Enough

When you realize that the part where you had to carry your bike up the steps was completely avoidable had you just gone around the corner is what it’s all about at least some of the time: mistakes are learning experiences, except that quite often enough, had you been paying the right amount of attention, you wouldn’t have had to make those mistakes in the first place.

It’s a strange day, right in the middle of something that could be; so, you’ve got to appreciate the effortless effort like the Buddhists, I think, remind us of.

It’s good to be persuaded; free will is an illusion, anyway.  We are programmed to believe we are not programmed.  And that’s part of the program, too, isn’t it?

David Chalmers says that the philosophical progression is from Materialism to Dualism to Panpsychism to Idealism; that makes sense: in the end it’s all 0’s and 1’s in the mind of God, anyway, but you’ve still got to love the internal experience of seeing that almost full moon over the top of the building that used to be something else, below the hill that once was another, right?

Finally, at the end of it all is the beginning of something else. There won’t be anyone left anymore to decipher what’s left.  It will be way more like biology than anthropology for our octopus descendents.

But if they’re lucky, they will have something analogous to the bicycle.  They’ll suction cup their eight legs to a device that has the same number of pedals as their octilateral symmetry and carry on over the crumbled remains of Seattle’s oldest bicycle path, just like in those moments somewhat before midnight on a perfectly dry fall evening in our fair city just days away from the full moon with lots of leaves turning their brightest red before falling to earth within the next few days; and then you’re home and glad of it because, after all, enough.

Dumb

In retrospect, it seems like a perfect metaphor for American foreign policy, or Napoleon’s catastrophic siege of Moscow, or maybe a co-dependent relationship with someone you just can’t quit: you know that the way forward is impassible, but you just keep going, becoming deeper and more deeply mired in the literal and metaphorical swamp; your mind—and a more reasonable colleague—tells you that you’ve got to turn back, but you neither take its advice nor their example, until finally, you just have to give up, as you should have almost right from the start, and return along the terrible way you came, only this time uphill.

Thank Heavens for taller and stronger comrades who lift you and machine up out of the mire and over the fallen barriers or else you would have found yourself trapped in the dark until someone else found you, who knows how long later, your rotting corpse eaten by maggots and worms, that last warm beer still in your bottle cage, dripping ever so slowly into the earth.

So, maybe it wasn’t quite all that dire, but it sure felt like it for much of the way back, until at last, asphalt re-appeared and there were only hills to contend with, no more slippery plank bridges or blackberry branches swatting and scratching your face.

Type 2 or Type 3 fun? Maybe some of both.  

In retrospect, the steeper-than-remembered mash up the back way to the Little League fields was swell; the Joseph Conrad-style descent into the heart of darkness, though, maybe you could have done without, although the starting trails that led one astray like that were impeccable.

But, anyway, it surely pays to do the dumb thing from time to time, if only to remind yourself how easily it is to be dumb and eventually, how dumb you can be.

And, perhaps, most importantly, how lucky you are for the chance to be dumb, and grateful you are, as well.

Backtrack

Of course there are worse things than backtracking along a route you’ve travelled earlier— global climate change, child abuse, country rock, getting hit by a bus—and since, as the ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, famously reminds us, you can never step into the same river twice, therefore, there really is no backtracking, (it’s always forward-tracking even if you’re revisiting the same path); it really is silly to complain about instances of the dreaded “out and back” that legendary Point83 wayfarer, the sorely-missed Joeball, himself, usually made it a point to eschew; moreover, when the route is plotted out, more or less, by another legendary wayfarer, you probably should just embrace the direction whatever it is without being grumpy, even in jest.

However.

You can’t deny that once you’ve ridden by or past somewhere that it’s even more delightful to find a different way onward, especially if the way there affords you a spectacular view of the handiwork of the simulation designers, who, once again, here in final throes of summer, are pulling out all the stops to make things so very pleasing to the eye, that you can’t help thinking they’ve gone a bit overboard once more with the lavender mountain, the perfect crescent moon, and all ferry boats on the water just for show.

