Highlights

The German philosopher, Schopenhauer, is supposed to have said that the best thing would be to never have been born and you can see his point: life is suffering and all that so think of the heaps of misery you’d have avoided had you never come to be.

But, on the other hand, consider everything you’d have missed out on. 

Take, for instance, a single night on a late winter’s evening in one tiny corner of one small edge of noplace remarkable.

Remember a handful of moments in this single occasion you’d never experienced had you forever remained unbirthed.  Like:

•    Cop chat and youth group confusing even before anything began
•    Perfuming alleyways and cheering for book nerds up the hill
•    Enticing strangers to join
•    Arriving, via the second-best route, at destination number one
•    Being overwhelmed by choices but eventually settling on something
•    Bombing Madison
•    Snaking through the Arboretum, doing 180’s in search of the perfect pagoda
•    Noticing light pollution and, for the most part, being glad of it
•    Turning the way you don’t expect upon exiting, eventually enjoying the preferred water route to a place you’d never imagined

And that was just for starters.

Pretty soon, it was all drummers and fire dancers and people falling in love all over themselves. 

Firecrackers were included much to the initial consternation of those for who such sounds are overly reminiscent but by the time the SOC Pussies were feeling their oats and PDC was making a dual appearance in Technicolor, I’m pretty sure no one had any complaints other than to wonder why every day besides Thursday isn’t like this.

Sometimes, it’s more about unity than distance; you see how far you can get with as many as possible.  If that means staying along the shoreline and being flabbergasted by the view, then yes.

Granted, the never existing version of you never struggles up superfluous hills but when you figure in the downhills, you will have to agree life’s worth it.

Metaphysical

Which event is the event? 

How can you tell whether what you are doing is the thing being done or the commentary upon it?

When does the alternative become the norm?

Here’s one thing I know: that was a nice ride through the woods. 

It’s fun not to have to worry too much about how to get where you’re going; Disneyland with seatbelts for grownups; that’s how comfortable it feels at this point.

I remembered a minor shortcut at the beginning and then, the general shape of things: you can be pretty confident that whenever you go down, you’re going to have to go up again.

A somewhat smaller crowd than usual of late and not a single unicycle in sight.  I missed the opportunity to climb for whiskey, but, at least, I didn’t drop my bike on the ferry and have two months of wrist recovery like last year.

Why do we do these things?

A hamster, of course, will spin the wheel; we’re apparently willing to explore the same dynamic by circumnavigating an island; I’ve no complaints about this; it’s just amusing to see how picturesque is our favored contraption, in spite of the fact that many of those bedecked in fluorescents seemed overly eager to be done with the whole thing.

Having experiences cannot possibly be about having had them, although, increasingly, it seems like there’s some of that.

Here I am, after all, reminiscing, when the whole day is still warm.

Somehow, I managed to miss one last trail; instead, I caught a boat, but if the result of that is a heightened likelihood of a slightly simpler future, then so be it.

It’s important, I think, to sometimes ride no-handed; this will remind you how easily one balances when conditions are right.

Never underestimate, though, how magical and marvelous is such an opportunity, 

And note how this time it’s pulled  off with a minimum of effort pretty much by accident on purpose.

Up

How do beliefs and outcomes work together?  Ever notice the way anticipation plays with what ends up?

I don’t know how not to be committed to the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds, though I couldn’t possibly believe that, could I?

Yet, there you are with waffle irons perfectly matched to people’s attitudes in times when not enough is too much rather than the converse.

Here’s some of what I think I know: the rain never came but often seemed possible, yet becalmed.

So many new folks: at least three.

And, I still think, might have happened: a tailwind in both directions.

Could this be the Ninth Annual Waffle Ride?  What else have you done for so long?

I kept being unsurprised by people’s ages: we’ve done this since childhood.  And some, like Derrick, for several of them.

No one climbed the rafters, but there were enough attention spans to make possible two separate theaters, both of which complemented another.

A warming fire was constructed vertically and many, if not most, had an opportunity to enjoy.

When you stepped out from under the shelter and its soothing fog of waffle vapor,  there was Orion’s Belt: you’d be happy with a single star, but there they are, all three of them, dotting the heavens.

The possible and actual are in continual dialogue.  There’s what you think it’s going to be and what it is, which is determined, in part, by what you think it’s going to be.

And then, it’s something different than either of those, but no less expected or unexpected.

Ground-level fireworks in the tunnel made for especially voracious vocalizations on the way out there; heading west was all about drinking it in; I let the corridor sing me.

Although among the last to leave our home away from home across the water, I’ll bet I was among the first to sleep; my more than sufficient capacity for fun, more than fulfilled.

Imperfection

Hills, yes.

But don’t forget bombing down the endless wooded corridor as payback for breaking one of the cardinal rules: Never follow Ben up a mountain.

And remember that many other guidelines were questioned as well, including the admonition not to ride down steps in the woods.

But at least there was general agreement over one of my own standard pieces of advice, which is to have a drink at the bar if you come to the bar, even if, in this case, there were two of them simultaneously.

The Angry Hippy and I talked about nothing for a while and pondered the instability of it, which is, after all, something, I suppose.

Plus, the Backyard Barbecue was in fine form, sucking flames into its flue on a full moon’s winter night that felt more like April than Valentine’s eve.

And I’m pretty sure someone puked, even before the serious drinking began.

So, you see, it is all hearts and flowers (or steak and blowjobs) when it comes to a Thursday night out on two wheels and is, as Dada might attest to, way harder to pull yourself away from it even when you just show up at Westlake to do a blessing of the bikes; before you know it, you’re tumbling down muddy forest pathways and demonstrating a range of emotions all the way from pensive to thoughtful with everything in-between.

BtAH explained to me that another answer to the question “Why is there something rather than nothing at all?” is that nothing would be static and so, if I understood correctly, couldn’t therefore exist in time—which implies, of course, some sort of change.  Nevertheless, there are those magic moments, recurring for all eternity, like Derrick’s repeating of the same joke about a pipe over and over.

I agree: if it’s funny once, it’s even funnier four or five times.

Unchanging perfection, like nothing, cannot possibly exist; the perfectly imperfect, though, happens all the time.