On the way down, back and multiple times since our return I have asked Jordy to send me some writings of his perceptions of our adventure for my blog. When I woke this morning the following essay was in my box. Enjoy.
HIS FAULT? MY FAULT? ASPHALT!
Falling backwards across a wave into the Hotlantic Potion I relax and feel the edge of the watery world embrace me. When I stand up the air is warm compared to the waters cold. I go back in for another. When I come up again this time the stars are staring at me. They’re alive beyond time, or our understanding of such, just like me. The spot where I am is roughly 220 miles from the city where I live and I was just a part of a traveling bunch of bicycle riders making a one-day-dash for this spot. When the twelve of us crossed the bridge onto the island I knew we had just done something that was going to impact the course of my life; change how I perceived and reacted to existence.
For them it stopped here but three of us were going to try something new. We were going to attempt to go home. And in the ocean under the night sky was the perfect spot to try and reel in that information and face it. To admit that what was happening was something that I was going to be a part of because its written that I be a part of it. To quote Duncan, one of the fellows who had just ridden down with us, “No matter what, tomorrow is going to be cosmic.”
The alarms were set for 3:30am. Multiple alarms. It took me a while to figure out how to actually set mine. My mind was slow to react to anything. Thinking was a chore. Upon completion of the first 220 miles I knew it was the hardest thing I had ever done. Thinking about doing it again was weird, but I couldn’t rule it out because I didn’t have the chance to go to sleep wake up and try it. I couldn’t rule it out because it wasn’t there to rule out. What was there now was the need for sleep and relaxation.
THE TIGERS EYE IN THE SKY Imagine an onion, sliced in half, revealing how it had grown, a tight core symmetrically radiating out into geodesics. This is what it looked like when the sky opened up and began to speak. Amid a triangulated pattern of stars I saw a something, IT if you'll call it that, LOVE if we need to find a common ground. IT, too, saw me.
I travel with a moonstone. Right now it is in the back office of singlespeeds.com. It was given to me in Durango, CO this past summer as I began my one-day 1,200-mile trek via auto across the US to attend the burial of my grandmother Edith Morrow at the Ryan’s Steakhouse in Conway, AR. The healer who gave me the stone was working on my body. I laid on my back in my sleeping bag and placed the stone on my chest, never needing to close my eyes to fall away to a deep, restoring rest. The Tiger's Eye in the Sky began pulsating at an even faster rate and I was experiencing life as blood flow, as organ bounce, as flesh felt gravity and the mind finally dissolved to pure experience. A hand silently lifted my skin and rearranged my organs, unblocked blocked blood, moved the day’s foods and pains. Love was a Doctor, a bedside cosmic nurse; I was in the Operating Room of the Cosmos. . .
A screen door slamming, "F***in, Guys! Guys! What the F? Guys, you can sleep inside, you don't have to sleep on the porch. . . get inside! Guys!"
The less-than-man in a polyester "might-get-you-laid-by-a-busboy-at-an-all-you-can-eat-seafood-buffet" shirt was, like the majority of people alive, mistaking dollars over time-share rented space for hospitality and insisting that we remove ourselves from warm outside sleep to go in and breath whatever he was offering in the doors. A lot of people have said that they would have killed him and though I agree he deserves nothing shy of a Roman Crucifixion I somehow maintained that holding onto my spot on the Operating Table of St. Anna's Cosmic Hospital was more important than quietly getting up, approaching and judo slinging him off the front porch. Yay, the mind cannot know what the heart does for it would only label and analyze and the operation was over, flesh forming in reverse to leave me lying under the normal constellations on a hardwood deck in my sleeping bag with a cell phone alarm clock aimed at my head like a cocked crossbow.
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS ALSO LOOKING FOR YOU
The day before had taken us thru 43 miles of rain and cold that felt like being in the produce section of a grocery store under the misty spraying things. It had led me past a trashcan that made me laugh out loud at its overflowing nature. It introduced us to a man with no teeth drinking King Cobra from a plastic cup and openly admitting, "Cobra ain't good for your teeth." It had me nearly off the back and stranded, had me throwing away unnecessary clothing, in a pace line 23miles/hr into a headwind. So what was today going to be?
