Back in early October, my walking buddy and I were taking a break from walking by visiting friends in New York City. Someone smart from back home mentioned that we could make a sign and try to get some camera-time on the Today Show, to be two of those happy early cheering people outside the studio. What a great idea! So, Roy (walking buddy) drew out thick-black-block letters with the website info and a fine rendition of the R2L logo, a stick-person stepping from Maine to California, on one of those large neon pink poster boards. It was majestic.

Roy and I were showered with phone call high-fives and Facebook-blue thumbs-up. People recorded the show, paused their tv’s, and took and sent pictures of us on screen standing behind our sign and Matt Lauer. We were generally pleased with ourselves for our efforts…which hadn’t started with the sign making and 4am departure to stand in line at Rockefeller Plaza. This part of the journey began back in Fort Montgomery, NY, where we had been waiting for a care package from my mom.

Fort Montgomery is located in one of the most scenic places I have ever been… and I say this knowing I risk insulting someone… but Fort Montgomery is a vortex..or a singularity the likes of which I had never encountered. It pulls you in and holds you there..yet, no one seems to live there, and no one seemed to ever have been at the church behind which Roy and I set up our tent for what we hoped would be only a couple days. But I was tired…head-achingly weary, and on what was supposed to be our last morning there, Leslie (Maine friend turned former NYC roommate but still friend) invited us to the city.

Getting to NYC from a black hole is NOT as easy as it sounds. Firstly, phone calls to ticketing agents and bus schedulers have to be made. Interestingly, there are no bus stops, though. Roy and I were told to “just flag down the bus”. And so, with a Radio Flyer ATW, a Rickshaw, and a huge walking stick, we flagged down a bus on a winding bit of highway by the Hudson River. Surprisingly, the driver let us stow our stuff underneath and board the bus, even if he was miffed (and let us know it) that we had waved him down…

Navigating the NYC transit system is actually kind of fun with all the gear. People look, point, steer clear, ask questions, complain, and even laugh out loud at the sight. We were the hobos. It was a great feeling, finally sitting in the familiar orange retro plastic R Train. The only real challenge was leaving the subway station…up and up and up the subway station steps…

Anyhow, we were happy. We had shaken hands with the mayor of the Today Show, Al Roker… Ann Curry told us to “Look alive, people! We’re about to be on TV!”…which annoyed me..but was true. And Matt Lauer had seen our sign (how could he not?) and came over to ask what we were doing. “Mmhm mmhm mhm..that’s great guys. Mhm mhm mhm…” and then he was back telling America about a couple in Pennsylvania who had survived being mauled by a bear IN THEIR OWN LIVING ROOM. Leslie, the interminable volunteer online administrator and R2L hero, reported that website traffic seemed to be up and from random parts of the country. Success!

The party ended early for me, though. For all of my intentions of spreading cancer awareness and honoring my sister with this cross-country walk, this website and the updates on the Facebook page were lacking real connection with cancer. After putting R2L out there on the Today Show, someone noticed the lack of connection and called me on it. I guess I subconsciously figured that people didn’t want to hear about cancer Cancer CANCER. Maybe it was just that I didn’t want to deal with the painful memories of why I am actually doing this…because my sister had cancer…and she died from it at 31… a full 3 years younger than I am now…and that, by confronting the true intentions behind this walk, I have to confront that last part of my sister’s life…when she was unconscious, incredibly ill and frail underneath her bed-sheet. When there is nothing to do but love that person and cry and be helpless.

Over and over I thought about the words that person wrote, challenging me. And while that indeed was a painful and challenging time along this path I am on, I appreciated the challenge. Why AM I doing this? Am I really, as this person pondered, “a young man at loose ends looking for an adventure”? Since first conceiving this project, my intention has been to spread compassion awareness and to raise money for the Cancer Research Institute..to make my sister proud, and hopefully help at least one person in some small way. Each time I thought of that person’s words, I returned to those intentions.

And that’s what I practice every day now. When I wake up in the morning, whether it’s under an awning, in my tent, church rec room, a parsonage, a living room or an opulent home, I reaffirm what exactly it is I am out here for. I’m walking to raise money for cancer research. I’m walking to be a better brother to my sister who died too young. I’m walking so someone might see me doing this compassionate action..and MAYBE become inspired to act compassionately themselves. I’m walking across the country because I can’t not do this thing. And every single step is an adventure.

PS. That care package from mom? Somehow wound up in Montgomery instead of FORT Montgomery… we were stuck in that town for more than 2 more days… after waiting an extra day for the care package, being kicked off a highway by a state trooper (which added 7 miles to the day), summiting a mountain, and navigating said highway farther along, we were able to extract ourselves from the clutches of Fort Montgomery, NY…. and those peanut butter chocolate chip pan cookies were worth it.

After you finish reading this, I hope you are able to set intentions for your days, for even your most mundane actions, so that you might achieve some level of peace.

So come up with some great ideas and help raise money for the Cancer Research Institute!

Before this journey began, people said things like, “You’ll find yourself”, or “This is going to be the time of your life”. Sometimes it bothered me that people who had never done anything like this were telling me how the walk was going to change me… it didn’t seem to make sense.

