Doing taxes today…and finding moments of doubt. Why strive? Why reach? Why work so hard?

Today, the answers are elusive.

“Hey boss?” She sounded forlorn.

“Yeah babe.”

“We’re gonna be together forever, right?”

Running into the night. Reveling in the wind. Hoping to clear my mind.

Problems I can’t solve. Plans I need to execute. Obstacles making me wait.

I was never very good at waiting.

And then the world shrugged and shattered thousands of lives in a far away place, demonstrating effectively the absolutely ruthless…and compassionless nature of, well, nature that we all eventually bend to.

Closer to home, I learned of an old friend who had finally succumbed to a long illness. Point driven home.

*Bang*…my problems put right into perspective.

Yet they still won’t diminish, the toxic mix of passion, frustration, and energy swirling about in my head and demanding my focus. That shames me.

Yeah…time for another much needed ride.

I set out into an fascinating mix of hot and cold…warring weather fronts…steamy gulf air contrasting with the crispy cold of a strong winter front. The turbulent conditions outside mimicking the raging of my own thoughts.

A half-moon occasionally punches through the rampaging overcast, but it only serves to highlight the motion of the skies and does little to penetrate the night. Shadows and darkness…dangerous conditions for the body and the soul. I peer into the meager cone of visibility cast by my headlights and hope it will be enough.

Skirting the lines, pushing hard into the turbulent darkness. Guiding the big machine northwest as the southern warmth has not retreated from the onslaught of the powerful northern front yet. When it does, turning and running to the south and east…surfing the front…will save me some pain.

I call it storm surfing…and I’ve done it before…more often than seems rational in fact. Done right, in the right conditions, and it can be pure magic.

Done wrong, it can mean misery.

The conditions outsmarted me this time. When the battle was finally won it was decidedly so. The warmth did not retreat. It simply vanished.

Cold again. I turned and fled southeast. The large cold raindrops just served to punctuate my mood.

I learned long ago that it’s not from the depths of hell my demons come…they haunt me from the cold places in this world…they are stronger there than anywhere else, and tonight I delivered myself firmly into their grasp.

Again.

Perhaps it’s the challenge that drives me. After all, what does not kill me…yeah…well…what does not kill me better damn well die trying…

The witching hour…and cold to the bones. Loping along in a distance run mode rather than a sprint. Fifty miles left, maybe a little more, before I could find some warmth and maybe some food. Fifty miles. Demons or no, fifty miles I can endure.

But always there are doubts. Particularly here…in the cold and the dark.

Yeah, I had needed a ride. Trouble was…this time I wasn’t sure it worked.

Forever?

Once I would have had no question, no hesitation. A hearty, “Hell yes!” and twist of the throttle would have been my response.

But there is a cost to experience. I’ve seen the far side of my endurance too many times. Old injuries, old pain, the memories that accompany them…all return unbidden when I approach that barrier now. The dark…trying to overwhelm the light.

I can imagine the day when I’m too tired for the fight.

I never could before.

“Boss?”

“Um…yeah. Sorry babe. What?”

“You and me forever, right?”

“Sounds good to me babe. It sounds good to me.”

I didn’t like my answer.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Imagine waking up one day and taking a hard look back on your life so far.

Imagine if your reaction is only:
“Huh. Well…I thought I was focusing on something important.”

What’s the next step?

Kansas–Wayward Son

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

One-hundred-thirty-five people, including one on the ground, lost their lives. It was a horrific scene and is still indelibly burned into the memories of any who saw the images from that day.

Twenty five years. Wow. I was working that night (in the news production biz). It was a career changer for me.

I “had the con”. It was a hellish night. Frantic, busy, emotional, and the tasks set before us were impossible. It was important. We did it, and did it right. Up against the tragedy of the lost lives it’s not something we ever expected or sought recognition for. It was enough that we got the job done.

It was then that I decided I liked what I did…it mattered. It was then that my bosses decided they liked how I did it.

But…twenty-five years? Where did it all go? Have I accomplished anything? Will the next 25 vanish just as quickly and with as little consequence?

