Spite

I have a motorcycle.

Its a glorious two wheeled expression of freedom.

I ride a lot.

I even took some longish trips astride its aluminium and steel frame. States and blacktop whistled under my boots. A set of tires wore themselves down trying to keep up with the travels.

The cat.

Bear with me here.

We have a few cats. Fat Jack you should all know by now. He is not the only feline to grace our lives with their furry little personalities however.

There is Baby Jack, Blackie, Potty Kitty, (so named because she lives IN the bathroom window) and Fat Penny.

Fat Penny hates me.

She is the semi-feral all evil progeny of Fat Jack and some female kitty. I hope Jack enjoyed himself. The wanton little mac-daddy.

She hates me.

In my defense, I only actually kicked her the one time. To be honest, it was not through lack of trying. She is just too fast for my slow foot to catch. The evil little brute sneaked into the house and made yuck on child #2s bed. I caught her in the act, trying to slink away with a satisfied little smirk on her petulantly fuzzy face.

So I snatched her by the scruff of the neck and punted her into the front yard.

The cat, not the child.

She traveled about 20 feet in the air and true to form and advertising, landed on her feet.

I was so pleased with myself.

My chest puffed and my head back emitting ringing guffaws.

Until I had to clean the yuck. Then I cursed her and wished I had punted harder.

Vile little beast.

I rode up to Canada. With two friends.

Its a really long ways and very scenic. A really great ride. We didn't see a police car. The road was relatively clear and the company was excellent. Even through Idaho and Montana.

I traveled in a sort of slow bliss, ear buds in and the wee little god inside my ipod serenading me about all the good things in life. Focused on the road your mind can only wander so far.

People you care about, things you want to do, to create.

It is a grace. Traveling that way.

Canada.

Its a silly place.

They hate Americans. I don't care for them much either, but the Canadians seem to make a sort of unspoken national pastime out of it.

At the border all they wanted to know, is when we were leaving.

Welcome to Canada! now go home.

They have some Laws there.

Some of them very similar to here. Some not.

Helmet laws here, for example, are lax.

I rarely wear a helmet.

I own several. I recommend them. I just don't really care for wearing one.

Canadian Police folk insist on it however.

So at the border I unstrapped my fantastic full face helmet.

For you rare breed that don't know what this is.

It covers the whole noggin. Face, Forehead and the entire cranium. Even mine, as huge as my head is. (Thank you Special Order ICON)

This is the hard part.

The evil spite that exists in the heart of all things.

Especially kitties that have been punted.

Fat Penny had peed inside my helmet.

As I pulled it over my head and smelled and felt and experienced the foul little beasts expulsion on and around my head. I was filled with regret.

For a week in Canada.

Across the silly nation.

Nothing removed the smell, Nothing.

So regret was my constant companion.

Remorse.

"I should haves" filled my head.

But one rose to the top of every still lake of thought.

I should have had Fat Jack neutered at birth.

Tastes Like Channel No. 5 - Live to Ride, Ride to Live

I just wrote a blog about Jobs and living. Nothing really fancy, just a little ramble about the confusion I feel most of us face in the real world.

Then I deleted it.

It would have gotten me fired, Possibly disowned and very likely beaten with a bat. At this point in my career,  I can do without any of those things.

So, a short little moment instead.

I heard my niece call my baby brother Daddy today. It caught me off guard and I reeled a bit. Old age crept up on me and ker-plowied me right in the cerebreal cortex. I felt every single one of my years landing right on my head. All at once.

I have written many things over the years, about aging and life and living. I have tried them all myself at one time or another and yet I find myself addled this day. Wondering if I am actually living or if I am just taking up space that could be used for greater purposes than me.

I just don't know.

I cant step far enough back from life to get a clear view of it. I am always right in the middle of my own life and so absorbed in it. that that I rarely lift my head up to see.

Do this thing for me invisible reader. The next time you find your own self in a car on a sunny clear day. For every stoplight you cease moving at, look up. Look up from the road and the soap operas of those around you and look into the distance. See as far as you can.

How far away those building?

How distant the mountains?

How long do geese fly?

How close the sky?

Look up and see. Look into the distance and imagine your life, open the book of you and turn the pages back a few. Reflect on the blank pages left in the book and think of what you are going to write on them.

I am going to do it.

So should you.

The following is an article I wrote for an on-line magazine. It has since run its course and I can now do whatever I want with this story, which although some is true, some is also fiction.

But not much.

I am writing today, finding myself not really worried about rules, the computer takes care of the important stuff. Leaving me free to elucidate my ideas, to clarify and share my memories of the life I am in the process of living.

 I have this memory of an uncle; cigar smoke wreathing his head, bottle of bourbon in his hand. He looks at the wallet I have just handed him. The flying wings logo of “Live to Ride, Ride to Live” cheaply embossed on its fairground leather. He looks at the wallet, then gazes deep into my eyes, his eyes, I have been told, the same silver blue as my own. I feel a momentary discomfort at the thought that my own gaze may be as searching as his. He takes a swallow of rot-gut, cigar rolling to the opposite side of his mouth to make room, his eyes never breaking contact. He hands me back the wallet, takes a deep breath and says, “Yeah, I can see it”. Exhaling the words in a cloud of sweetly scented smoke reminiscent of dreams I didn’t really remember. I was twelve years old, dressed in dork clothes with a dork haircut, wanting desperately to please everyone. Failing in that almost constantly as my desires rarely coincided with those of my parents. I tried so hard to fit in, to belong to the herd. A wolf dressed as a sheep and fooling some. This old wolf, grizzled and worn with grey in his beard and hair, recognized his own. His sparse words were the only encouragement I ever received.

I saw a play once. It was really good. Some French play about a guy with an enormous nose. There was this guy in the play, he wasn’t the main character, I think he was a butcher? Or a baker? Anyway, this guy stood out, the rest of the people on the stage fit there, but this guy, he stood out. I thought long and hard about why. One day it occurred to me. When an actor puts on a costume, he knows it’s not him; he takes it off at the end of the night and returns to his real self. But when a person, any person who plays on the stage of life puts on a costume, if they wear it long enough it becomes them. This guy, playing the baker, wasn’t wearing a costume. He was the baker. He believed it so much that whenever he was on stage the audience believed it too. We were all willingly deceived by his belief. I wondered how many of us do that? Wear a sheep costume for so long that we forget the wolf. My uncle never forgot, he always knew who he was.

He died a few years ago; victim not of his vices, but of the stupidity of others. I sat next to him in a comfortless white room the day before he abandoned his failing body. He told me of all the things he had never done, the places he had never gone, sights he had never seen. The missed chances of a lifetime unloaded on my shoulders in the space of an hour of talk. I learned regret in that hour. I walked out of that room and looked down at myself. Dork clothes, dork haircut, Driving back to work in my safe little car to mingle with the other sheep.  The only reminder of the wolf was the wallet in my back pocket, now smooth and worn from 12 years of hiding. A not so gentle reminder to me as I walked out of that room.

There is a chain on my belt today. It stretches back to my wallet. When the wind is in my hair and a destination in my mind, I think of everything. The choices we make and the consequences that follow. I think of my wife, my patient understanding genius wife. Who didn’t scream or wail or moan when I came home with the motorcycle. I think of my family, all of whom have forgotten the wolf in them entirely. They have worn their costumes for so long that when I see them, I believe it myself. So I travel, I live life. Eyes on the road and my mind a thousand miles away. Sometimes my dreams take me even further. The motorcycle is just a part of a life. Life is just a passing dream, a small town on a long road. Blink too long, and you might miss it.