Trying. Once I was away from the Comfort Not Comfort of the rental home and back out on the streets of Isle of Bougentoon I realized that I was a part of trying something that to my knowledge had not been tried before. My dream? Maybe. But I wasn't the only one there and looking up and seeing the hulking masses that were my two riding partners lit my spirit. Things began being real again. Organic. Windy, dark, wet and salty. Knowing that they were going to give it a shot meant that I had the chance to too, and the gratefulness set in. Suddenly I was more thankful than ever that Life had led me to this, like its led me to loss and learning alike, IT was giving me this opportunity now, and I was in for the long haul.
Enduring is a big part of endurance sports. It is often promoted as something that is elite-class-athlete stuff. Like if Nike hasn't noticed you then you should not be out there in the way of people who have genetic capabilities to actually audibly sweat that song "BitterSweet Symphony." If you're sitting at a desk for 10 years telling yourself that 5 more years equals comfy-cozy retirement then your enduring. If you're doing the right thing instead of the easy thing than you're enduring. If you've got really big questions that keep you up at night asking for an answer than you're enduring. If you're squinting to see whether the ticket says "Egg Whites Only" or "X-Tra Salsa" you're enduring. Now all you have to do is apply the sports part. The movement. The using your actual body and blood, mind and heart in one focused and intense direction. It can happen over any space, and time, any elevation, any climate and any terrain. This is where I found my thoughts when my pancakes arrived at the Huddle House. . . Why go to Mt. Everest when South Carolina is so close?
280 MILES IN, TIME TO GET IT RIGHT
The thought that potentially we were going to be labeled "HEROS" was discussed over our HH brekky. I think HEROS are shaped like rats asses. Pink, tiny, shaven, disconnected asses of the one rodent that metaphorically bears the brunt of society’s disgust with itself. I think they are shaped just the same, packaged in plastic things hung on racks in Isle of Wants all across DisneyLand. It was established that there were murmurs, people we knew who knew what we were trying forming expectations (hyperlink) and wanting us to be the physical manifestations of those. Too bad. This felt too good to ever care about what anyone else ever thought of it or judged it as. Which is why I was able to find the honesty to blurt out a problem I was having. My pedaling had gone from fluid-grin-bearing forwardness to an up/down chopped dance of pain and stiffness. It was my seat post height v. my seat position. It was wrong. The minute I mentioned the two hulking masses of seasoned riders I was with knew what I meant and went to fixing it for me, a luxury I will never take for granted, for ever be indebted to, and will remain a goal as to never have happen again: namely, the comfort of me being provided by another. Back on the bike and again a gust of wind in my sails. It wasn't too late and I hadn’t turned myself into a morbid gimp.
LET'S GO! (THE WRONG WAY)
When the question was posed, "Does any of this look familiar?" I heard myself answer, "Not TOO familiar." There was our answer. It's funny that what I was calling not familiar was a stretch of sprawl that included Italian-themed restaurants and gas stations and places to buy athletic socks and a variety of item-huts. Ah, America, the distinct. The individuality. What do our generations en masse look like, Mr. Whitman? Like a face first dive into a plastic ball pit at a Chucky Cheese. But somehow we knew it wasn't a part of our route. Somehow we knew we needed a map. Somehow we knew we were going the right way.
So, we're 17 miles out of our way. A little training loop post-brekky to knock off a few extra calories. Great! You, Dear Reader, know where that took us? Jedburg. Uh huh, root word "Jedi." No problem. You got to understand, its right around here that time and space truly lost their grasp. Where they may have had their expectant glare on us before was only a small tear in our collective jersey's where they had lost their hold and spilled into oncoming trucker traffic. Time and space are tools; WE were alive outside their norms.
