Nerves

I break the news at work and field the questions.  “What are you doing?  Why are you doing it?”  I find that the short answers are not satisfying.  The nutshell version still sounds harebrained, self-indulgent.  But as I fill in the background, even the most critical listeners turn sympathetic.  This is reassuring.  But when I describe the actual plan, my finger tracing the map as I list off the months, I sense my certainty flagging.  “Can I really pull this off?”  Even assuming that our thesis is valid, it will still be logistically daunting to execute.  Then I listen to the nostalgic stories of “When I went on a trip…” which offer evidence for the declarations that “he will remember this for the rest of his life.”  This assertion rings true, so I marshal my nerves and focus on the end goal – that feeling of success in Logan’s chest as he skates up the national mall in May 2010, fifty states from now…