travel

A Day in the Life…

Yet again the universe was dropping choice turds in front of him. “That’s life!” some would say, without thinking. But it wasn’t really life. It was how you led your life, and he had tried, failing many times. He had tried to lead a good life. Looking at the finish line looming nearer and nearer, the idea of good was fading in favor of some peace and quiet.

The suburbs were never a good idea. They were never a good thing but for the time being he was hidden in their mazes of bland and beige houses. He was comfortable. But now he found he wasn’t opposed to it. The city had become even more of a monstrosity of human ugliness with every sort of man-made evil laid out for consumption.

It offered a never-ending comfort if you had the cash and if you didn’t mind watching the world burn from a comfortable chair. He sipped his coffee and pondered about the cement and trees that surrounded him. Comfort came in many forms bot for now he enjoyed its soothing but stern grasp knowing all the while that the thorns would show themselves at any moment.

The Waiting Game

There is no doubt about it, it is a strange mix of happiness and sadness. Seeing the motorcycle sitting silently in the garage, patiently awaiting me to flick the key and push the starter button. It has the patience of a motorized saint. It knows the day will come. It knows somehow. And I know as well. It sat, dirty, after the 6600 mile trip for a few days…for a few. But then I washed it and polished and put it back in its place, beside the wall in the garage to wait for the next time.

The adventure came to an end, a pause in between paradise. I see the handlebars just over the hood of my truck as I slowly make my way into the garage, squeezing the large truck in between the motorcycles and the other car. It is strangely silent when I turn the key off. I’ve found myself walking over and just staring at the bike, sometimes I start it just to hear the engine. One day the maps will come back out, just for fun, and routes will be considered and then I’ll know the time has come again. It might take months or days, or maybe hours.

Touring on a motorcycle is really simple. That is, if you want it to be. A few bags, a tent, a loose plan. Go alone for the most freedom. Riding a motorcycle alone is talking to yourself in your helmet as the hours whiz by with the wind and the road in your ears. There are many good conversations to be had inside a helmet. You are really never alone. Riding alone is stopping when you want and riding into the night.

Touring on a motorcycle, the complexity of life disappears. Simple things at home become more simple. Instant oatmeal and a pour-over mug of coffee is all it takes to jump start the day. Dinner is just as simple, cooked on a one-burner camping stove in a single pot. Two wheels, not four, no glass, just the wind and the rain and the cold and the heat. Go or don’t go. Sleep or don’t sleep. Either way your two-wheeled ticket to freedom will wait. Just as it does in the garage. It knows the waiting game well. Silently, knowing that the time will come when you will have to feel alive again. To feel human once more. To wonder and to laugh out loud inside the illusion of safety as you lean into turns and watch the world go by in a blur.

Speed Limits

 

For the last ten days I’ve been motorcycling around the Northeast and the Midwest.  Through the rolling mountains of New York, the Catskills and the Allegheny mountains touted small towns, luscious forests and hidden restaurant gems that serve farm-to-table foods together with local brews.

The Allegheny mountains through Pennsylvania seemed more rough and rowdy than the somewhat civilized backwoods of New York, but they too served up ready brews and food from local farmers.  The stars of the trip, no doubt, but the winding road through West Virginia and the amazing nature that goes along with such twisting scenery soothes the soul, even at 65 mph around 35 mph corners.

The Midwest’s flat lands were a welcomed respite from from the work of the winding roads that flattened out in Ohio, Indiana and Missouri.  The food changed too.  Now the long single-lane roads were dotted with small towns and more fast-food.  The roads were beautiful in themselves and offered thoughts that were often recited out loud in the helmet while the wind whistled constantly.

I love motorcycles because they allow the riders willing to search an experience that is lost on those that scale the highways in their air-conditioned automobiles.  The experience is sensory in all its forms: from the smells to the tastes of coming rains.  The motorcyclist recognizes the differences between the small back roads and the long reigning highways.

The small roads offer smells of pine and forest, of food and farms, of the dank and dusky smells of animal life to the warm and inviting smells of people cooking for others.  The highways offer time but at a price: the experiences are limited to oil in fryers to oil at the gas stations.  Everything is fast, from the food to the freeways.

I have lived on the highways for long enough, but the small back roads take getting used to.  Perhaps I will slow those corners to their posted speed limits one day.motorcycles

A Two-For!

change-fishWords
In this day and age of endless internet banter it seems that language has been lost. Discussion, too, has taken a blow. We no longer communicate but rather yell our opinions at each other, and of course those opinions are beyond respute. We have answers to questions we do not understand; we have solutions to problems we do not know exist; we speak without understanding the power of words.