A perfectly-timed timed flat gives you something to do while drinking beer and chatting at the well-lighted park structure beneath the technological marvel that spans our fair city’s industrial artery and since the time spent and intoxicants ingested mean that your mind is no longer in the same place as it was an hour or so earlier, the way back is no longer the way there after all.

Which just goes to show that no matter how many times you do the same thing, it’s never the same.  Like those indigenous faces projected on the city park leaves, a slight breath of wind, a single fallen leaf, and it’s all brand new.

Sparkle

Shirtsleeve weather all evening on the last Thursday of summer; a pleasant ride featuring a different route to Beacon Hill; a cheery little fire overlooking our fair city’s industrial core; and getting rousted out of a gathering spot for “trespassing” only once.

But, of course, the big story in town wasn’t this, but, rather, the stadium concert of Queen Bey, which filled downtown with silver sparkle aplenty (and which you could hear all the way from Jefferson Park when there wasn’t a plane overhead or an eighteen-wheeler using its compression brakes on I-5).

Wow. Words fail.

Ceaseless

This quote, pulled from the Northern Light, the 16-page in-house Christmas 1934 publication for Northern Light Insurance: “‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new.’ How better exemplified is the law of ceaseless change than in the long road traveled from cave to skyscraper?”

Yep.  

Back in 1929, when the Northern Life Tower opened its doors to the public, the new art-deco skyscraper must have seemed like the perfect exemplification of Seattle’s ceaselessly changing landscape and an ideal illustration of how far our fair city had come from the aspirations embodied in its older, slightly taller, sister, the Smith Tower, whose neoclassical design would have appeared appallingly dated in comparison to the new building’s distinctive, ziggurat exterior, clad in thirty-three shades of brick designed to effect a gradient which lightens from the bottom to the apogee of the building.

Nowadays, you get a similar feeling for the impermanence of all existence when you stand atop the never-before-assayed tight-spiral parking garage as the sun turns a few wispy clouds golden while viewing the nearly hundred year-old building and reflect upon the imminent demise of a not nearly as impressive physical structure soon to be swept aside by our condominium overlords, a rumination that does, at least, provide a plan for where to go next, which is, after all, just what you’re hoping for from the present most of the time.

You’ve got to keep moving if you’re to get anywhere, especially when there are deadlines to be met and, as it turned out, just the right balance between forward and sideways was effected to make the preferred mode of crossing over possible.

Sunset Hill Park, lovely as always, was really more about the moonrise and how the lunar corona expanded like heavenly watercolors across the sky as Earth’s satellite ballooned upwards.

And then it was off to the aforementioned doomed water(wheel)ing hole.  Still there for now, but soon to changeth, yielding place to new.

Yep.

Leisurely

The good thing about getting slower with age as a cyclist is that you get to spend more time on the bike.  

A commute that used to take ninety minutes now requires almost two hours.  That’s close to another hour in the saddle a day, which means that many more opportunities to turn the pedals and admire the natural world.

Or when out with the bike gang of Thursday night in late summer, you get to take enough time longer to arrive at the chosen destination that not only are you able to enjoy your own leisurely pace throughout, it’s also the case that the fire is already blazing by the time you get there.

It’s no doubt just a matter of time before your lack of alacrity requires the remedy of an electric motor, but that eventuality is to be postponed for as long as possible, knowing, of course, that once it’s availed of, there’s no turning back.  However, it is a good piece of advice, courtesy of the child friends’ friends, that one should reserve the motorized cycle for the onerous tasks, thereby providing less incentive to “flatten the hills,” as it’s often put.

As long as you know where the group is headed, you’re never really lost; you’re just on your way to being there.  And if this entails an interim stop at the home of departing old friends, so much the better.  You’re not in a rush if you’re not in a rush and if the journey is the destination, then you’ve always arrived.

As the dog days of August come to a close, you want to squeeze all of the last remaining nectar out of summer in every way possible.  That means you never pass up an opportunity to swim nor a chance to do the crazy old man dance around the fire.

There are probably things burned that don’t need to be burned, but if that slows down departure, why not?

Meteor

Well, we didn't see any flaming rocks illuminating the heavens, but you-know-who was plenty lit up, so...success!

Also, "Pleiadeez-nutz" does get funnier after the 7th or 8th time.

