I was asked to write about my journey.

There was nothing to do everyday, but pedal. My quads got bigger and bigger. There was nothing left to think about, I exhausted every subject. I sang about everything--to myself, to the weeds and trees that lined the canal, to the mosquitoes and flies, which couldn't stay on my skin in the wind. I ate food I never eat. I ate sugary pastries for breakfast and diner omelettes with hash browns for dinner. I had coffee with my dinner and still slept like a baby. Nothing happened, everything happened, which is the way of the road, which is why writing about travel is so difficult to do well, to do honestly. It is why good travel writers are also good liars--because to tell the truth about journeys in retrospect, it is important to embellish and eliminate--and also the reason why many people find it impossible to write at all. I've been asked to write about my trip. I don't know what to tell you. I know what, and not how. I know neither what nor how, but I know why, which is always enough.

The smell of manure suddenly (outside Lockport), and I am nostalgic. Fields of rolled hay, orchards. It is not me--there is a breeze in the shade that whispers, "Don't stop, don't stop." It has never mattered where I am going, or how long it takes. It matters that I'm going, following a path. Watch--the bees know their business. Do they ask how many flowers in how many minutes? I don't think so. It is not that time is not important, just not quite as important as everyone thinks.

I find mystery in small towns, knowing there is no mystery there. I know that for the teenagers sitting on the canal, life is bland, marked only by crushes, stolen cigarettes, and the hope of growing up faster. Jazz clubs and restaurants sit along the canal in a line. Laughter, music, clinking of glasses. I want to be sweatless, in a sundress, sparkling on the water, clinking glasses. I am riding towards nothing, I am riding towards my next meal, I'm riding out unanswered questions, I'm riding to friends.

Peaches, oh summer, don't end. Blueberries, summer, don't end. Raw sweet corn from a roadside stand. Morning, don't end. As with walking, everything is closer when cycling. My mortality is closer to me. I pass roadkill--this solicits a prayer. The first few times, I put the body in the weeds to disintegrate, lay it to rest. On the roads, in the hills and valleys of the Finger Lakes, I cannot stop every time, or I'll be roadkill.

The weather turns warm, wet, dark, hazy--like pussy. New York state is beautiful, struggling, smells like dead fish and ragweed. Smells like milk thistle burning, like clean, cold water, and lakeweed, like sweat and sunscreen and chemical greens, everything rotting in re-burgeoning wetlands, everything going under and everything coming up. New York state is belligerent, inappropriate, impatient, Italian, stuck and drunk, overheated, understimulated, anxious and bored, and finally, very kind to travelers.

I ride parallel to I90, which looks silly from my curvy, sensuous country road. I see billboards from the back, and their shape is foreign in expansive corn. Hills! Exhilarating doesn't come close to covering it. I stop at an intersection to check my map, and a policeman stops his car to warn me of rain. It rains. Something is baking on the horizon, and after the storm, wind carries it to me. Delicious hunger, delicious hills. I am riding towards friends. When I get very tired, I think, What am I doing? I should be at home writing children's books! I will do that too, later.

Until electricity came, the canal was lit by 31 hour kerosene lamps. Most canal jobs have been lost, but there are still some maintenance jobs. Canal-watchers walk up to 7 miles a day, up and down, looking for leaks. What is going on now? What is the industry of New York? A very mild amount of tourism. But mostly, prisons and landfills. In and out of prisons, nothing comes or goes, except sounds. Birds, voices, trucks: hum and whir, rattle. I am doing a thing of ultimate privilege and freedom. To set out on a bicycle everyday, with nothing to do but move forward. I ride by fences as tall as the trees that surround me, with barbed wire on top instead of leaves. When I camp alone, a grove of towering pines protects me from rowdy voices nearby, children's voices, adult's voices, and from the wind.

Everyday I am on the road, I come closer and closer to my own mortality. I develop a relationship with everything. I get slammed by thunderstorms, heat, and mosquitoes. I eat a lot ice cream. I make new friends--not life friends, but friends of the moment. Cyclists everywhere see my panniers, and ask me how far I am going, and if I need anything (water, granola, a place to spend the night). One night, after a roller-coaster of a day, I end up wearing my rainjacket as pajama bottoms because everything else is wet. Whenever I get myself into situations, I like to think about Mark Twain. At the thought of him, my discomfort becomes amusing, and that is how I know I'm okay. I sleep, I dream, I ride, I dream. And then I arrive.

When I see the skyline of Albany, I tear up a little. I don't know why--I've never loved Albany, it's just something about the finality of my arrival. I have reached my goal and I'm a little sad. I'm also exhausted and incredible. I'm relieved, but without my lovely, simple purpose, I feel empty and lonely. Riding a bike all day makes it easy to be in the moment. I eat a bunch of salty, crunchy things at my dear, old friend's house, and then go home to my parents' house and eat more + wine. Then I sleep, I dream, I ride.