Lightning Bugs and Pickle Juice (Work In Progress)

We were running late, but not by much, and had a few more stops before we would getting home for some rest. The big day -- the RAIN ride, across Indiana, 168 miles in one day -- was the day after tomorrow, and we still had bikes to load, dogs to get to dog-sitters, food to pack, and details to check off. Somehow, magically, it was all happening, in spite of the obstacles stacked against it; the RAIN ride had come together -- people, gear, registrations, time off, family support, transportation, and other things less tangible, like showing up in a best self for something bigger. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We were a little late.  

Karl was driving. "You want to see the Golden Dome on the way to Tim's? Desert cats aren't allowed inside, though." 

I was the "desert cat," Karl's nick name for me, having just flown in from the Southwest for the ride. Karl knew I wasn't big on things like golden domes. I was more of a straw-bale construction guy, but it was a treat to see some local glam. Karl, along with his wife Kathe, being who they were, were just terrific hosts. They wanted to show me the sights, things I had not seen for a long time, things like rivers with water in them, towering trees, walls of green undergrowth, ponds, lakes, and wildlife, like fireflies. 

Fireflies are mysteries to me. How they light up, where they come from, how they survive have all been sources of wonder. I see them as messengers of light and energy, maybe even divinity, a source of awe. 

The Golden Dome and the Notre Dame campus were lovely, but nothing like the fireflies hovering over Tim's rich green lawn as we pulled in. Any tree in his yard would be a giant among the pygmy juniper and pinon forest of New Mexico. They were dazzling specimens to this desert dweller. 

Tim and his family were supplying a bike rack that had to be mounted on Karl's truck. Jack, the Doodle dog, would stay at Tim and Kim's while we did the ride. He had to meet Tim's dogs while we assembled his kennel. 

Tim and I had done the RAIN ride before. Back then, we did it to remember Will Streeter who had died from melanoma too young, leaving behind two sons, Mark and Eric, and his wife Kathe. Kathe had met and married Karl; together they were the "KJs" and were now helping Eric organize the ride as a kick-off for Eric's new life, post incarceration. Eric had hit a rough patch and had been talking up the ride as a goal and occasion for moving on. 

Tim brought out the rack and with characteristic skill and efficiency popped it right on, tightened and ready. We loaded his bike and made small talk.  

"Nice lightning bugs," I said. 

"Yeah, there seem to be fewer for some reason, but we're glad to see them. Better than fireworks," Tim replied.

I had to agree. The Fourth of July was coming up, and I wasn't in the mood to celebrate with pyrotechnics, especially with fire dangers being what they were in the drought-stricken Southwest. 

There would be eight of us riding. Matt, the best friend of Eric, his brother Martin, flown in from his bird touring work in Guatemala, Joel, a cousin and grass-fed beef rancher, Seth, an organic vegetable gardener, Karsten, a math prodigy an professional poker player, Sean, a nurse, father of four, and general strong man, Tim, a man of many talents, including high-end flooring and remodels, Eric, and me.  

After installing the rack and dropping off the dog, we headed back to Kathe and Karl's for some much-needed rest. On the way we stopped for some provisions. On a 170 mile ride, nutrition and hydration have to be pretty dialed, but tasty too. Water was good, but Coke had some kick, and, hey, even if I don't normally drink it, if the furnace of effort is hot enough, they say, it will burn anything.  

 

The crew arrived in the morning, and the organized chaos of sorting and packing got mixed up with last-minute repairs -- a stripped seat-post binder bolt, pedal installation, new shoe cleat attachment, and final adjustments. 

 

But, I had to admit, we were a pretty classy group with vintage steel, aluminum, titanium, bikes with an assortment of fenders, racks, baskets, and bar bags. You could say we were pretty old school, retro-riders. Plus we had matching jerseys. Everyone knows that matching jerseys add at least five miles-an-hour to your average speed. 

 

We loaded up and somehow fit everything into three vehicles and found our spots and took off for Terre Haute. The forecast for ride day was rain. It rained pretty hard on the way, but it smelled good to my parched, sun-dried body.  

