Solstice

“You don’t know what I’ve been through!” barked the angry meathead outside the Bull Pen Bar and Grill in Seatac and I had to admit I didn’t.

But clearly it had something to do with why he was getting so worked up about the bike pile, which, truth be told, we were in the process of disassembling anyway. And maybe it was the arrival of the cops, but somehow, we got out of there without anybody getting punched in the face, an outcome that was probably too much to hope for given how the night unfolded, what with mechanicals galore, bike routes chained closed, and hibachis eventually ejecting their grills beneath moving cars that just kept going despite all the sparks.

The so-called “problem of other minds” reminds us that nobody really knows what anybody’s been through, but at least we were in it together for as long as the near-solstice light lasted, and even after we broke into groups, there were still enough perspectives to be a problem, apparently.

And yet they all happened under the same spectacular nearly-full moon on this same insignificant dust mote in a sunbeam we inhabit together and the mere fact that strangers can get surprisingly exercised over more or less that same thing proves that maybe our experiences aren’t so different after all.

I do know this: if that guy had been through what I’d been through—a ride on which even the long uphill doesn’t seem nearly so long when it’s still light out and where the descent through the woods on the unopened bike trail goes on forever, and which includes an opportunity to stand beside the Puget Sound on the longest Thursday of the year drinking beer and eating Cheez-Its—he wouldn’t have been nearly so pissed-off.

In the end, what are we but our experiences—what we’ve been through, known or not—anyway? And to paraphrase that old saying, with experiences like this, who needs enemies?

Perfect

The private security guard announced upon arrival, “There’s no partying in this park.” (PAUSE) “Without me!”

That’s when it became patently obvious that while the gray-haired dude is a reasonable first-line of defense against the authorities, the smiling blonde girl celebrating her birthday out-of-doors does a far superior job of melting any official chilliness.

Case in point: our new best friend, Romeo, subsequently hung out all through the piñata bashing, politely leaving lit his roof-mounted searchlights so we could see the ultimate destruction of the strangely familiar-looking paper maché homunculus that much better.

And even when the real-live city of Seattle cop showed up quietly a bit later, all he did was wonder aloud about the luminescent drops of glowstick juice before simply counseling that we depart without his being called back, a suggestion perfectly in tune with the natural order of things as they unfolded on the last Thursday of this year’s cool and cloudy spring.

The ride clattered forward by fits and starts right from the beginning, but only because it seemed like the whole world was celebrating the occasion; the birthday girls wore balloons which were soon dispersed and eventually popped, just like the kickball ball, but no one really seemed to mind especially after Specialist Sean’s single-malt went passing around; even the sun didn’t want to set, but remained aglow in the west all through the festivities.

Julia Goolia stood on the wall above a crowd and announced over and over how much she loves the bike gang and really, who doesn’t?

Joeball told a story about coming across a ball of snakes in the woods; he kept looking at the coiling sphere but couldn’t figure out what it was; that’s kind of how it was for me standing back and watching the evening’s proceedings: so much intertwining, it’s all one thing, but when you get closer, it wriggles apart just like that, the one become many—joyful expressions of the perfect whole.

Roots

Any long-standing organization or enterprise is going to experience what they call “mission creep.”

You know, there’s where the entity’s original mission, vision, and/or values get off track somehow. Like when Coca-Cola went all whacky with New Coke or how the Obama administration is getting all bogged down putting out fires while the core message of hope and change falls by the wayside, or it’s how a drinking club with a cycling problem can find itself turning into a group that camps and roller skates and even milks goats or whatever you do with farm animals beside eat or avoid them altogether.

So, it’s good to see that when the elements return to their elemental state that pretty soon, the rest of the world follows suit and the old ways re-emerge, as naturally and organically ever, in spite of how contemporary practices may have veered from an original starting point by slow, incremental degrees.

Case in point: a characteristically rainy evening in Seattle’s June led to a short ride (although longer than the legendary eponymous .83 miles) but then a goodly amount of libating under cover by Fremont’s troll—a local landmark I’ve mostly managed to overlook in my decade and a half here—although by the looks of it last evening tourist groups of fresh-faced students can’t seem to get enough of it.

Continuing rain was then met with another traditional response: an even shorter ride and an even longer period of drinking.

And then finally, even though the deluge had turned into little more than mist, the ensuing pedaling was hardly more than a short spin to another watering hole, this one, a longtime favorite that apparently, is soon to no longer be.

Thus, we see the sort of recommitment to basic values so vital to the ongoing existence of deeply-cherished institutions; in the end, it’s heartwarming to observe that really, the only mission creeps to worry about are those with beers in our hands.

Enoughness

The environmentalist, Bill McKibben, wrote this essay called “Enoughness” in which he expounds upon the value of not desiring more than you already have. It’s especially the case, he says, when it comes to the experience of nature: generally, he maintains, when we’re out in the wild, we don’t look around and say, “I wish those flowers were more beautiful or that the sky was grander or that the vastness all around were more awesome.” Usually, when it comes to the way we look at the world, enough is enough—in contrast to how we tend to think about consumer goods, where it’s all about bigger, faster, more, more, more.

I think McKibben is mostly right on (although I myself have found myself sometimes wishing that Mother Nature would make minor improvements, anyway: no mosquitoes, for instance), and I also think the experience of “enoughness” becomes more common as we get a little bit older—or, in my case, a lot older.

So, for instance, yesterday evening, it turned out to pretty much be all I needed to have a lovely, leisurely and slightly inebriated bike ride back from Cascadia to downtown and then a glass of beer with some of the usual suspects on a Thursday night. I didn’t really have to engage in the full shenanigans and debauchery that were available to be enjoyed by all who wanted a bit more and so, in relatively short measure, found myself pedaling home and while I did consider stopping off somewhere for a nightcap, ultimately came to the conclusion that I’d sampled all I really needed of the proffered festivities, and called it a night.

Besides, there’s only so much of the Shirts-Off Crew a fellow can take; while nature, as McKibben says, provides us with a sense of “enoughness,” there are other things (of which we shall not speak) that by their very existence, provide us—me anyway—with an immediate feeling of way too much.