This one degree shift has helped me to uncover the fallacy inside myself that I am in control. Sure, I may have control over my choices, but my intentions and my actions affect others in ways that I will never fully understand, in ways too profound to adequately express with words. And while to this point in the story I may have only loosened my grip on the steering wheel a bit, I’m learning to LET GO of navigating obediently and robotically according to the GPS of my own thoughts. When I first started this project, Eureka, CA., was the destination. And because of a one degree change in trajectory, I am content with waving at it, distant as the moon outside the shuttle window, and meet what is beyond my control. The road. Life.

This project, from planning to walking, giving compassion and receiving it, waking up and going to sleep, right to left to right again…has been a monumentally challenging experience. When I took my first steps at East End Beach in Portland, ME., wide-eyed, I didn’t know what to expect, but vaguely felt myself crossing a barrier, as if I had hopped the fence separating my emotional and physical rut from living, and walked directly into the time of my life. This walk has been the surprise party after thinking everyone forgot my birthday.

As soon as I hit Commercial St. in Portland I began to learn and transform. Adjusting my big red pack toward Casco Bay Bridge, a man ran up to me wondering what I was doing. Inquisitive at first and then genuinely inspired by R2L’s story, Tom McCoomb’s example of curiosity and openness is a practice I repeat many times each day while I walk. There couldn’t have been a more fitting beginning…and I hope the practice continues after R2L is finished. Thank you to everyone I’ve met so far for the realization that there is meaningful communion in our intentions, words, and actions when we come together in mindful compassion. Throughout the day I remind myself to be open…and it works. One of the goals of the project is to inspire and allow people to express their compassion…and by being open to whatever that means for any given individual, it’s been an unequaled success.

If you don’t like the weather around here, wait five minutes.

By the end of my second day, my body was screaming to stop. The logical part of my brain, until now out-matched by the dreamer part, was whipping me with doubt, pain and fatigue, and I was having trouble seeing a tomorrow for R2L. Walking has a way, albeit sometimes painfully, of keeping you in the moment. I realized that the trouble with tomorrow is that no matter how jealously it tries, it will never be today. Today I can heal my body. Today I can receive generous compassion heaped on me like a pound of spaghetti on an empty plate. So, that’s what I did… I soaked in the tub and took some ibuprofen. I massaged my aches and stretched my tired muscles, and most importantly, I stayed present enough to get to know my kind hosts, Donna and Colleen. By morning, my body felt better and my mother showed up with a cart I could tow my gear in. Funny, there is a rule when traveling in the woods with others; if you are separated from your group and are lost, stay where you are. It’s an apt metaphor. I stayed where I was, waited for the fog of doubt to pass, and let the impermanence of change carry my much lighter feet southward to Wells.

It’s not all Zen. There’s a practical side to everything on the road. A method, a practice, a system. On Rickshaw 1, I used a spool of string to fasten a harness out of my small backpack which allowed me to pull my cart… a bowline on one side and a few rolling hitches on the other that were easy to untie when I needed my pack. Blister care is methodical. Remove band-aids, douse in peroxide, pat dry, air out…then in the morning it’s almost exactly reverse. Air, peroxide, band-aids. Sometimes you don’t know what to expect, and sometimes you do. There have been about 12 vehicles, all containing at least two males between the ages of 18-25, that have carried said males sailing past me shouting. Admittedly, it really is funny scaring people.. and admittedly, it did make me jump the first two times…but not anymore. It’s like when the neighbor’s dog barks every time you go by the house…after a while you know what’s coming. And there’s comedy, too. Billy at the church supper told everyone, “Whoever doesn’t eat their salad is going to get a spanking”…then slid his salad to me…

Finding a place to sleep is part of the adventure. I asked a man in York (who happened to be an off-duty York policeman), “Excuse me, sir. Where is the best place for me to set up my tent?” …”Kittery”, he said.

After these first two weeks, I’m filled with the understanding that when I open myself to people, they generally open themselves to me, too. I’m touched by the compassion that is all around us and I believe that people want to, and will, express their compassion if you give them the chance. Thank you, supporters, fans, friends, family, strangers, new friends, and readers for making this the time of my life in only 14 short days. Back on the road tomorrow and looking forward to sharing new experiences soon.

Peace,
Rick

Elaine and me at Sea-Vu! At Sea-Vu they raise lots of money for the American Cancer Society each year and were happy to host me for two nights…even though they were all booked up! Thanks to my friend, Marisa, for setting me up with Aunt Elaine and the rest of the awesome folks at Sea-Vu after my 3rd day on the road.. Such a restful and beautiful place!

Rick has been on the road a little over a week. As of this minute, he’s in Wenham, Massachusetts! (You can keep track of where Rick is by clicking here or on the “Where’s Rick Now?” button above.) He’s been staying with friends and strangers along the route and is overwhelmed by the hospitality he has encountered — from the fabulous folks at the Sea-Vu campground in Wells, Maine; to the church who let him camp in the church yard after stuffing his belly with a church supper; to the kind woman from Ipswich who fed him dinner, did his laundry, and tried to set him up with her niece.

Rick has experienced his first set of blisters, his first rainstorm on the road, and some HOT days of walking but is in great spirits and enjoying meeting the amazing people in this world.