(written over a series of days)
After dinner I found myself reading a little bit of Joseph Conrad and a sliver of Daniel Defoe. A thought has been growing in my mind for some time, percolating. Finally I feel as though I am approaching something that remotely resembles a conclusion. The past year of my existence has been quite excellent at banishing all thought of finality out of my life; particularly in my ability to make decisions…but in this instance I feel that I am actually quite close to right.
Diner tonight was a spicy dish of penne. I started with a glass of wine, it was not satisfactory. Some how I ended up with Miller-Lite out of a bottle. I went to school in Milwaukee, for a time, but Lite was on sale…so it really should not feel special or any allegiance. I sat alone at my desk and eat while Dylan sang about a woman and her need to stay, to lay about his big brass bed. How she should stay with her man awhile, how she needed to stay and make him smile. The thoughts of Her and the thoughts of a wedding that was planned but never happened flood back over me; what year indeed. I have another gulp of the Lite. The next thing I know Bob is singing about another girl, he was wondering if she had changed at all. I can tell you She hasn’t. He was standing on the side of the road, and rain was falling on his shoes…he comes back over and over again to this woman, and his inability to escape her. What a poor sucker. I wish there was not so much Bob in me.
For centuries past, time out of mind, men have taken to the sea. In this time there were Sea-Men and there were Land-Men; Defoe and Swift understood this concept, Conrad was the ladder. These men had a birth or many a birth that gave them the resolution. The answer always manifest itself in a blanket of undulation, a fluid uncertainty marked their paths. For these men nothing fixed the indefinable hole in their hearts like the medicine of the sea. It was never about getting to Burma. The journey was only the conduit, the conduit that through solutions to their messed up lives could flow. This is what she never understood, that is what they never understand.
The Lite is getting empty, luckily the pipe is just tampered, and in these times there is an icebox in the kitchen, I believe more Lite lives in the bottom shelf of the door.
End of the thought.
Average modern man has not changed with the rising and settings of a few suns. The problem of problem solving, the inability to resolve issues, and the general principle that the harder you look at something, the less you really see, is still quite evident in said modern man. Though cycles have heated grips, abs, efi, traction control, boxes that carry more gear than one can shake a stick at, and all other fashion of other fancy gadgetry…these completely missing the point of the cycle and what it endows on the modern man; what the cycle actually DOES for the modern man. After all, the Seamen did not seek the sea because the helm of “The Dauntless” had heated pegs. I am quite certain it was not until “The Dauntless IV” that anyone even considered the idea of heated anything. These men went to sea for one reason, only one. Only there were they far enough away from the forest to see it through the trees. It is only in ‘the doing’ only in ‘the sailing’ that they found what would have never been revealed in all searching, high and low, about the earth.
“In this particular place, in this particular time, there were two small boys. Sam and Simon. Sam and Simon were best of friends. Being small boys, their world was large and small at the same moment. Large in the sense that they both understood that beyond the smoke covered mountains there were many, many miles, kilometers, fathoms, or whatever one fancies for measuring given sections of land-mass, to be discovered. Conversely, their world was small because they made it such. The concept of how small they were was not lost on either of them, particularly Sam, or Samuel. Taking a wild world and cramming it into one’s pocket is not an easy task, as one can imagine. It must be done one day at a time, one spoonful of dirt by one spoonful of dirt. Sam and Simon did, in fact, dig in the dirt with spoons. Though they were not keen enough, neither of them, to realize what they were doing, they did go out and make battle on the world everyday, determined to make it palatable.”
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If one is to claim that they lead a life anymore amazing, interesting, or excellent than anyone else…one could suggest they were an arrogant self-centered prig. Yet, it would seem that based on the way of the world, and the decisions that people make that inevitably there will be folks with more colored pasts, and folks with more even keels. There is a particular chap that will more or less shape this story, his life is his own, far be it from me to make an conjectures regarding it, or upon it any judgment pass.
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04.29.08
Had dinner with a fellow inmate (stromboni) tonight. The topic of conversation was all over the place. Cycles were a headliner, naturally, but we also dabbled in ride reports. This musing came up as I tried to explain my issues with rrs in a very inefficient and round about sort of way.)
05.31.08
Had my last dinner with my sister and her family, my mom, and another inmate Lamoson tonight. When I left I said good-bye. The good-bye was my much different than the usual ‘later’ I offer as I peel off on one wheel. Something about ‘the next time I see you will be 5.5k miles and three weeks later’ stopped me, made me check myself, sort of a taking account moment. The weekend was spent in preparation, oil changes, checking bike, rechecking bike, repacking….sorting, lose this bit of luggage, repack. Finally, had to go blow off some steam and did some dirt eating on the drz, always a good time, nice to hone the dirt, mud and crud skills at every opportunity. I digress, as I was saying good-byes, heartfelt ones --- Nordstrom’s types --- not the Wal-mart variety, I was flooded with emotions. It is easy to get on my bike and blitz down the road, never thinking twice about too much of it, but this little stretch is not as such. It is strange, things happen; bad things happen daily on bikes. Once in awhile I pop into the ‘faceplant’ forum, helps the perspective. I love my family; negative thoughts never helped anybody, I doubt even for motivation, but supposedly an argument can be made. Pretty tough to keep my mind going in a straight line these days, there has not been much sleep lately. But then again isn’t the game of this trip to get my mind sorted out a bit? Maybe being a mental slob is ok for now, maybe for always? Guess the next few thousand miles will tell me a bit more about that… I wonder if my water pump will fail, I should have done it, but with 5k should it be able to handle it? I don’t speak French, how did I end up being born in a third world country and end up with only a smattering of village speak coupled a Spanish vocabulary of a verbally stunted 24 month year old Spaniard child? What about those fuel pump threats or the fact that I am running a TKC with 600 miles on it, and my trip is no less than 5,500 miles? Guess I will throw the old Scorp on top of the rest of this luggage, it is good for a few more miles…just need a place to swap it, and break that accursed 950 bead….ugg.
I was riding my Z through town today, and I just had to give her a hug. In a strange way, when I lost one girl in my life I gained another, and then another. These last two, though much more mechanical and seemingly cold, have been much easier to deal with than the first one. Moreover, they do not talk much, except in excited purrs, thumps and or growls…none of which ever involve lies, with I relish kindly.
djmase
05.31.08
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