Wednesday, July 17, 2013

The Confusion of Going Slow... at Blazing Speed...

The low mountains behind the aerodrome at Tillamook crawl slowly out of the dark each dawn. The quiet and still of the birth of a day remains a cherished time. Promise and hope are born with each sunrise.

Five days since I last posted here... an unusual absence for me. The words are usually spilling out in too long strings about this or that injustice or stupidity in an insane world. The beauty of the country I wander through. The joy of a thundering motorcycle.

But for five days, while an insane world writhes in its psychosis... here in this camp is mostly quiet.

Resting here, bivouacked just below the town, me and the dogs alone... the world around me has spun down to an idle.

Five days that have slipped past almost without notice. Five sunrises, five sunsets, five days gone racing past, five beers sipped slowly in the evening twilight...

All moving so slowly... and gone, as if in the blink of an eye.

Odd.

I sit at the table all day, drinking coffee, chewing on the remains of a rapidly emptying pantry and refrigerator... working on the web site rebuilds, answering emails, occasional breaks to stretch my legs and swing the chuck-it until Buck quits and lays panting in the shade of a sapling pine.

I look up from my morning coffee and with the unexpected suddenness of a pheasant busting out of the brush beside a Colorado pasture... the day in its so slow passage... has, seemingly in mere minutes... just gone!

When I look back at what I've accomplished... after hours of labor, it seems so little... and yet... I shrug... and think; "So what? I did what I did. What I could do... the world keeps going along without me... why worry about it? Just keep on keeping on the way you always have."

This season of travel has been the slowest in our wandering since we stepped off in 2010. We've covered fewer miles and stayed in fewer camps for longer periods.

I've become more slow and easy in my going... while the hunger to go gets gets more urgent...

The paradox of this year is a confusion.

Do I keep on keeping on as I am? Do I change the "way" and move to making circles from a base camp? Do I just go until something unbidden knocks me onto a different path? Is there a purpose or just... the journey?

Maybe I'll hurry up and think on it some more.

Just Wondering Along
Brian






2 comments:

john said...

wow just deep ..reads like a novel ..got to buy your books ifn this is somewhat the same type of keep me reading style ..keep up the good work brian

Shadowmoss said...

I find that the more I try to plan, the less it works out. If I just keep an eye out for the big picture and keep doing the next right thing (12 step reference) life kind of comes to me. Decided I should stay in Honduras after meeting my goal, immediately lost the job. Decided the apartment in Phoenix met my 'on paper' needs, hated it and a better place showed up that would have had perfect timing if I'd just just stayed with the original wait and look around plan. That one cost me a lot of money for the apartment detour. So, stay slow and keep an eye out. :)