The life I lead is only lesson I teach

Some would consider me a social butterfly, as they view my constant interaction with people as a cry for attention, but the opposite is true. Although many times I would rather be alone, I am driven by my time in the crate to constantly reach out to others who in turn view themselves as alone or forgotten.

If loneliness is the state of being acutely aware of your aloneness, then solitude is different: to be solitary is to be inside yourself with no need for escape- a separateness without the human ache of isolation.

Dad and I tend towards solitary riding, much like we prefer solitary worship. Our motorcycle is the vehicle that transports me to a different experience of the world of which I would otherwise be unaware. The sensory engagement of the landscape is unparalleled in even in the old Subaru with all the windows rolled down. One smells the perfume and cigarette from the car ahead, a freshly mowed field and the pungent cattle trailer, the immediacy of honeysuckle and the whiff of distant skunk. The slightest breath of frigid air makes us aware of the presence of the lurking unseen mountain, the cold reaching out to me from her distant slopes. The vortex behind dad’s helmet is a place in which I can uniquely hear my own voice and listen to my thoughts and craft my chark with a clarity that otherwise would evade me.

The road is like a rubber band, stretching slowly towards the horizon until a new opportunity for human interaction snaps us violently back to reality, and life once again speeds up and becomes another party. These “chance” encounters are the mortar that connect the bricks of the crusade together.

So is a journey just a vacation,an opportunity to escape the responsibilities of everyday life?

Not on your life; a journey is a mission, a chance to experience and be experienced, an opportunity give and to receive. The life I lead is the only lesson I can teach.

As compelling as the drive to leave is the drive to return; I actually envy those globe trotting types that have the ability to stay on the road for months or even years at a time. Dad and I are only good for a week, maybe two, then the subtle strains of the Casa’s siren song seems to somehow reach across the plains. Then the drive to return is as compelling as the initial drive to leave, and we “bear down on it”, in an unexplained mad dash to get home to the comforts and responsibilities of the Casa del Whackos.

Then, after a time to regroup and reconnect, the wanderlust hits hard again, and the cycle begins to repeat itself… I sometimes wonder if the real name of this place should be the Casa del Yoyos!

See you on the road…