This is a lengthy goodbye letter that I hadn’t had time to write before I left the tour and a thank you note that has been brewing in my head for the last two months and now it has turned into an emotional account of how I felt during and after the bike tour.
I didn’t get enough of Ecotopia goodness and the regret over the fact that I could have stayed longer and didn’t, still haunts me. I have no photos to accompany the text but following Charlie’s blog post I’ll attach a song too – one that’s way more cheesy than Dumpster Diva…Hope you bounce to it while remembering any form of communal living you have ever experienced. Just ignore the one verse that says “We could be married”. No we couldn’t. Like myself, you most likely don’t believe in the institution of marriage.
I’ll be honest – the first 2 days with Ecotopia were difficult for me and seemed like ages. I know some people thought I was going to leave – so did I! The journey from Poland to Sweden took me 4 or 5 days of being alone with my thoughts, reading books and cooking for myself. Cycling at my own pace along the Oder river and through rural Germany put my mind into a contemplative state where I just wanted to replicate Henry David Thoureau’s life in the wilderness and solo. I have always been freaked out by the idea of being part of a group – just a character trait of mine. Call me an introvert if you like.
I couldn’t really imagine whether joining the bike tour would have meant having to immerse myself completely in the group or just cover the distance together with other people. Having heard about the bike tour before, I thought it was mainly about cycling together and visiting social projects and bike kitchens – I wanted to learn more about bikes and what is happening around Sweden. I was on the hunt for practical knowledge, I’d like to think. Instead, the greatest lesson came from being with fellow cyclists and making our lives merge for the time of the journey.
In the beginning I couldn’t figure out what it actually was all about. We were together, cooking, doing yoga on the beach, dumpster-diving, cycling. But where’s the ‘eco’ in the Ecotopia, I asked myself. The first few days it was just cycling and satisfying our basic needs. I took the duty of scouting and felt lost without clear guidance as to which route to choose and being one of the people baring the responsibility of leading the group somewhere only using free tourist information maps felt overwhelming. Used to a pretty conventional everyday life finding yourself in the midst of chaos is like stopping an addiction, it’s like detox.
Two or three days had passed and we stopped in Goteborg, being hosted by an art collective who let us use their amazing front room and kitchen. Having the time off cycling and some space to sit comfortably changed things a lot – we started having regular meetings in the form of circles and I experienced for the first time what it is like to make decisions by consensus. We talked about our values and uncovered many differences, and we learned from one another, sometimes the hard way. We talked for hours each day. I felt frustrated that things didn’t work, that some people didn’t pull their weight. I wanted to work, work, work for the projects that hosted us. I felt a sense of duty. We were off all schedules but nobody seemed to mind. Time did not exist. And then suddenly something cracked in me.
I realised how valuable and needed those conversations were, how they were to change my perception of groups forever. Because it turned out, you can be a part of a group, yet your individuality can be respected and even cherished. It turned out despite the difficult conversations people still managed to be together, we still shared an aim, some space, food,