A variety of odd topics come to mind. Spending a good part of the last 48 hours in Detroit and Windsor, the question occurred to me: if I had to live in one or the other, which one would I pick? Which one would you pick? To make the comparison fair, I’ll tell you a bit more about Windsor. It’s a city of about 300,000 people, but you’d never know it. It has the feeling of a huge pile of suburbs all strung together. There are a lot of Tim Hortons and shopping malls. I drove through some nice neighborhoods, but I would never describe Windsor as wealthy or beautiful. It’s solidly middle class, maybe a bit lower middle. The closest I can think of is maybe some sort of Midwest suburb, like Hoffman Estates, where my ex’s family lived. Detroit, of course, I assume you know.
Have you thought about it? The real answer of course, for me, is that I wouldn’t live in either one. That’s mostly due to the winters, which are pretty nasty in both cases. But if I had to pick, I’d pick Detroit. On the surface of it, Windsor has a lot of advantages. Certainly the crime rate is way lower. It’s marginally prettier (in its own way), there are very few weedy empty lots. Day to day life would undoubtedly be easier. And maybe that’s the problem. A town like Windsor poses now challenges, and also very few opportunities for growth. This is a place whose motto is “Windsor: The Place To Be”. (Windsor: It’s A Place You Can Exist In). In a very real way there’s basically nothing there. It’s like a womb for adults (I’m exaggerating here for effect, but just go with it). Life could easily consist of commuting, Applebee’s, meeting friends for drinks at a mildly edgy bar, etc., etc. It doesn’t have the outdoors advantages of a place like Bend, it doesn’t have the grunge of a place like Austin or Eugene, it doesn’t have the whimsy of San Francisco. It’s just - like Houston, where I went to school - a big pile of people who all happen to live next to each other. Detroit, on the other hand, is a problem. And part of me likes problems. I’m not saying I would enjoy having to keep an eye on my wallet. But things are *happening* in Detroit - or at least, they might be. I saw people planting community gardens, starting new businesses. Perhaps it’s an illusion of progress, but it’s a nice illusion.
Topic change: At first, I was a little bit bummed that I (sorta kinda) “quit” the trip across the country. I knew it was the right thing to do, but it still felt like a defeat of sorts. But the other day a thought occurred to me that really made me smile, and I can’t shake it, so I’m sharing it. By structuring the trip the way that I am now - divided into a bunch of smaller trips - the awesome part is that the trip really never has to be over! Structured the way it was before, there was an end - dip my bike in the atlantic ocean, then go back to my “real life” - play time is over. But in the new paradigm, it’s more of a bunch of smaller trips. First from San Francisco to Missoula, then around Lake Erie - next up is biking from Jax to Melbourne Beach to Orlando and back to Jacksonville. And it doesn’t have to stop there - and it won’t. I’m enjoying this too much not to do it again and again. I’ve now got thoughts about doing the AIDS Life Cycle, the RSVP (Ride from Seattle to Vancouver to Party), the reverse trip from Virginia to Missoula next summer, RAGBRAI, etc., etc.
The other cool thing about that thought was that it occurred to me that nobody - likely in the world - has ever done the exact trip that I’m doing. It’s my trip. Combined with the previous thought, I realized that my whole life could be mine - uniquely mine, a journey all to myself. And that thought made me inexpressibly happy.
One of the things that this trip has made clear for me is that I really enjoy exercise, the outdoors, and motion. So I’ve been making a list of things I want to get into - or more into, as the case may be. Surfing, rock climbing, sailing, snowboarding, etc., etc. The more extreme the better. That’s a priority for me, once I return to “the real world”. I recently signed up for a course to become a Certified Personal Trainer, which is part of a long arc of a switch to physically-based employment, that of course I’ve been talking about here for a while now.