The RAIN organizers hosted a dinner at a local brew pub. Over lean protein chicken and piles of pasta we talked about the ride. Eric was concerned about the weather and the distance we would have to ride. It also looked like we would not have the tail winds we hoped for. Prospects sounded a little gloomy.

"I doubt I'll make it all the way," Joel said. 

I said "Same. If I have to pack it in, that's okay though. The point is to just be here and ride with Eric."

Nods around the table. 

"Besides, it's already a success. I mean we made it here. Eric got us all together, and that's the real achievement." 

"Still, it would be nice to ride the whole distance," Eric said. "I want to give it a shot. I want to cross that line in Richmond with you all." 

The miles looked very long from where I sat in that noisy pub. It was going to be the real deal of going deep into endurance and pain, in spite of the sweet food and drink. I had my own doubts, coming off of back surgery eight weeks earlier. But we were here to go deep, not to make great time or claim personal glory. This ride had been an homage to a lost father, and now we were riding for a son trying to figure it out after a stint in prison. Father and son, trying to remember, to gather strength, to connect by sharing a journey, to invite challenge and find out how we would meet that challenge. Fear. Anticipation. Excitement. All braided together. This was a collective effort to make a difference, teachers, farmers, guia de aves,  craftsmen, brothers for a long day, maybe a longer time, all fanning an ember of humanity that is doing the right thing, something bigger than the self. Generosity, kindness, consideration, and hard work shared over the day would make the miles fly by. 

After a cold brew with Karl, Kathe, Tim and Kim, we retired to the YMCA to sleep in the gym, another shared novelty of the trip. I dreamed of tornadoes, sleeping under the giant A/C unit blowing down from the ceiling. 

Morning came early. The ornithologist brothers, Matt and Martin, identified nighthawks and herons on the way to the line up. They would point out bald eagles, red-tail hawks, yellow breasted warblers, and other birds throughout the day. They noticed and paid attention better than almost anyone I had met before. 

Through the city and out into the country we rode. The miles lay in front of us, seemingly endless, through flat, straight, farmland, to twisting, rolling, tunnels of green around rivers and lakes, past cornfields, people out mowing on a warm Saturday, past water towers and villages. Some roads were narrow lanes, others wide highways with some speeding traffic.

A truck coal-rolled us; a woman told us to ride a different road because she wanted more highway; most people waved. One person had set out signs for free pickle juice shots. There is nothing like cold pickle juice when one is cramping and spent. The delights of this world are as necessary as the craving of the soul sometimes. We are here to see, hear, feel, touch, and swoon at kindness when it is offered. 

 

 

There has always been a tendency of some people, on the other hand, to see enemies, to divide the world into a competitive us and them, and then to be hostile and aggressive with the "other." It seems that current prevailing leadership has given more permission for acting out aggression, and that jacked-up pickups with buzzy, aggressive-tread tires take some pleasure in passing bikers very close. We had to be careful, street-wise. It's always a choice, that embrace of world views: some people will see in everyone a fellow traveler, a friend, while others see a threat, a "less than," maybe dangerous, other. It depends on the worldview we feed as to which we embrace and embody. 

After about 60 miles, Eric's knee pain shot up into a sharp, overwhelming level that made riding further impossible. He had to abandon.

He had been training hard and perhaps strained something in the knee that might be seriously injured if he continued. Our reason for riding was going to have to take the hard road of wisdom. I would gladly have traded places, but the option wasn't available.

Eric took off his event number and changed out of the bike kit. He took on the role of support person for the rest of us, who still rode for him and for his vision of gathering us together. 

It may just have been me, but we seemed to coalesce even more at that point. I, for one, had to go beyond the "fun" of riding, and instead surrender to something else that pulled me forward. I put my head down and just went deeper than I thought I could, only to go deeper again when I felt I could go no more. 

We stayed together, though talking less. The final miles were a blur of exhaustion, but the rain came down hard as a police escort took us home.   

 

We rolled together across the finish line and found Eric, who took his place in the center of the band of RAIN brothers. Yes, we had made it, and Eric had made it possible through something of a persistent, steady, focused vision of community and shared purpose. 