A Greek villa was our sudden urgent destination. Pineopalous. I'll try to explain. The Cosmic Surgeon that I see is Greek. Accent and all. When she says "Awesome" in English it carries so much translated meaning mostly because it has this little noise that carries from the AHH to the SUM with a slight shhh sound. You know how sounds can really make you fall in love? So as we approach the Greek villa in the middle of South Carolina I realize, not only are we going the right way, were going the only way. Evolution v. Creation = do you care whether the book is being written or that its published? That’s where I'm at. Motorist and expectant hero-worshipers may be gearing up for the SuperBowl, but i'm right there. And at this point in the ride it’s all getting clearer. A creshindo is building.
In a store called "Not Just BOOTS" Billy got the info we needed to find a short cut. That info took time. That time gave us pause. That pause gave me rest. That rest gave me a moment to talk, laugh and feel. The blood was pumping through my veins. Billy emerged info in head and we set out to follow him. He told us to look for a school, a guy who had been a foster-care worker in NY/USA for 31 years had told him a cut. There was still a chance of getting back on track. We were looking for a school, and again, maybe it was the collective minds focus on something else that gave us the chance to experience this, but dropping down in front of us was a bird of prey with a gigantic wing span and lunch in it's talons. We took off and for one and one half minutes we got what can only this day and age be described as an IMAX experience, following it down the center lane of traffic, watching it struggle with the weight of it's cargo, feeling it feel us as a threat to it's hunger, seeing it maintain it's speed and plot a plan to drop it's excess. We were birds of flight too, Bird. We were birds of flight too.
The Good Greek Cosmic Doctors RX from the previous nights dreams was panning out. In a small Greek villa in South Carolina looking for a cosmic Short Cut we were reflected, reflecting our own hearts, heavy with so many fishen needs.
A NEVER EVER LUNCH/STRIKE COORDINATES CALLED IN FROM FIELD FONE
So I ate hot dogs. It was better than the McLunch I was insisting on. I knew all I wanted was cheap, fast, salty calories in my blood. Call me American; you wouldn't be lying for the time being. Anywho, I had weird conversations with the man behind the counter. I'm sure it looked like I wanted to take a bite out of his forehead, my eyes all over the place, mouth and expressions attempting to keep up with racing/cracked out thoughts. I wanted to tell him he had a motherly vibe. I think he may have judo slung me off the balcony. He noticed that I left my helmet by the hot dogs. So I did, Sir, so I did.
Outside Billy was doing odd Rohloff math equations on his fingers and looking at a map. Jesse was setting his camera on a trashcan. Ansel Adams would be jealous. We were in Santee. Where we ate lunch yesterday. I thought of what it took to get to lunch yesterday, effort-wise, and I cringed. Time and space are tools, and ours needed oil. A thundercloud overhead gave way to its potential, green lit insides of lighting wobbled our eardrums. A kid obviously on vacation with his family was staring at us. Tacit communication, eyeballs as senators and congressmen, make the call Captain, we've got to save our skin.
Mercer was called in. It's so appropriate. It's so written. If you don't have faith by this point in the story judo sling yourself off the balcony. Mercer went to Camden Milly Tarry Academy; we were a four-hour push away. Night would have implications. Darkness. Our third in 40-ish hours. That's some Biblical undertones. I did not want to go into a third Darkness. Rephrase, I would not have EVER gone into a third darkness. This would all be reconsidered in a few short hours.
TRANSFER COMPLETE/TIME-SPACE GAP CROSSED/INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
Everything got used. Ilan's spare tire, two tubes, CO2, electrolytes, shitbloks, goji berries, walnuts, turkey sandwiches, Boot's magik powder of Love. . . it was all used. When going into the field, bring what you think you'll need. Find a way to justify using it if you must, but have it there with ya. After two flats we were headed straight for the dirt-track section of the day. Off-road, fun in the overcast, lilac fields, ancient language molecular orange tire sand drifts. Maybe it was here that I began wondering if I felt this good because our field coordinates had been called in or because I really felt this good, this alive? Was I bunny-hopping puddles on a road bike because I knew I could burn the energy or because I knew I could? Off the dirt track, into Europe. South Carolina has a very colonized feel still, very old buildings leaning this way and that under the years of contemplation they've given the space-time question. But we somehow worm holed it straight to another continent. No cars, no billboards, no political signs importantly placed next to adverts to get your windows washed, no Huddle House or anything else. Only us and a strip of asphalt big enough to glide on. Only Earth.