Will they matter?

A solemn day for solemn thoughts.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Hot. Sore. Dehydrated…beyond the point of rehydration for the day actually…heading for the danger zone.

Basically, in the tremendous heat and long day I’m losing more fluids than the body can process in the short term…particularly since I only stop for fluids when I stop for gas. Heat exhaustion is inevitable now if I push on much longer without rest.

Recovery time has become mandatory.

I won’t be stopping for an extended rest anytime soon though. I’m within shooting distance of home…just a few hours of hard running. Home. I’ve caught a whiff and there won’t be much besides fuel stops until I reach it.

At least…that’s the plan. I’m just entering the hottest part of the day.

I’ve been straddling this machine and piloting her through waves of heat for eight hours. It’s damn big out here.

Relaxed and alert, but beginning to favor my left leg and back when the road is rough. The back’s never quite been the same since Alaska…and the leg…well…that was probably the ladder thing…or maybe half a hundred other abuses. The long hours in the saddle…two days of hard running…bring back the pain.

The memories too…return without having diminished their power over time. Pain and vivid recollections…complete with intense emotions…flow freely on these runs.

Pain and memory…of the two…it’s hard to decide which is stronger. Sometimes they are indelibly connected. Often they come unbidden…sometimes I dredge them up on my own.

Good memories, bad ones. It’s the experience that drives me. It’s the total that makes me what I am. I would not shed either if I could.

The pain I could do without though.

When I was a young man I’d have called it weakness. Today I call it battle scars. I’ve earned the right.

I’ve earned the memories. I’ve earned the pain.

Dubious honor…that.

The big machine’s running lean. I hit reserve twelve miles ago. There’s at least that many miles remaining before the next exit. The nearly empty tank…with the extreme temperatures of the day, the sun, and the heat of the big power-plant thrumming smoothly along underneath it…is hot enough to burn the insides of my thighs, even through my jeans. I eye the odometer and the map again. There would be fuel at that exit…I hoped. With any luck I might even make it that far.

My helmet feels like it’s closing in on me…the heat, the sweat. I’d toss it right now but years of experience in hot weather tell me I’m actually better off with it on. Blast furnace winds wouldn’t help cool my exposed head much. Besides that it holds my earphones in. The music is part of what keeps me going.

Or maybe it’s just the ride. Sometimes I’m not certain.

The toes of my boots are sandblasted half through by thousands of miles in these exact conditions. That says something. I don’t think too much about what. The soles are long gone too…dragged lightly on their edges as the pegs burned off on the roadway through many hard turns. This is my fifteenth pair of riding boots. Already it’s time for pair sixteen. I can’t remember how many sets of pegs though.

Longing for home, yet somehow, dreading the end of the ride. I glance at the instruments and tap the speed up just a bit. Maybe the fuel would hold out.

Yesterday some friends passed me on the highway. We rode together for a bit…until it was time for me to peel off to gas up the big cruiser. We shared the ride but never spoke. Just a wave as our ride…as the road…brought us together and then guided us apart.

I find myself thinking about them now…with their destination and the timing, they are likely out here too…not too far away, yet they may as well be a world apart. Our routes diverge near here. I wonder if they are having a similiar ride. Similiar thoughts. Similiar pains.

Riding is like that. Elements are in common…but how they are combined is intensely individual. In the end, the experience is unique.

The big machine starts running rough. “Hey boss,” she’s saying, “we’re about dry.” The searing hot tank punctuates her remarks.

“I know babe.”

A big green highway sign says the exit is a mile ahead. Heh…we’ll make it. Again.

As I pull to the pump I realize that I’m panting. Still, I fuel the bike first. After, I stick my helmet in the bagged-ice freezer and chug the liter of water I bought from the halter-top clad, 20-something, tanned Oklahoma girl running the station. They grow ‘em nice here.

I stare at my hands. Yep, I’m overheated. I stretch a little and try to moderate the shakes. More water, some of it over the head and down the back. I allow myself five minutes and then I retrieve my (now cold) helmet and mount up.

