The reader's thrill of first discovery
although unknown, not unfamiliar
foreign is not the same as alien.
An introduction we are right to fear
translation threefold--body, mind, and soul
from soul to mind, from mind to pen, why more?
these words make some things clear, and others cold.
Dead Man's Switch is a great implementation of an idea I've thought about a number of times over the past ten years or so.
Basically, it's a failsafe way to create an 'e-mail will'--you write the e-mails you want sent when you pass, they're encrypted and stored, and you have to log in every month to stop those messages being sent. (If you don't log in for 30 days, you get a reminder every week for another 30 days or so.)
I can't remember specifically why I was thinking about this tonight, but I found it with a google search on my Droid while waiting for a very long train...
To be honest, the most frightening idea isn't that I'd die, but rather that there are so many things I feel I've left unsaid--and so many of those things that I don't know if I ever can say.
Light 'em if you've got 'em. 48 years today, and still Mythopoeia trumps politicized religion, every time.
Do something epic today.
The shooting star she saw shone bright
A blaze of blue and brilliant green
It dropped as in a dream-like sight
From whence to where she did not ween
A beacon, or, a baleful sign?
Significance was there, it seemed
The level of 'outrage' and 'stupification' over the events of Monday's election seems ironic, considering the level of political apathy and ambivalence over similar issues ten and fifteen years ago.
Political awareness makes people into paranoid, mistrusting, impotent sore losers. The anarchists must be proud of us.
Every once in a while, beauty catches up with you. Not shouting, not with cloying pretentions, just calmly walking the path.
I overheard a local news program this afternoon talking about 'unsung heroes of 2010'. I didn't hear most of the discussion, but I did hear their top pick: Canadian Soldiers.
The first justification for this selection was the 'unforgettable sight of hundreds of people lining the "Highway of Heroes" in Ontario, recognizing the service and sacrifice of our armed forces in Afghanistan.'
I thought for a moment that I might have misheard, but they repeated the statement a few times: 'unsung heroes.'
Perhaps the only way this could have been more paradoxical would be to actually play the song Bob Reid wrote last year, called "Highway of Heroes."
Have you ever found yourself recognizng a smell at a basic level of consciousness without being able to specifically recognize it? Something that triggers an indistict recollection from half-memory?
It's common for us to associate smell with memory--nearly everyone associates a certain smell with a holiday, a season, or the places they grew up. But sometimes we encounter smells that are't tied in that way; that is, we recognize the smell as a smell, but we can't place it within a context or a story. (At least, that's the way my brain works--baking bread reminds me of working in the kitchen at summer camp; pumpkin pie reminds me of thanksgiving dinner; sand reminds me of riding arenas and 4-H, etc.) Sometimes I'll suddenly associate a distinct smell with some event or place only half-remembered; sort of a free-association-psychoanalysis by scent.
I was in the Superstore this morning, and realized that whatever cleaning product they use in the washroom (a smell I couldn't quite place before) smells an awful lot like Fruit Loops.
It's been a while since I've ridden the University route. Almost exactly a year and a half, in fact.
So as I sit here once again, sweating in my bike jacket and listening to "Broadway" (no, not that one, the other one) in my headphones, I put my sunglasses back on and I listen to the buzz of conversation.
It starts slow, and fairly quiet, but not exactly soft. There are only a few riders who get on at the mall, and only the Jr High students make more than a whisper. The powerful diesel powerplant easily out-drone quiet conversation, so as we move ahead (...and wait for one last fare...) toward the first stop the girl in the back raises her tone to a quiet yelp-almost like the tuning of strings before a concert.
By the Bonnie Doon stop there is almost a proper buzz of human Communication. As in the first movements of a concert, one can begin to hear the themes cycling into repetition and variation.
By the time a bus stops at Calgary Trail on Whyte, the buzz has begun to harmonize. Shrill Vietnamese lady, Sportsbike passing; coughing child, gruff chain-smoker's laugh; crying toddler, clicking change.
The symphony reaches crescendo, then fades at the cue of the last stop-bell before the University stop. For a refrain, the air brakes squeal and hiss.
The dilemma of a well-dressed thrift-shopper:
1A) it was an excellent shade of rust-brown
1B) it wasn't real Harris (proper Scots tweed is both coarse and fine simultaneously; this imitation was neither)
2A) it fit comfortably in the arms
2B) it was extra-Large in the chest
3A) it had gorgeous suede trim (including the preemptive elbow patches)
3B) I already have a tweed jacket (sans elbow patches...) which fits perfectly
The resolution is simple: keep wearing the good, well-fitting tweed you already own until it needs elbow patches. (No, it will never stop being the colour of mulch... but if you don't want to blend in with the compost, it's probably best if you stay away from tweed altogether.)
(Solution B: wander over to the books and find an immaculate, limited-hardcover-edition of _Name of the Rose_ for $3.99...)
The ride is all about presence. Not the kind of presence you'd find on a cruise ship, or on a vacation--those are places that you go to _see_. Perhaps the cruise ship is about 'being', but surely that's a different kind of being. The ride is being, not for the sake of being, and not because what you wanted to do was just 'be', but being for the sake of surviving the next turn and making it, then anticipating it, then feeling it as it rushes toward you (too late to stop now), then following it all the way through. If you veer over the center line because you weren't dedicated enough, you pray that nobody is coming from the other side of that rock face you're blasting around.
Riding is about being present to the task, the moment, the life, the presence of the asphalt (or gravel, if that's your thing) under your tires; but also to the presence of the 600lbs. beneath your butt, the throttle clenched in your aching palm, and that little lump on your skull that you can feel pressing into the helmet after a few hours.
Riding is presence. There are other places I feel presence like that, but rarely when I'm alone with time to reflect on them. Riding is unpretentious enough to get out of the way and just let you ride.
My grandmother makes the best soft-serve ice cream in the world.
True story.
Posts
All Comments