We crossed an intersection on a yellow light like we were at Trade v. Tryon 365 miles in at 22m.p.h.
If anything was successful, that was.
We're down the road a bit, off the bikes, looking at the map, resting in front of an Electronic Battle Area, whatever that is. Were talking about whether or not we call off our rescue party. No way. I say no way. I know I could slog on in the dark, in the rain, in the cold, in the time-space void to woefully and pitifully hang a ribbon around my vain neck, but why would I? Were on hour 29 in the saddle and I want no part of night riding. But somehow were talking about it?
ARE CHURCHES INDEBTED TO THE METAPHOR MAFIA OR SOMETHING?
South Carolina does something that would be one of the few laws I would make if I were ever a powerful white American man. Here, I'll give you my top 3, the South Carolina one being the third:
1. You want to spend over a million? You got to count to over a million.
2. No new houses built over 1,000 square feet.
3. Caution signs in front of churches.
South Carolina does this. Maybe to warn motorists that people are pulling slowly and reverently out of the driveway, maybe not. Either way they are a good idea. Most churches do however have cheap plastic marquees out front usually with some saying that I can't help but read. The two that stick out from the weekend are "God is like Wal-Mart, He has everything" and "Death to the Christian is like a transfer to the home office." Why ARE they targeting the corporate workers/buyers... oh yeah. Any who, this led me to a thought, and I'll try to end on this note. First let me say that eventually a honking truck that brought delight to my heart and Mercer to my cortex passed us and both of those things were AWW-sh-UMM. Let me also say that the paradox of whether or not I was riding hard because I knew backup was on the way or because I was just a Herculean legend was answered when I sat in the front seat of Mercer's F-150 and felt happiness and warmth radiate all from my spine and heart. But what I really want to say is this, and if you own a church you can plagiarize me all day long, but somehow I don't think this resonates well with consumer culture, but if you want to make a man feel like he is going to hell, take away his feeling of his spirit being free here on earth.
HIS FAULT? MY FAULT? ASPHALT!
Falling backwards across a wave into the Hotlantic Potion I relax and feel the edge of the watery world embrace me. When I stand up the air is warm compared to the waters cold. I go back in for another. When I come up again this time the stars are staring at me. They’re alive beyond time, or our understanding of such, just like me. The spot where I am is roughly 220 miles from the city where I live and I was just a part of a traveling bunch of bicycle riders making a one-day-dash for this spot. When the twelve of us crossed the bridge onto the island I knew we had just done something that was going to impact the course of my life; change how I perceived and reacted to existence.
For them it stopped here but three of us were going to try something new. We were going to attempt to go home. And in the ocean under the night sky was the perfect spot to try and reel in that information and face it. To admit that what was happening was something that I was going to be a part of because its written that I be a part of it. To quote Duncan, one of the fellows who had just ridden down with us, “No matter what, tomorrow is going to be cosmic.”
The alarms were set for 3:30am. Multiple alarms. It took me a while to figure out how to actually set mine. My mind was slow to react to anything. Thinking was a chore. Upon completion of the first 220 miles I knew it was the hardest thing I had ever done. Thinking about doing it again was weird, but I couldn’t rule it out because I didn’t have the chance to go to sleep wake up and try it. I couldn’t rule it out because it wasn’t there to rule out. What was there now was the need for sleep and relaxation.
THE TIGERS EYE IN THE SKY Imagine an onion, sliced in half, revealing how it had grown, a tight core symmetrically radiating out into geodesics. This is what it looked like when the sky opened up and began to speak. Amid a triangulated pattern of stars I saw a something, IT if you'll call it that, LOVE if we need to find a common ground. IT, too, saw me.