I’ve still got that whiff of home…and the warm and willing woman waiting there for me.

Hot, sore, exhausted, and pushing on. It’s time to fly.

Tomorrow I’ll have to pull the big bike apart…I destroyed the rear tire on the outbound leg…not far from this very spot. Plugging a hole that size…that likely shredded the belts…is only for getting home. Heh…well, home after I ran the three-thousand miles I had already planned for the trip first. Now I need to pull it and see if it can be patched from the inside. Yeah…sure. Already I know I’ll be shelling out the bucks for a new one. Gad.

I hit the road and push the bike to highway speeds…and somewhat more. The blast furnace winds are familiar now…and will make short work of whatever rest that last stop provided.

And I’m smiling.

God help me, I’m ENJOYING this.

Another gas stop and I should be able to make it home. I glance at the map again…hmmm. Maybe not. That’d be stretching it. Perhaps two stops. We’ll see.

The highway sings. The big bike’s lonely wail joins in. The music on my mp3 player enhances, rather than covers, this tune. Suddenly, a symphony, and I find myself singing.

Yeah, I’m enjoying myself. I don’t know why. Frankly I don’t care.

But I do occasionally wonder.

Can you tell me, friends…that it’s not about the pain?

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Notice I didn’t say “quiet reflection”. I sing along to music. I scream at thunderstorms. I taunt the things out in the wild that would have my life…or worse…

Even more dangerous…I taunt those demons I carry within me.

I seem to have accumulated rather a lot of them…despite NOT mis-spending my youth. I wish I’d have known that IN my youth…I expect I’d have mis-spent quite a bit more of it.

clicky–> This song dredges up a lot of that sort of reflection. Give it a listen. Kidd Rock does it pretty well, and I’m riding that part of the country at the moment so it readily comes to mind.

This one is lost youth…that girl…that summer…and oh yeah, I remember. I will remember till I’m dead. No…that’s not true. I will remember far beyond that…I’ll remember until my soul is lost somewhere in the vast universe.

That time...Where the hell did it all go?

My Valkyrie runs on AAA batteries…you know this, yes? I stick a AAA battery in my mp3 music player and take off down the hiighway. If the music stops, often, so does the Valk whilst I search for another battery…another dose of music.

I can define or relive my life by the music I’ve experienced as I’ve made the journey…as I’ve traveled this road. Every album…from every artist…every record I’ve ever bought…every song I’ve ever liked…all of it…fits on my player with room for another 1000 songs (ANOTHER ONE-THOUSAND!). My whole life…in a player no bigger than my thumb. Scary that…but I DO love this technology.

So yeah…it was not 1989 (as it is in the song)…it was a large number of years earlier for me. Scary how many, really. Mostly I remember working…nose to the grindstone.

It. Bought. Me. Nothing.

That one summer though…it earned me my soul.

Food for thought.

Now nothing seems as strange as when the leaves began to change
or how we thought those days would never end
sometimes I hear that song and I’ll start to sing along
and think man I’d love to see that girl again.

Life’s short. Let’s ride.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

I wonder how many people know…really know…that most of what they perceive…is what they believe.

It’s an important distinction, and life-changing food for thought…

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Music. Passion. Riding into the night. The shiver when dropping into a cool hollow. The adrenaline flowing when chasing the lightning in the distance…and the uncertainty when you suddenly realize you’ve no idea whether you are chasing it…or it’s chasing you.

Cool. Balmy. The unknown things lurking in the night.

Tasting the wind.

Y’all may know I ride extensively at night…the dayside too…but the night is where the magic grows.

Knowing the danger…and not simply knowing on an intellectual level. I’ve seen it. Felt it. Fought it. Experienced it.

Sacrificed much to it.

And yet still I ride. It heals the soul…or prevents it from breaking…or perhaps…it was broken long ago and the ride keeps it from simply wandering off.

We lift up our prayer against the odds
And fear the silence is the voice of God

I’ve never known for sure.

Music is important to the ride. Sometimes it’s the music in my head, sometimes the music on my player, sometimes it’s the music of the universe…but there is always music. The magic would die without it you see.