That is all.

Measured

It’s reassuring to note you can still sufficiently derange your consciousness with the latest iteration of the homemade shortbread weed cookie that you’re unable to light the ceremonial departure joint; it’s not quite couchlocking to Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, but close enough.

And it’s heartwarming to have friends and acquaintances who are sufficiently thoughtful and appropriately ambivalent about wayfaring that they’ll circle around traffic circles and campus fountains to give you time to catch up.

So, who cares if the rent-a-cops in their military-grade bullet-proof vests care a lot more about where you’re permitted to hang out than you do?  

After all, there’s a great big world out there, complete with its very own freshwater lake perfect for barely-waning supermoons to rise out of, so even though that concrete platform five stories up would be perfect for catching the last few rays of sunlight while quaffing a cold one, the prudent thing to do is just—as is so often the case—let the baby have their bottle and head elsewhere.

No point in arguing with those who won’t listen to argument, as Monty Python reminds us.  

If they’re going to cite unjustified rules to justify their position, then they’re no longer doing philosophy, they’re just doing their job, whereas you get to ride away and still enjoy the downhill corkscrew, which was half of the point, after all.

I can see how it must seem that having this much fun and beauty and natural wonder ought to be against some rules, somewhere.  

If I were on the outside looking in—especially if I had to gear up for my hourly (no doubt, non-union) work in polyester olive drab and combat boots—I’d probably want to put the kibosh on such shenanigans, as well.

But that’s why you’ve got to get out on two wheels instead of the company-issued toy jeep; when your head’s in the clouds instead of your ass, you see whole lots more.

Lux

If you saw a painting of last evening’s sky looking west over Seattle from across the lake on Mercer Island, you would surely accuse the artist of mawkishness, of gilding the lily so to speak, of taking it over the top in a way that was unbelievable and honestly, downright silly.

The striated horizon in colors of fuchsia, goldenrod, lavender, lilac, and plum would be enough, really, but then, add in the smoothly rippled surface of the lake, undulating softly beneath, not to mention the two-dimensional backdrop of noble trees and downtown skyline; all that would make for a picture that was too beautiful to be real, but then, paint in that perfect little fingernail sliver of a smile for the waxing crescent moon, and you would look at the overall effect and scoff, thinking that the artist had jumped the shark in their composition; what is this Thomas Kinkaid bullshit, no actual sky ever looked like that; the only heavens that might appear so lovely would be the actual unreal Heaven itself.

I mean, really.

But goddamn if Nature herself isn’t a true cornball, because, so help me God, it was all there, making your jaw drop at the exquisite pulchritude of the scene and your heart hurt at the incredible good fortune you enjoy to be able to witness it instead of roasting for 19 straight days of over 110 degree heat in Phoenix or some other dying city in the West.

One does what one can to express gratitude for such bounty, even if that’s just switching to bamboo floss picks at a minimum, because it’s not just what you do, but how you do it, and when you do what you do by riding bikes to get there, you clearly earn a few bonus points, which you are able to immediately cash in by swimming not once, but twice before the night moves on to another phase of unreasonable, unbelievable, extravagant beauty.

Source

In some ways, not that much has changed since 2006.  

Beyoncé and Mariah Carey are still making hits, the Seattle Mariners remain mediocre, and you can continue to tune into new episodes of The Simpsons on a regular basis Sunday nights during the school year.

But lots has changed, too: there are way more flavors of Cheetos than back in the “Aughts”; you never saw a radio-controlled flying drone lift off the ground vertically and soar over Elliot Bay in those days; and the Seattle Big Wheel didn’t dominate the downtown shoreline of our fair city, whereas the viaduct, may it rest in peace, did.

Jack Block park was there then and already provided its unsurpassed view of the Seattle skyline, (almost equaled, we’ve learned, however, by the vista provided from the pedestrian bridge over Harbor Island’s main thoroughfare), although its shoreline wasn’t, at that time, accessible to humans (other than those like the legendary Daniel Featherhead, who was able to fly down and up from it—just like a drone!)