I travel with a moonstone. Right now it is in the back office of singlespeeds.com. It was given to me in Durango, CO this past summer as I began my one-day 1,200-mile trek via auto across the US to attend the burial of my grandmother Edith Morrow at the Ryan’s Steakhouse in Conway, AR. The healer who gave me the stone was working on my body. I laid on my back in my sleeping bag and placed the stone on my chest, never needing to close my eyes to fall away to a deep, restoring rest. The Tiger's Eye in the Sky began pulsating at an even faster rate and I was experiencing life as blood flow, as organ bounce, as flesh felt gravity and the mind finally dissolved to pure experience. A hand silently lifted my skin and rearranged my organs, unblocked blocked blood, moved the day’s foods and pains. Love was a Doctor, a bedside cosmic nurse; I was in the Operating Room of the Cosmos. . .
A screen door slamming, "F***in, Guys! Guys! What the F? Guys, you can sleep inside, you don't have to sleep on the porch. . . get inside! Guys!"
The less-than-man in a polyester "might-get-you-laid-by-a-busboy-at-an-all-you-can-eat-seafood-buffet" shirt was, like the majority of people alive, mistaking dollars over time-share rented space for hospitality and insisting that we remove ourselves from warm outside sleep to go in and breath whatever he was offering in the doors. A lot of people have said that they would have killed him and though I agree he deserves nothing shy of a Roman Crucifixion I somehow maintained that holding onto my spot on the Operating Table of St. Anna's Cosmic Hospital was more important than quietly getting up, approaching and judo slinging him off the front porch. Yay, the mind cannot know what the heart does for it would only label and analyze and the operation was over, flesh forming in reverse to leave me lying under the normal constellations on a hardwood deck in my sleeping bag with a cell phone alarm clock aimed at my head like a cocked crossbow.
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS ALSO LOOKING FOR YOU
The day before had taken us thru 43 miles of rain and cold that felt like being in the produce section of a grocery store under the misty spraying things. It had led me past a trashcan that made me laugh out loud at its overflowing nature. It introduced us to a man with no teeth drinking King Cobra from a plastic cup and openly admitting, "Cobra ain't good for your teeth." It had me nearly off the back and stranded, had me throwing away unnecessary clothing, in a pace line 23miles/hr into a headwind. So what was today going to be?
Trying. Once I was away from the Comfort Not Comfort of the rental home and back out on the streets of Isle of Bougentoon I realized that I was a part of trying something that to my knowledge had not been tried before. My dream? Maybe. But I wasn't the only one there and looking up and seeing the hulking masses that were my two riding partners lit my spirit. Things began being real again. Organic. Windy, dark, wet and salty. Knowing that they were going to give it a shot meant that I had the chance to too, and the gratefulness set in. Suddenly I was more thankful than ever that Life had led me to this, like its led me to loss and learning alike, IT was giving me this opportunity now, and I was in for the long haul.
Enduring is a big part of endurance sports. It is often promoted as something that is elite-class-athlete stuff. Like if Nike hasn't noticed you then you should not be out there in the way of people who have genetic capabilities to actually audibly sweat that song "BitterSweet Symphony." If you're sitting at a desk for 10 years telling yourself that 5 more years equals comfy-cozy retirement then your enduring. If you're doing the right thing instead of the easy thing than you're enduring. If you've got really big questions that keep you up at night asking for an answer than you're enduring. If you're squinting to see whether the ticket says "Egg Whites Only" or "X-Tra Salsa" you're enduring. Now all you have to do is apply the sports part. The movement. The using your actual body and blood, mind and heart in one focused and intense direction. It can happen over any space, and time, any elevation, any climate and any terrain. This is where I found my thoughts when my pancakes arrived at the Huddle House. . . Why go to Mt. Everest when South Carolina is so close?
