from Peter Case with a little help from John Hiatt. Both of these writers had an impact on me in my youth and they still resonate today. Peter sounds like home to me.