Nevertheless, seventeen years later, there’s still nothing like being out on your bike, during a perfect summer evening in Seattle, with pink clouds turning orange and red to the west, drinking beer and smoking weed, telling lies and doubting claims, just as you did verging on two decades ago, before the iPhone even came out and back when people still believed the US Supreme Court was a legitimate component of our government’s famous system of “check and balances.”

I hadn’t even hit the half-century mark that first time I ever stood on the magnificent concrete platform suspended about the Superfund site, and yet now, at closer to seventy than sixty years of age, I still delight at way it vibrates when those mighty cables are shaken.

Quantum physics—or maybe just South Park—tells us that time is an illusion; past and future don’t exist, there’s only the present and my, what a gift it is!

Script

A Broadway theater actor does eight shows a week, Tuesday night through Saturday, with a matinee on both weekend days.  And yet, somehow, they great ones keep it fresh, as if they’re saying their lines for the first time, every time.

A schoolteacher typically teaches the same subject, year after year, same content, same questions, September to June throughout their entire career.  And yet somehow, the best educators make their subject matter come alive no matter how many times they’ve covered it before.

And pity the poor IT help desk person: how many times are they asked the exact same question from another person with the very same computer problem they just solved moments before for someone else?  And yet, somehow, the really helpful ones manage not to be snide when suggesting that the offending CPU be powered off and on just in case.

The same sort of principle applies when it comes to Thursday night rides.  

After all, you may be following a route followed many a time before, complete with the requisite spin around the Seattle Center “ghettodrome,” a spin up to the nearby parking garage rooftop pea patch, the standard massing up by Seattle’s fanciest restaurant and the usual sunset crossing of the scary bridge that’s way less scary en masse, but even while doing so, it’s important to find new wrinkles that make the usual unusual, like riding higher than ever before in the bowl of the fountain, or taking a more roundabout route to the top of the parking structure than is typical, or for once, not spreading out into a long thin line, but rather, staying pretty packed together as you cross over Fremont from above.

And never before was it that if Derrick don’t come to the ride, the ride comes to Derrick, the result of which was an oft-visited firepit hosting a blaze started in a way it never is anymore.

And what’s old is new all over again.

Imperfecdt

Sure, in the perfect world, (assuming, contrary to old Dr. Pangloss, it isn’t this one), the first swim of summer would be on a perfectly clear day with temperatures in the eighties, but if it takes place on a comparatively cool and overcast evening on which the early-season water temperature was a degree or two warmer than the air, that’s plenty good enough.

And yes, of course, on the ideal Thursday night out on two wheels, no one from the group would miss the start, leave early, or be dropped or misplaced, but when, thanks, in part to the new technological beacon as well as old skool cellular phone calls, everyone eventually convenes, then what’s to complain about, really?

And no doubt, if one was scripting life to have all the dials turned up to eleven, then the single-track meander through the woods would be longer, greener, would include a water element or two, and the only sounds you’d hear would be the chirping of birds and the ratcheting of pawls, but even with a soundtrack and the dust, it’s plenty rad, especially given its urban setting and accessibility.

Moreover, one can’t deny that the Platonic form of campfire isn’t composed of logs made from pressed sawdust engraved with the name of that fragrant city to the south, and probably doesn’t involve the combustion of fluids best left to internal combustion engines, but honestly, you’ve got to admit that with enough lighter fluid and sufficient determination to see flammable things in flames, the minimum bar for success has not only been achieved, but surpassed.

Agreed: a sunset where you can watch our nearest star descend all the way to the horizon, sparking that mythical “green flash” is the one you’d hold up as the apotheosis of such events, but surely one which paints the entire western sky achingly lovely hues of purple, fuchsia, and pink and makes cardboard cutouts of the city skyline ain’t half bad, either. 

Gizmo

When someone makes that classic assertion, “I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid,” I take them to mean  that while they might be dull or uneducated, at least they aren’t willfully ignorant.  You can fool them once (or they can fool themselves once), but shame on them if you fool them (or they fool themselves) a second, third, even 327th time.  

The dumb person screws up because they aren’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but they learn from their mistakes and exercise greater discrimination and acumen next time around.