280 MILES IN, TIME TO GET IT RIGHT
The thought that potentially we were going to be labeled "HEROS" was discussed over our HH brekky. I think HEROS are shaped like rats asses. Pink, tiny, shaven, disconnected asses of the one rodent that metaphorically bears the brunt of society’s disgust with itself. I think they are shaped just the same, packaged in plastic things hung on racks in Isle of Wants all across DisneyLand. It was established that there were murmurs, people we knew who knew what we were trying forming expectations (hyperlink) and wanting us to be the physical manifestations of those. Too bad. This felt too good to ever care about what anyone else ever thought of it or judged it as. Which is why I was able to find the honesty to blurt out a problem I was having. My pedaling had gone from fluid-grin-bearing forwardness to an up/down chopped dance of pain and stiffness. It was my seat post height v. my seat position. It was wrong. The minute I mentioned the two hulking masses of seasoned riders I was with knew what I meant and went to fixing it for me, a luxury I will never take for granted, for ever be indebted to, and will remain a goal as to never have happen again: namely, the comfort of me being provided by another. Back on the bike and again a gust of wind in my sails. It wasn't too late and I hadn’t turned myself into a morbid gimp.
LET'S GO! (THE WRONG WAY)
When the question was posed, "Does any of this look familiar?" I heard myself answer, "Not TOO familiar." There was our answer. It's funny that what I was calling not familiar was a stretch of sprawl that included Italian-themed restaurants and gas stations and places to buy athletic socks and a variety of item-huts. Ah, America, the distinct. The individuality. What do our generations en masse look like, Mr. Whitman? Like a face first dive into a plastic ball pit at a Chucky Cheese. But somehow we knew it wasn't a part of our route. Somehow we knew we needed a map. Somehow we knew we were going the right way.
So, we're 17 miles out of our way. A little training loop post-brekky to knock off a few extra calories. Great! You, Dear Reader, know where that took us? Jedburg. Uh huh, root word "Jedi." No problem. You got to understand, its right around here that time and space truly lost their grasp. Where they may have had their expectant glare on us before was only a small tear in our collective jersey's where they had lost their hold and spilled into oncoming trucker traffic. Time and space are tools; WE were alive outside their norms.
A Greek villa was our sudden urgent destination. Pineopalous. I'll try to explain. The Cosmic Surgeon that I see is Greek. Accent and all. When she says "Awesome" in English it carries so much translated meaning mostly because it has this little noise that carries from the AHH to the SUM with a slight shhh sound. You know how sounds can really make you fall in love? So as we approach the Greek villa in the middle of South Carolina I realize, not only are we going the right way, were going the only way. Evolution v. Creation = do you care whether the book is being written or that its published? That’s where I'm at. Motorist and expectant hero-worshipers may be gearing up for the SuperBowl, but i'm right there. And at this point in the ride it’s all getting clearer. A creshindo is building.
In a store called "Not Just BOOTS" Billy got the info we needed to find a short cut. That info took time. That time gave us pause. That pause gave me rest. That rest gave me a moment to talk, laugh and feel. The blood was pumping through my veins. Billy emerged info in head and we set out to follow him. He told us to look for a school, a guy who had been a foster-care worker in NY/USA for 31 years had told him a cut. There was still a chance of getting back on track. We were looking for a school, and again, maybe it was the collective minds focus on something else that gave us the chance to experience this, but dropping down in front of us was a bird of prey with a gigantic wing span and lunch in it's talons. We took off and for one and one half minutes we got what can only this day and age be described as an IMAX experience, following it down the center lane of traffic, watching it struggle with the weight of it's cargo, feeling it feel us as a threat to it's hunger, seeing it maintain it's speed and plot a plan to drop it's excess. We were birds of flight too, Bird. We were birds of flight too.
The Good Greek Cosmic Doctors RX from the previous nights dreams was panning out. In a small Greek villa in South Carolina looking for a cosmic Short Cut we were reflected, reflecting our own hearts, heavy with so many fishen needs.
A NEVER EVER LUNCH/STRIKE COORDINATES CALLED IN FROM FIELD FONE
So I ate hot dogs. It was better than the McLunch I was insisting on. I knew all I wanted was cheap, fast, salty calories in my blood. Call me American; you wouldn't be lying for the time being. Anywho, I had weird conversations with the man behind the counter. I'm sure it looked like I wanted to take a bite out of his forehead, my eyes all over the place, mouth and expressions attempting to keep up with racing/cracked out thoughts. I wanted to tell him he had a motherly vibe. I think he may have judo slung me off the balcony. He noticed that I left my helmet by the hot dogs. So I did, Sir, so I did.
Outside Billy was doing odd Rohloff math equations on his fingers and looking at a map. Jesse was setting his camera on a trashcan. Ansel Adams would be jealous. We were in Santee. Where we ate lunch yesterday. I thought of what it took to get to lunch yesterday, effort-wise, and I cringed. Time and space are tools, and ours needed oil. A thundercloud overhead gave way to its potential, green lit insides of lighting wobbled our eardrums. A kid obviously on vacation with his family was staring at us. Tacit communication, eyeballs as senators and congressmen, make the call Captain, we've got to save our skin.
Mercer was called in. It's so appropriate. It's so written. If you don't have faith by this point in the story judo sling yourself off the balcony. Mercer went to Camden Milly Tarry Academy; we were a four-hour push away. Night would have implications. Darkness. Our third in 40-ish hours. That's some Biblical undertones. I did not want to go into a third Darkness. Rephrase, I would not have EVER gone into a third darkness. This would all be reconsidered in a few short hours.
TRANSFER COMPLETE/TIME-SPACE GAP CROSSED/INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
Everything got used. Ilan's spare tire, two tubes, CO2, electrolytes, shitbloks, goji berries, walnuts, turkey sandwiches, Boot's magik powder of Love. . . it was all used. When going into the field, bring what you think you'll need. Find a way to justify using it if you must, but have it there with ya. After two flats we were headed straight for the dirt-track section of the day. Off-road, fun in the overcast, lilac fields, ancient language molecular orange tire sand drifts. Maybe it was here that I began wondering if I felt this good because our field coordinates had been called in or because I really felt this good, this alive? Was I bunny-hopping puddles on a road bike because I knew I could burn the energy or because I knew I could? Off the dirt track, into Europe. South Carolina has a very colonized feel still, very old buildings leaning this way and that under the years of contemplation they've given the space-time question. But we somehow worm holed it straight to another continent. No cars, no billboards, no political signs importantly placed next to adverts to get your windows washed, no Huddle House or anything else. Only us and a strip of asphalt big enough to glide on. Only Earth.
We crossed an intersection on a yellow light like we were at Trade v. Tryon 365 miles in at 22m.p.h.
If anything was successful, that was.
We're down the road a bit, off the bikes, looking at the map, resting in front of an Electronic Battle Area, whatever that is. Were talking about whether or not we call off our rescue party. No way. I say no way. I know I could slog on in the dark, in the rain, in the cold, in the time-space void to woefully and pitifully hang a ribbon around my vain neck, but why would I? Were on hour 29 in the saddle and I want no part of night riding. But somehow were talking about it?
ARE CHURCHES INDEBTED TO THE METAPHOR MAFIA OR SOMETHING?
South Carolina does something that would be one of the few laws I would make if I were ever a powerful white American man. Here, I'll give you my top 3, the South Carolina one being the third:
1. You want to spend over a million? You got to count to over a million.
2. No new houses built over 1,000 square feet.
3. Caution signs in front of churches.
South Carolina does this. Maybe to warn motorists that people are pulling slowly and reverently out of the driveway, maybe not. Either way they are a good idea. Most churches do however have cheap plastic marquees out front usually with some saying that I can't help but read. The two that stick out from the weekend are "God is like Wal-Mart, He has everything" and "Death to the Christian is like a transfer to the home office." Why ARE they targeting the corporate workers/buyers... oh yeah. Any who, this led me to a thought, and I'll try to end on this note. First let me say that eventually a honking truck that brought delight to my heart and Mercer to my cortex passed us and both of those things were AWW-sh-UMM. Let me also say that the paradox of whether or not I was riding hard because I knew backup was on the way or because I was just a Herculean legend was answered when I sat in the front seat of Mercer's F-150 and felt happiness and warmth radiate all from my spine and heart. But what I really want to say is this, and if you own a church you can plagiarize me all day long, but somehow I don't think this resonates well with consumer culture, but if you want to make a man feel like he is going to hell, take away his feeling of his spirit being free here on earth.
2 comments:
amen.
judo sling off a balcony... any death involving martial arts is a awsshum death.
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