I walked to the shower, somewhat beat and delirious, through a field of lightning bugs, weaving their way through the dusk, looking for each other, in the light they shone.  

(This is a work in progress. Feel free to comment or add anything I missed.)  

 

 

Why MAGA Can't Break Up With Trump

Much of MAGA is anesthetized intellectually. The world is changing too fast -- digital economy, cutural diversity, economic inequality, environmental collapse, labyrinthine for-profit health care system, climate catastrophes. and on and on -- for MAGA to process.

To be fair, working MAGA families tend to perceive that they have been "left behind." The "left" has focused on cultural issues rather than working class, labor organizing. When Obama let working class mortgages go into foreclosure while bailing out big banks, the blue collar world was left in a vacuum that Trump swooped in to fill. He became their only hope for opportunity, college, and the life of "rich and white." 

Yes, there is much more going on, but that is some of the context for MAGA hanging its hopes on Trumpism. You can hear it in interviews, where MAGA says Trump "got everything right," or "tells it like it is."  He offers up easy answers that are the old nationalist anti-immigrant, racist, anti LGBTQ, and the old fallacy of trickle-down economics.  

MAGA wants a friendly, white, patriarchal, black and white morality; in short, familiarity. The future can't offer that, so they dig their holes in the sand and put their heads in with the hope that this chaos will all blow over. 

Trump, however, does not create order or restore a nostalgic society. He is gangster capitalism writ large and cruel. He is short term gain at the cost of destroying whatever he touches -- environment, social safety net, infrastructure, widening wealth gap, and on and on. 

 Rather than wake up to this harsh reality, the "desert of the real," to borrow from The Matrix, they voluntarily blind themselves and cling to world that no longer exists, and, in fact, never did. 

It's an abusive relationship that MAGA can't, or won't, break off. The old, white, capitalist patriarchy will likely just have to die off so that a space for change can open up. The changes will include gender equity, racial diversity, new cultural norms about sexuality, community work, not for profit healthcare, labor organizing, and a last ditch stand curb global warming. 

So friends, do not despair, but keep working on the visions of a wider net of opportunity and helpfulness. Time to find allies and to learn to work together to make a better world.  

In short, the future is about work, learning, adapting, and tolerant community. 

MAGA seems unwilling or unable to enter that future.   

 

 

 

When Desire Does a Bait and Switch

He fell hard for the dream he projected onto her. She was a match to his imagination, and the fire caught on dry tinder, years in the making. She was the "if only" of his fantasies, and he could see the far horizons of possibility in her -- a playmate, a travel buddy, a perfect fit for all the good times. We can make our world just right, he said, no problems, not muss, no fuss, all fun and comfort. It came as a surprise when she asserted her difference, stepping outside his narrow slice of what he thought was possible. The real journey, she said, lies within, a place he had locked up tight in the taboo of never-in-this-life; too much pain there, the thing he avoided most, the thing that ran him, the silent advisor behind all of his decisions, that raw nerve of loss. He had braided suffering into the inevitable pain that comes with a life and had identified with that. One might say that this was the end, but one would be mistaken. The departure from the known, the line of sight he thought was all there was, became an answer to a question he didn't know he was asking. There was a more to this life than he imagined and it took a shattering of the self and the surrender to a heart breaking open to loosen the scales from his eyes.

Darkness Is On the Move

Some Americans, roughly a third of us, have chosen the Dark Side: fear, greed,violent domination, regimentation, -- meanness. They/we have chosen not to work through their shadows, the trauma hidden in the psyche. They/we choose instead to locate the "enemy" "out there," in people of color, poverty, and lack of power -- immigrants and other marginalized groups, mainly, but also anyone who disagrees with them. These/we Americans hate and want to destroy these "enemies." They/we will destroy every vestige of democracy to do so. They/we are like a snake eating itself out of anger, spite, and terror of its own, self-created monsters.

The other two thirds of Americans, if they want to live in a freer, more democratic state, have to organize and regain power. It will take courage to stand up to the brutality of a police state. It will require that we overcome differences to work together to reinstate a democracy. 

The times will be hard, because the fearful, our brothers and sisters, have already erected walls, fences, and weapons. Courage, community, and clarity of vision are the tools we need and have to use. 