If that’s the case, then you can certainly count yourself as one of the stupid, because after nearly 500 Thursday nights out on two wheels with the usual suspects, including a truly vintage collection on the most recent one, all you’ve really learned from your mistakes is how to reliably make them again and again and again.

Good judgment is probably overrated, anyway, and indubitably, the concerted exercise of stupidity results in many more memorable memories, many of which you can’t even hardly remember, along with all the ones that, despite your best efforts, you’ll never be able forget.

It was, indeed, an unforgettably beautiful spring evening here in the Upper Left, with an almost full moon blotting out all but the most persistent stars and planets.  We won’t be surprised to see the typical “Juneuary” upon us at any time, but for right now, at least, wool and Gore-tex remain in the bag all night.

And in spite of a tendency towards technological Ludditism, one has to hand it to the satellite tracking gizmo that made it all possible. You would have ridden right on by had not the little round “Drain” button shown itself on your mobile screen.  

Welcome to the 21st century, it ain’t all bad.

“You can’t fix stupid,” goes the old saw, and to tell you truth, it’s not obvious you’d want to; think of all you’d miss if you did.

Amblin'

It’s fun to note how much fun you’re able to have in a little over 24 hours.

From the very first moment when you arrive and can begin your day by amblin’, not ramblin’, around the vast marketplace stocked with all sorts of delicacies from Asia and around the world to enjoy breakfast sushi and inari, along with friendly kibbitzing and joshing, the enjoyment begins.

And it’s always amusing to be the first vehicles on the ferry, two wheels good, four wheels bad—or at least slower.

Surreptitious spirits and canned beer on the float over to the the Peninsula always bring a smile to one’s face, especially when they afford one the opportunity to remotely toast an onboard wedding celebration.  Yay.

Sure, the harrowing several miles along the glass and nail strewn freeway aren’t so great, but when they’re almost immediately followed up by a cold tallboy at the somewhat unfortunately named bar and restaurant, all is good.

Bike touring is fun, in spite of the heat and cars, at least when you’re ramblin’, not amblin’, on old forest highways with a state park as your initial destination.  It’s so nice there, you could take a nap; only the promise of more fun on two wheels impels you onward.

And here’s what really a gas: swapping your human-powered vehicle for a gas-powered one just before the hills become really steep and exposed.  And what’s fun about that is it means you’ve got plenty of energy in camp for more amblin’, not ramblin’.

Thanks to Mother Nature for producing the mycological molecules that turn even the silliest of phrases even sillier: “Ketchup or die!”  “I teach 4th graders!” “Bungie cords hate bikes!”

And doing a little bit of Ian Anderson for the birthday boy: is that fun, or what?  Yes!

Moreover, in the morning, it’s still not over.  Beer, bud, and bacon for breakfast.

Country music and Exile on Main Street in the packed pickup home.

Fun!

Blithe

 

Percy Bushe Shelly’s inspired poem, To a Skylark begins with the line, “Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!” which inspired the title of Noel Coward’s inspired dark comedy, Blithe Spirit, thus demonstrating that inspiration often comes from inspiration, especially when that inspiration is inspired by time spent among the inspirational glories of nature.

The internet tells us that the poet and his wife, Mary Shelly, (author of Frankenstein; or A Modern Prometheus, and daughter of the early feminist philosopher, Mary Wollstonecraft) were wandering among the lanes in Livorno, Italy one summer evening and heard the caroling of a skylark.  

The poet puts it like this:

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 

 

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are bright'ning,

Thou dost float and run;

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

Pretty good stuff to be sure, but one has to wonder how much more lyrical old Percy would have been able to be had he and the missus had bicycles to ride that night, especially were they pedaling not around the hedges and bowers of a port city in Tuscany, but rather, through the industrial core of a port city in the Pacific Northwest with that warm spring light lingering late and making shadows grow long.

In that event, he might have waxed rhapsodic over the way the sun sank to a perfect point behind the Olympic peninsula with the skyline of Seattle in the foreground and he could have directed his apostrophe not to a skylark, but perhaps towards a seagull, whose crepuscular cries may not inspire such pathos as those of the genus Alauda, but which nevertheless offer a perfect accompaniment to the view.

Bring it home, Perce:

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

Instead

Surely, there are better things to do.

You could devote your evening to the cause of global human rights, taking whatever means necessary to curtail widespread human rights violations under El Salvador’s “State of Emergency,” or in Ukraine, where Russian forces tortured detainees in the city of Izium, or in India, where police killings are routine and endemic.

Or you could make music.  Or art.  Or write the next Great American Novel—or at least Pretty Good Local ‘Zine.  Or whip up a delicious four course meal using only items procured by bicycle from your local Farmers’ Market.

You could watch a hockey game.  Or some basketball or baseball.  Or surf the Worldwide Web for videos of cats.

You could even just take a nap—with or without having had a few drinks beforehand.

Instead, however, you ride your bike to the usual Thursday night meeting place, quaff a lukewarm brew while noting the musical choices of the resident hobo DJ, and then spin across the manmade industrial waterway to climb up a parking garage whose football-field sized roof affords a stunning view of one slice of our fair city just as the sun sets behind purple, fuchsia, and pink cirrus clouds.

You then skim the University and public transportation’s space-age infrastructure to meander on two wheels along the usual meandering path before provisioning up at the generous local retailer.

And then, along the taken-for-granted trail through the woods to the giant park where frogs sing your welcome and all are reunited for a short wiggle along the water to the secret glade.  And that’s where you congregate for the next little while or longer, enjoying the unseasonably warm evening in what’s shaping up to be a remarkably remarkable spring, at least in the weather department.

So, you could have made the world a better place.  Or cooked a spectacular feast.  Or seen your favorite team lose or prevail as the case may be.

But this instead.

Stimulation

Perhaps death really is an illusion and our dearly departed loved ones are hanging out watching us from behind that gossamer veil separating two worlds, one for the living and one beyond.  

If so, then they, too, would surely enjoy the view from the highest and most classic of our fair city’s concrete temples devoted to the storing of automobiles, with the added bonus, for them, of not having to decide whether to experience the full 360 degrees out in the elements or a more constrained horizon behind the protecting parapet.

Such trade-offs mean nothing to an ectoplasm through whom the spring bluster blusters freely.

Sometimes, it makes sense to only plan ahead one step at a time; you can trust your future self to come up with something it will prefer when the opportunity presents itself.

Our hopes and dreams make reality real; if we love hard enough, anything may be possible, even reanimation; revitalization is certain even without the metaphysical baggage.

The lowering of the Lake, just over a century ago means that here in the 21st century, we are walking on water our hundred year-old selves would have had to; and if that’s not miraculous enough, consider, in the fullness of time, that the moon is so, as well.

Some days just overflow with sensations: a familiar cycling route made easier due to the power of anticipation; a classroom where real connections are made; local infrastructure working as designed for crosstown access lickety-split; dreamers dreaming onstage and a little luncheon to boot; the usual usual, as usual; happy hour feeling happy; then up and over all over again.

It’s a good thing that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs.  While this may, as Mom knew best, cause minor hiccups or even upchucks in a literal smorgasbord context, metaphorically, it’s all for the best, as it means that no matter how much you see, you can always see more, just beyond that infernal curtain.

Midway

 

“Half a loaf is better than none.” (Anonymous)

“Well begun is half done.” (Ancient Greek Philosopher, Aristotle)

“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.” (Seahawks Football Coach, Pete Carroll)

“If you’re having half as much fun as me, then I’m having twice as much fun as you!” (Comedian, Ralf Leland)

So, you see, it doesn’t matter—at least half the time—to miss the start, as long as you can find your way to their middle, even if doing so requires you to ride a route that you would never have ridden if you weren’t on the lookout for the assembled.

But: 

“All’s well that ends well.”  (Poet and playwright, William Shakespeare)

It wasn’t the longest of rides (for me), nor was it the warmest of fires, but it was still plenty of everything, with some water, some fire, some air, some earth, and even some ether: all five elements coming together to be plenty enough, even halfway.

Just like this.

Slow

Thanks to the gusting southerly wind—and the traffic lights—it was the slowest descent of Second Avenue ever.

But that’s okay.