I don’t know if Emmylou Harris ever rode a motorcycle…but she understood.

I could write an essay on how this song relates to the rider’s way…and someday I probably will. For now, please, just indulge me and give her a listen. The lyrics are below. Follow along. See how it connects…if it does for you.

And then go fly…

Listen

The lyrics…follow along.

The Pearl

And we cry Alleluia Alleluia
We cry Alleluia

Life’s short. Let’s ride.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

I always thought that was normal. The world is big enough…and diverse enough…that I believe a man can work at practically anything he loves and make a decent living at it. The key is passion.

That said, I sort of stumbled into my career. I’ve liked it…I’ve loved it. But it’s changed, and lately it seems I’m just going through the motions.

I’m intensly passionate about my home life…I can’t even articulate my feelings for my wife of 19 years…they’ve never dimmed…and I enjoy the projects we elected to tackle together. The Old Vic is an amazing, challenging, and fun project…and our 100+ year old building on the square is a cool and facinating project as well. Big plans. Big dreams.

And we don’t just dream. We DO!

Other passions…no less strong, some perhaps stronger than others:

–Riding. Heh…you’d think the years and the miles…or maybe even the pain…would have dimmed the desire.

–Writing. Somehow crafting the world that I see…that I experience…into something others can understand and perhaps even feel.

–Family. Friends. A day with them at the movies…or lazing around the couch just chatting…or working on something. All good.

–Art. The doing. The viewing. The discovering.

–Flying. Skiing. Machines. Materials. Wood. Metal. Fire. Stone. Creation! The synergy between man and his machines…the tangible soul he imparts to his endeavors.

Will there ever be enough time?

Passion. It drives me. It moves me. It inspires me.

But not for my work…I’m not burned out…the work itself has changed. I’ve found I’ve only stayed for the money. Oh, I still do the job…I’m still dedicated…AND good at it.

But I’ve stayed for the money…and that…somehow…just seems wrong.

Well, ‘wrong’ seems the…heh…wrong word…perhaps ‘tragic’?

Should my home life be enough? Or should a man be *allowed* to be passionate about his work as well?

Don’t get me wrong…I’ve paid my dues. We ALL do things we don’t want to do at times…but should that be the norm?

Passion as principle. I’ve touched on this before…and often meant to write more extensivly about the merits…and the costs. Maybe I will someday.

But for now…what about you? What do you do for a living? Are you passionate about it?

Comments?

edit: I posted this in several places, and am getting a lot of interesting and well thought out responses…so next week or so I’ll post an article summary of the responses/gist and my conclusions. Thanks for commenting!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Well…almost…if you squint a bit.

Spring is here…or so close by as to make no difference.

And those nights…those nights are just plain magic…and the thunderstorms…they hunt me yet again.

Or maybe it’s the other way around.

And I ride.

The worries left behind. The stress scattered to the winds.

Blood, bone, muscle, and steel once again merge into something much greater than their parts.

Apart, we exist. Together…we can fly!

Screaming into the night. Sometimes literally. The darkside calmed. The lust satisfied…if only for a moment.

The soul rebuilt. Ahhhhh.

Yeah, magic.

Suddenly the 20 mile commute into work starts racking up 40, 50, even 100 miles on the odometer of the big Valkyrie cruiser. The ride home is even worse and seems to take me through cities that have no business on my route. Since when is Hugo on the way from Dallas to Garland?

And just what the hell is a Tishormingo anyway? It’s one…interesting…place in the middle of the night.

The wife asked me to pick up some takeout on the way home. Heh. Rookie mistake…she forgot to specify what city to get the takeout from.

I’m happy to report the tamales from south eastern Oklahoma are quite tasty, even reheated hours later in the microwave.

Yum. I’ll simply have to go back.

Too bad I don’t remember where exactly I got them from. It was…that-a-way…I’m almost certain of it.

No help for it…I’ll just have to go looking again!

Maybe this time…just this once…I’ll even remember what I’m looking for.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer