What the Muse Allows

My Uncle recently reminded me that we owe much to perspective.  Keeping that wisdom in mind, riding through straight flat land might be described by most people as "boring."  Schlappy (Pops) prefers the term "mono-culture."  That subtle distinction can make all the difference when a nook and crannying session in your mind lasts for eight hours, maybe more.  Riding can be either self-destructive, or fulfilling and inspiring like few other experiences, and it's completely up to the rider. 

The intensity that travel entails brings me to a quote by Cesare Pavese that Rona recently shared: "Traveling is a brutality... Nothing is yours except the essential things: air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it."  I tend to dislike over sentimentalized Pico Iyer-ish quotes about how traveling can change your life, but this one nails it.  Sleeping on the ground, dreaming hard, and chasing sunsets as if they were skirts has been our M.O., and it feels as pure as I've even known something to feel.  Then again, that doesn't mean it's easy.

Long cruises require a Zen disposition that my generation hasn't exactly been raised with.  Among other things, I'm a words guy (how articulate, I know).  Yet most lyrical castles I construct - poems, one liners, jokes, digressions - collapse beneath the force of the wind and the weight of the miles.  It's a cool reminder of impermanence - how fleeting our presence is, both on this ride and in the long haul.  Moving through nothing but cornfields on my 21st birthday only added to this sentiment.  Monotonous landscapes makes it easier to day-dream, yet that feels like an utter waste of consciousness. Ultimately, there's not much else you can do but be present and simply appreciate what you're moving through. It calls for a concerted awareness.  Dad's good at it.  I'm getting better.

Schlappy and I have both done this kind of thing before (hackneyed chronicling of my journeys can be found here and here).  In general, motorcycle trips provide the perfect recipe for self-discovery: ample time for introspection, the ecstatic joy of man-handling curves, and scenery that moves the beholder, including, but not limited to, the off-hand chance that you'll catch a glimpse of a cow peeing (which will remain funny until my soul shrivels up and dies).  But this one is different.  We're in this one together, which satisfies any 'happiness is only real when shared with others' needs.  In sum, this journey is very, very real. 

So, as the sun sets and rises, and we push forever West, there's a simple fact that we're happy to be reminded of each time that we lean into it: it's better in the wind.