Terms either go to the wayside or are used as swords of offensiveness or defensiveness; either way we “are right” when we often do not understand the concepts of words like “right” and “wrong”. Being “politically correct” or simply being empathetic and kind; being “offensive” or simply being “truthful”. Gone are the days, it seems, of being expected to live up to the standards that we create: only need to speak because that is often the only thing we can do.

We use words as weapons and forget the firepower that make language important in the first place: concepts, propositions. We shortcut language without a thought to what that shortcut does to the actual meaning behind words. Without a thought we attack each other. Afterall, they’re only words.

When Things Take a Turn

I recently sold the property that we intended to start our farm on. Oddly enough it was not a difficult decision. The difficulty, as perhaps it always does, lay in the logistics (the work) of actually moving. Even in the short time we were at the place, material and tools pile up. It takes a lot to be self-sufficient.
So, into storage went my workshop and onto my neighbor’s (Neighbor Bob) property went the hens, my tractor and a few other large implements. While our decision to move on from our newly acquired place seems irrational to many I would argue that it would be insane to stretch your hand out to catch a dream and settle.
To expect something you know will not work to get better is to guarantee failure. And so, things take a turn. The work was unrelenting and the limbo that it puts a want-to-be farmer like myself in is almost as stressful as the move itself. But, when things take a turn there is not other option than to enjoy the scenery.
I will not explain that such decisions are easy or that they are the best for everyone, but often times the truth is obvious and that makes the answer even more obvious.
My advice to anyone finding themselves in a situation that is not conducive to their happiness is to remember that change brings new options, many of which were either not noticed or not available. When things take a turn sometimes the best bet is to ride the storm and other times it is to abandon ship. But, the most important aspect of change to remember is that life is short and change, no matter what turn it takes, is inevitable.

The Adventure Less Travelled

travel

The word “adventure” conjures up fun and excitement, endless activities and wide-eyed happiness coupled with friendly unknowns.  And while this is true, it is true like most things concerning human life are true: partly.  In coffee shops around the world people sit sipping coffee and munching scones, talking about what they “would do” if given the chance; but they never do it.  Perhaps, the adventure is already alive, but waiting for us to act upon it.

In the fifty or so years that I have been alive I have travelled to some forty countries, lived in four states, travelled throughout the lower forty eight, been a truck driver, a musician, and a college teacher.  I have climbed mountains and trekked the Annapurnas in Nepal, eaten curry in Calcutta, and a Vietnamese sandwich in north and south Vietnam.  I have drank instant coffee in a cave high up on the sides of mountains in places that I can’t name and have believed that cup of coffee to be the best I’d ever had.  I have drank beer in more pubs than I can count in England and eaten Bratwurst in Germany, spaghetti dinners in Italy, drank Belgian beers in Belgium, meatballs in Sweden, and enjoyed the beaches in Denmark as well as wine in France and crabs in Norway.  I am a homesteading farmer and carpenter at present and those activities present me with even more adventures.

This is all to say that the adventures that I have experienced are life: there are good and bad times, boring times, scary times, frustrating and irritating times.  There are times when a cup of coffee at a well known coffee shop, surrounded by suburbanites in a “safe” neighborhood is an adventure and there are times when scaling a peak at 13000 feet is an adventure: I’ve tried both and while the feelings are different, they can both get interesting.

An adventure is carved out of the experiences that we have while living.  The only time we miss out on adventures is when we choose not to do something because we are afraid, or tired, or lazy.  Sometimes an adventure can be had sipping a cup of coffee and sometimes we need to put the cup down and do something.  The adventure starts when we know what to do and when to do it.

Stories From the Road: Beer, Blues and the Backseat of a VW Beatle

lone star

The beer had to come which meant that the passenger seat must come out; which meant that George was to sit in the backseat with his feet propped up on the white cooler that took the place of the passenger seat.  Everything had its place.

I never knew that the seats of my 71’ VW Beatle (that I had christened ‘Hitler’s Revenge’) were stuffed with straw.  Springs hold the straw in place under the black vinyl.  George didn’t know this either, but was soon to find out.  For the time being, however, he sat comfortably with his feet propped up on the cooler.

