AIDS/LIFECYCLE 2005
Day 8: Epilogue
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Okay, I'm using this as a narrative device to sum up a bit, but I rationalize this because there was really no time to do so during the ride.
First of all, I had a fantastic time. I felt good, I was well taken care of, I had safe and compassionat companions, I could easily see the experience being different in different years, but this was a fun time, not without its darker or more thoughtful moments, but primarily light, joyful. I had a strong feeling that I was with people who had had their lives fall apart, and they had picked them up, and they were committed to remaking this world for others in what they have learned.
This takes me back to one of the fundamental questions one poses at themselves when they undertake such a challenge.
I outlined in my donation letter why I was riding-friends and colleagues with HIV, political need, I had the time, etc. I think, though, that while all these reasons are true and valid, any of them are true and valid, that I love bike riding, there's another reason; that, as someone who has lost a brother in a very strange way, not knowing how to handle him while he stayed alive so long, I am drawn to communities where grief and mourning are a component of the equation. Quite simply, I want to understand, to be near people who have loved and lost and are now, in whatever shape, on the other side. It is both informative and inspiring this act of picking up the pieces. Sometimes. I know that I have done this as well, yet I don't recognize it as such. I am still looking for the manual.
This is not to say I am a grief junkie, it's just to say that although my reasons for doing AIDS/LIFECYCLE are, on the one hand, clear and simple and right, there are other deeper reasons that bring a person to a place in the first place. Why did I choose to attend an ACT/UP meeting in 1989 rather than some other political activist group? Perhaps it was as simple as conviction, or a cute girl. Perhaps it was a bit more.
A friend said to me the other day that you can always tell someone who has lost someone because they are the only ones who will counsel you in times of sorrow to look, to try to remember joy or humor. And without forgetting or understating the terrible sorrow of loss, the fact that some of us do not get back on our feet, or, if we do, we are deeply scarred, it is this ability to be joyful, to move forward, that gives us breath, gives us spirit. To find the path back.
I had the feeling, too, that I was, for this week, in a kind of utopia. I recognize that I may not have seen some less pretty things, but I was consistently reminded that people were, in often difficult situations, kind, empathetic, compassionate. And, if that proved to be impossible, they tried to politely extricate themselves from the situation or come at their frustrations from a place of love. I wonder how much of this we can bring to the world outside the ride, and for how long. As I walk in Los Angeles, I try not to be spiteful for the cars that don't look, almost run me down. I try to not get swept up in small complaints, minor annoyances. It's just not worth it. It's not easy, but, for now, I can go back to this week and use it as a model.
I woke up a little sore, a little disappointed. Where was my tent?
I met the posse at a Yemenite-Hebrew restaurant on Fairfax (Shula and Esthers-yum!), hang out with D and K-.
Then to D's sister's spa for the best massage ever-thank you, Bianca! I was a new man.
I want to thank everyone who reads this-friends, donators, anyone who has asked about AIDS/LIFECYCLE, strangers, anyone curious about HIV. From a political standpoint, things are not looking good, but, to the contrary, I just spent a week with 2000 people committed to changing the world on a daily basis. I raised $5,500 dollars, and together, we raised almost 7 million dollars. We educated a lot of people as well. The children who wrote us letters of support, as one person noted, will never be gaybashers. Thank you for donating, for writing letters and emails of support, for being curious, for being there with me.
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