Waiting

The way I learned Samuel Beckett’s classic, “Waiting for Godot,” Vladimir and Estragon aren’t hanging around for God; they’re there for some something that is only the thing being waited for because that’s what they’re waiting for, but if it were, it wouldn’t be; it’s paradoxical, oxymoronic, and above all, absurd; that’s the human condition: we live in a meaningless universe but must do so meaningfully.

Or to frame the question another way: if you’re dropped from your own ride, is it still your ride? Or only if people are drinking the booze you brought in a park that’s really more like just a rest stop beside an industrial motorway?

I myself had just a few conflicting thoughts about the juxtapositions; it was interesting, for instance, how quickly we got to our midway point destination and how fast cranberry drinks emerged once all the components were located and people started shinnying up poles; but it was funny, by contrast, how long we dawdled there, compelled eventually, only by the rain, and the arrival, just in time to leave, of whom we’d been waiting for all along, although it seemed to keep slipping people’s minds—mine, anyway.

The promise of song got things moving and lo and behold, by the time I got there French fries were already being passed around the room.

I was powerfully reminded how Goldies is always, and in my experience, only, awesome when it’s packed with idiots you know; the music wasn’t really in me so I focused on the suds instead, raising my tankard especially in honor of the late, great Ronnie James Dio to his signature “Holy Diver.”

A steady, but light spring rain offers only slight incentive to bail; however, after somebody’s pedal opens up a 12-stitch gash on someone else’s calf, it becomes apparent that absurdity is only absurd until somebody loses an eye, and since, paradoxically, mine were wide shut, I waited no longer to no longer wait.

Subdued

I’ve heard tell that fish don’t know that they’re in water, and whether that claim is true or not (I kind of doubt it; I’m sure they know when they’re NOT in water, but anyway…) the message is a good one: we obviously come to take for granted that which is all around and pay much less heed to the commonplace, even if—when you stop to reflect—that regular, more or less everyday state of affair is, in the grand scheme of things, pretty fucking remarkable.

Take last night’s bike ride, for instance. Please.

We didn’t cover that many miles; the shenanigans, such as they were, tended towards the tame; nobody really showed up as a problem; and the outside fire around which we stood never really got higher than anyone’s head.

I even saw a lot of yawning going on and heard vague references to recovering from last weekend’s Ben Country Five and pacing oneself for the now ongoing Seattle Beer Week.

Still, upon reflection, isn’t it just over-the-top incredible to live in a place and time where such marvelous mundanities are possible as riding the back way down cobblestones through Pike Market to the water, or congregating under the West Seattle Bridge to load up on faggots left by the Wood Fairy, or arriving at the beach just as the sun slips beneath the horizon although many moments of twilight remain to be savored, or fucking A: getting to be outside, on the edge of the continent more or less, of a warm, soft spring night, having arrived under your own power, with plenty of beer to drink and, in my case, a basket of hand-cut French fries right from the fryer, how about that for the quotidian?

For me, too, it had been a while since I’d pedaled to the sands of Alki, and never so early in the evening, and come to think of it, a fire is pretty unusual.

Every time.

Eyes

Eyes Right

At the QFC in Belfair, where the ride stopped on purpose for provisions, members of the local Lion’s Club were collecting donations for “White Cane Day,” and when I gave the guy five bucks for his cause, he handed me a little plastic cane with a tag on it that said “Sight Conservation Day,” and it made me think how I’ll always want to conserve in my mind’s eye all the amazing sights I got to witness during the 24 hours or so of the fifth annual bicycle-camping clusterfuck in celebration of the Angry Hippy’s birthday, Ben Country.

Here are few of the images burned into my brain forever:

• The rainbow arch over the road in the deserted woods near Purdy Creek that accurately showed us which of the three possible directions to take, obviously.
• The charming peace shrine not far from the Robin Hood Cottages with all manner of icons, including Elvis, Mickey Mouse, and Jim Beam, too.
• Our campground, accessible only to bikes, nestled alongside the Skokomish River, its car-free roads paved in moss and pine needles, its sky overhead brilliant with endless stars and even the Milky Way.
• The guest of honor, in red seersucker jacket and a fucking ascot, but still as fearsome to foolishness (except his own) as ever.
• Faces encircling the fire, laughing, lying, and bragging, none leaving except momentarily, for the magic dutch-ovened peach napalm feeding frenzy.
• Back-from-the-dead Derrick pouring liquor into people’s mouths and spitting flames into the fire from his own.
• The little triangle of sky I examined through the vestibule of my tent as I fell asleep to the ongoing nonsense, voices rising and falling as if people were riding a roller coaster, which—if you conserve the sights—it’s easy to see that that’s exactly what it was for everyone who got to have their eyes opened wide in the Country of Ben one more year in a row.