It was hot!  It was Texas, and it was in the middle of July.  Hitler had no air-conditioning as it could barely pull itself without having to run a compressor.  Stevie Ray Vaughn was playing in Dallas, and we were hell-bent on being awash in his amazing prowess with a guitar.  We were also hell-bent on drinking the two cases of Lone Star beer we had brought.

We bounced in the downtown traffic, stopping at traffic lights and sweating like whores in the Texas heat.

“Goddamn, it’s getting hot!” yelled George over the blaring blues we had going.

“No shit, Sherlock!” I yelled back.

“No! I mean I think I’m on fire.”

We sat at the light and George began bouncing around, getting more and more anxious, yelling all the time about the heat.

“What the fuck are doing?!” I yelled.

“Dude! I think there’s a snake back here and I think I’m bit!”

“You’re crazy…”

George wasn’t crazy, but there was no snake.

We were parked on a four-lane piece of cement under a bridge some ten minutes away from beer and blues and George began trying to crawl out the side window, yelling and screaming.  I saw smoke wafting from ass of his jeans as he fell out of the car and began running around under the bridge, smoke making a curly tail as he ran.  Then I noticed the billowing smoke coming from the back of the car.

The car was on fire, and so I screamed and threw the keys (Yes, threw them.  I don’t know why) at George who was still running around cussing and screaming at the side of the road.  Smoke billowed out of the car door windows and traffic began backing up from us.  I reached in the car and pulled the backseat out.  By the time I had the seat out the straw had made a nice inviting flame.  The cars around us continued to back up at a more and more alarming rate.

It was really easy.  I just threw handfuls of dirt in the backseat and the flame went out.  George finished with his sideshow dance and showed me the newly burnt hole in the ass of his jeans.  I put the backseat back in, but George sat on the cooler for the duration of the ride.  After some searching I found the keys and we started the car up, having the road to ourselves for the time being.  Stevie Ray never sounded so good with an ice-cold Lone Star beer in hand.

From the Collection: Stories From the Road

chaos

#1

Join me on my travels on that Monday, that day in the van in October, driving like freaks on speed. This can’t fucking be right! No human driving mad crazy. What am I doing with all of this? The proof is in the pudding, the pride, and the persistence to show. The price is driving with this crazy motherfucker; barreling down the Pennsylvania hills, pissing in my pants, puppy-dog shit. This son of a bitch is the devil himself and we shall all die in Satan’s arms. It is inevitable.

The van is already dying, etching out the last of its pitiful life, the picture of American pride. Fuck it! Some fuel additive and gas and we’re on our way to the pace of porn, pot and poetry. We shall succeed at any price. Hell shall have its way! Quite a popery of prophetic prose to be put upon the priceless piece of pummeled paper. The proposal was put forth that in Pennsylvania and properties around those words like “prick” and “pussy” must have precedence in the propensity of profound poetry put forth.

Of course, this is only a prelude to the pretense that we shall actually play; watching the palpitatious patterns of people plunder the peace of palatable portions of epiphany.

#2

In the last moments, those final bleak hours, in the dark, in this fucking car. So goddamned tired and greasy. So close and the road just won’t end. My eyes are on fire and this constant moving doesn’t give a hairy apes ass! All I want is my home, that dream world I use to know before I took off on this fucked up ride. It’s like that park in Massachusetts where the operator fell asleep. The ride never ended and we were screaming at the end, sick as dogs, wanting to die. He must have been on dope or perhaps, just didn’t give a damn.

My mind knows there’s a place where I belong but shit, where is it? This is insane. All these cars, all this night. This whole, unending night, the numbers on the clock move, we move…so what’s the fucking problem? Give a man some peace; I’ve got a wife, I’ve got pets for god’s sake. They’re probably dead and I wouldn’t know it. I can’t do this. This is nuts; the same name on every sign, on every exit. It’s all the same.

We don’t turn, we never turn. No wonder this car is dying, it’s tired too! The same stretch of snot to roll down. I feel like a fly. Fly? Fuck that! Who’s got time with all this road? I don’t ask for miracles, just to sit in a chair that happens to be mine for a while. This moving has got to stop. Enough is enough. It will drive anyone insane. I know, I am fucking mad!

It’s all a spinning nightmare at this point. Who cares? We’re all going to die. No end in sight and we’re all acting like its normal, an enigma, a traveling savant, a fucking idiot. This is life in the fast lane, burning the oil, all of it. Fuck it! Let’s go…