The work is there, waiting. The consequences of denial or forfeit of action will be dire, for we all will enter a long night of shadow.

Mexico (Draft)

I lived in Mexico for almost two years, off and on, with trips out of the country to renew visas and to make developed world wages so I could better travel and live.

Those first days, I was a sponge and a set of eyeballs. I just stared and absorbed the sounds, smells, colors, and energy of a people hustling to make a living. The sidewalks were packed with people, alive with vendors selling fresh -squeezed orange juice, small stacks of limes or tomatoes or trinkets. A card table was a livelihood.I had to learn to politely decline offers to buy whatever they were selling, but still their eyes sought mine out -- "Here comes a sale, a gringo. Money is nothing to them." 

I trailed streamers of student identity from Madison: baggy jeans, funky baseball cap, worn t-shirt, beat-up sneakers. None of this impressed anyone. Dressing down was not stylish or much appreciated. 

I had studied Spanish most of my high-school and college life, and had a pretty solid grasp on grammar, but not on pronunciation. I must have sounded to them like some Spanish aristocrat dropped out of the sky from the 19th century. My formal address and stilted, whole word elocution made people smile, if not outright laugh. 

While Mexico City, the Distrito Federal, was a humming, cosmopolitan urban monster of a city with much to offer, I wanted something quieter, so went to Cuernavaca to find a language school. They called it the City of Eternal Springtime, and it lived up to that title. There were blooming plants coming up out of cracks in the sidewalk, on the sides of buildings, and sprawled across the countryside. In the distance were the volcanoes, Ixta and Popo. 

I found a guesthouse, a casa de huespedes, and rented a room with the intent to stay for a while. It was not a tourist spot ans catered more to young Mexican workers. There was a teacher, some receptionists, a crazy guy who traveled to pick up eyeglass lenses that needed to be ground to fit prescriptions, sales people, students, and oil workers in Cuernavaca on leave from the derricks out in the Gulf of Mexico. 

We cooked in a communal kitchen so got ro know each other. The kitchen looked over a narrow but busy street frequented by vendors pushing carts and singing their services. Buses and cars were few but took up the whole street, so people had to hug the walls to avoid collisions. It all worked somehow, if not chaotically. 

I enrolled in a language school that catered to Europeans mainly who were on leave from jobs or on holiday and wanted to engage with the locals. Language and culture and field-trips and romance made for energetic community. 

I preferred the working locals to the well-heeled backpacker language school folks, but the latter were a nice break from the overwhelm of trying to acculturate. 

(To be Continued...)

Back In Life

The pain has subsided. The surges and crippling knives have gone calm and quiet. They have retreated back into the mystery from which they came. I am grateful, fresh from the memory of incessant assault on the senses. I again am free to let the mind wander, to see, from a place of peace, what is in front of me, to decide what it is I want to do, how it is I would like to spend this day, not beset by the harassing horde of nervous agitation. It's a gift, and I know that it is easy to forget, once one is here, back in the land of the well, with all the distraction that comes with being here. I will try to remember and to bow in gratitude for the day. I want to use it well. 

Three Thirty In the Morning

I walk in the company of cats. They are the ones who know this time, the time when all things are possible because space and possibility walk with us in the dark. For this moment, I rise above the pulsing pain after strapping on the ice packs on my thigh and back. Once settled I can travel to where the mind takes me until I again return to the subject at hand, the little daggers that hold my attention hostage. I remember bio luminescence behind a sailboat that I worked on off the coast of Central America. It was my watch and the seas were calm as I held the course for Punta Arenas in Costa Rica. I remember my hundred-dollar pickup truck heading west to Colorado with skis on the roof, tips gently dancing in the wind. I remember the shock of diving into Lake Superior on a solo backpacking trip to Isle Royale. I taste the time left to me and lean into it. A train plays a mournful song to the waning moon. Who will you see today, pilgrim? What will you carry with you from this moment outside your habits and routines? How will you trace the story waiting for you to tell? Will you be able and willing to part the screen of distraction to see and embrace this moment and whatever it holds?