The Glory Of  Lunch
I finally took my vacation this past week.  I went camping, swam in lakes, travelled through the most wooded areas and got to see some historic sites along the way.  I sat by campfires and sang songs into the night and gazed upon the greatest sights of stars that one can see.  I also fed two hundred people in between all of that.
Some people take vacations for themselves, but this year I took a vacation where I thought of almost everyone but myself.  I participated on the People With AIDS Friends For Life bike rally, a journey that took over 150 cyclists and 50 crew from Toronto to Montreal over the course of six days, culminating in the festivities of Divercite of Montreal, their annual gay and lesbian pride week While some people may not consider feeding a pile of empty bellies a vacation, I couldn't think of a better place to be.
Last year, I had the great opportunity to discover the bike rally from a completely different perspective.  I had the chance to be on the film crew as the main cinematographer of a documentary on the bike rally and I really got to see the mechanics of how the bike rally worked.  It's an amazing sight to see all of those riders on the road chugging along to get to the next campsite, making their way to the fabled destination.
The best part of the trip, however, were the people who were either riding or crewing the trip.  Being on the other end of the earphones, looking through the lense of the camera, hearing their stories and seeing their emotions being translated on to the screen was almost overwhelming.  I remember helping interview people and hearing them tell stories of friends and family affected by AIDS and HIV and crying behind the eye piece, thinking that these people are amazing.
	Despite this connection, I didn't quite feel whole amongst the trip.  I was outside the group since I was in charge of documenting who they were for the week.  People love the camera, but they become weary of it when it may invade their personal space.  On the surface level, I got to know a few of the riders and crew and even at points I really glimpsed the real person, but I was still the one observing them, not experiencing them.
This year was a completely different experience as I became a part of the food group of the bike rally.  I wasn't in charge of looking at them, I was welcomed to become a part of them.  The people who I only had the opportunity to see last year, stood beside me and were so appreciative that I had come along.  In fact, I have never felt so welcomed by anyone in a long time than by these people and I think it was that sense of belonging that propelled my week from being a simple time off from my life to really learning something about what life really meant.
When one gets the chance to experience something profound, its hard to deny that what's going on around you might be quite ordinary.  These people were raising money and biking across six days and that in itself is amazing, but when one comes out of the experience feeling like a different person than from whence they came, that creates experience beyond a situation.  It was through working amongst them as a group and then knowing them as individuals that my life was changed for the better.
	I won't use names here, but there a few people who made me see a different side of life.  One gentlemen weighed in at probably 280 to 300 pounds and despite not being in the same physical shape as others, travelled faster and harder than most.  Another man had just been in remission from cancer and still travelled his butt off everyday and arrived in Montreal.  These people taught me about determination and the will of the human spirit.  They taught me that against great odds, keeping a positive outlook on life and the simple gift of enjoying every moment and taking chances can mean the world.
Arriving in Montreal, I was blessed on two occasions to receive wisdom and display some back to people not of my generation.  I have always known that I am able to converse well, but sometimes the division of age keeps that from happening. One gentlemen and myself were arguing profusely about the lack of youth on the trip and the reasons for this.  We were in heated debate, but somehow at the end of the supper and later, we were able to look at each other and realize that we were there for the same reason, the pursuit of life, and that was our common bond.
The second occasion came when I met this man in a bar in downtown Montreal.  He was not with the rally, but he was influential on my trip.  We chatted the night away and hugged and kissed and in most cases for most gay men, this would have been where the two men go off and have hot wild sex.  Well I'm sure someday that could quite be possible, but I have learned that I don't like casual and for him, that didn't matter.  He was twice my age and me being half his age and suddenly at some point in the evening, something changed for both of us.  We discovered that maybe we were limiting ourselves in how we saw people, that maybe we had fallen prey to ageism in our dating habits.  He didn't treat me young and I didn't treat him old, we treated each other as if we were human beings with nothing between us.  He dropped me off at my residence and we parted learning something about ourselves and each other, hopefully continuing our friendship into the years.
While most of these experiences were about opening ourselves out to the world, one experience taught me just how small the world really is sometimes.  I was standing on the float in the pride parade for the bike rally, dancing away when I happened to look over my shoulder to see two friends from Rochester, NY, standing in the crowd.  Now they did not know I was going to be there and I didn't know that they were there either.  It was completely by a twist of fate that we saw each other.  I don't think of this as a coincidence, I believe that we were supposed to see each other as I could have easily missed them and they me.  It was one of those moments that really sets you on the path of understanding the universe just a little bit more.
For some reason, that is exactly what this experience meant for me: a chance to understand life just a little more and to gain some insight into the ways of the world that sometimes escape us in our daily lives.  When I got back from the trip, I arrived on an emotional high.  I was elated by what I had experienced and I wanted to share it with people.  However, mostly what I saw was bitterness and the "same old" routines and the cruelty around me and I was angry.  I did not act out of rash, although I wanted to, but it was almost as if I made a vow of selflessness and support on the spot and I still do a few weeks later.
		It's amazing how much of the world we do not understand.  We get rushed around in life so much that we miss a lot of what the world has to offer.  This bike rally from Toronto to Montreal and back showed me a few of the things I was missing and inspired me to look for those things everyday in my life.  I look up at the sky sometimes just to catch a glimpse of peace and quiet from the honking horns and panhandlers on the streets and remember the starry sky at Port Hope, the first place we camped, and quietly carried memories of home with me as I travelled.  I listen intently in conversations where I might not have listened, such as when I heard a gentleman on the trip discuss The Boys In The Band and we continued for an hour and half.  I look at people with a sense of the goodness where I might not have looked such as I looked one very special person I met who shared his goodness with everyone despite being the epitome of what the rally was supposed to mean.  It is that relation of  experiences that I carry every day and I will continue to carry.  The name of the bike rally was called Friends For Life and I think that my life was enriched so much more for being there.