Because that same gusting wind—although not the traffic lights—was responsible for stoking the smallish campfire to a forge-like hotness, and gave rise, ultimately, to the always hoped-for, but only occasionally-realized, fountain of boiling accelerant: always a marker (though neither a necessary nor sufficient condition) of a swell night out on two wheels.

It was the last nighttime meet-up of the year, thanks to the imminent arrival of this weekend’s springing forward, which means for the next six months or so, it will be just a little trickier to find a place to relieve oneself early on during the ride, which might be TMI, as it’s called, but is, nevertheless, an observable fact of life in the Great Northwest.

Just as the observation that—at least in my experience—it had been months, if not more than a year, since Ye Olde Wading Poole Firepit by the shores of Lake Washington, just south of Thee Poison Oak Farme had been visited, led to the observable fact that there was probably no better place to be at the time, if I do say so myself, and I do.

So many possibilities present themselves at the outset of an evening and you’ve got to shuffle through the options until one escapes the deck and presents itself.  

It can be less-than-exotic to find oneself, therefore, on a well-trodden (that is, pedaled) route, but there’s something to be said for rolling down streets that are familiar to one’s daily responsibilities in a different frame of mind.  

With the right perspective—and the proper dosage of various varieties—the usual can seem quite unusual, and unusually attractive as a result.

And, at the end of the evening, if there you are, slowly grinding up a street you grind up several times a workweek, you're going plenty fast enough.

Karma

In an Chapter 7 of his introduction to Vedic philosophy entitled An Idealist View of Life, Sarvepali Radhakrishnan, the esteemed philosopher and former president of India, argues that the doctrine of karma is compatible with human freedom because, although karma links us to our past lives, we still have the creative power to shape our life though the choices we make.  

He uses the analogy of a hand in the card game Bridge to elucidate this. We are dealt a hand at birth (due to our karmic debt from previous incarnations), but we can play our hand as we wish (we have free choice to do so, within the constraints of the cards we’ve been dealt).  

Radhakrishan concludes by observing that belief in karma makes us more compassionate toward the less fortunate.  We should not feel superior to those who are faring badly because we share the human frailty that, through karma, led to their misfortune.

All of which is to say that anyone who has the opportunity to ride their bike around Seattle on a reasonably warm and mostly dry evening in February, and end up at the shore of our fair city’s great lake to enjoy a cheery little bonfire, with beer, conviviality, and friendship, ought to be especially compassionate and deeply grateful to their previous incarnation, who must have been a pretty good person to have afforded them the opportunity, in this incarnation, to be able to do so.

Whoever I might have been last time around was likely a way better human than I am this time around; otherwise, how could I have ended up so lucky?  Makes me aspire to be as kind and compassionate as I can so that whoever I am next time around gets similar opportunities for two-wheeled shenanigans; one can only do their best and hope.

And who can say, anyway, whether reincarnation really happens.  I’ll just enjoy and appreciate this hand I’ve been dealt, and ride on.

Exactly

Back during the years of the Obama Presidency, when I was a wee lad in my fifties, it was rare that a Point83 ride wouldn’t have me finally arriving home around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.  

There were many miles to pedal and several watering holes to get to before the night was over; sometimes not one, but two outdoor fires, with often a final one after the bars closed at the beloved Fremont Firepit where people would pass out or nap for a bit before their eventual wobble home.

Ah, youth!

These days, by contrast, I’m satisfied with an evening that hits all the high points and checks the requisite boxes: some sort of street-level nonsense at Westlake, a ramble along the waterfront, a new parking garage in which to quaff a (apparently stolen) cold one, a massed-up bridge crossing, a very quick, but highly-enjoyable conflagration, and finally, a single bar, for just a little bit.

Back home in bed well before midnight, but it’s plenty.

And these days, who needs a full 327 words?  About half that is fine.

Good

One of the wisest aphorisms, if you ask me, is “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

All too often, this admonition is forgotten, and you refrain from actions that would be just fine—or even better—simply because they don’t stack up to some preconceived notion about what ought to be.  This doesn’t mean, of course, that you don’t have standards; it’s just means you don’t use those standards as a cudgel to crush opportunities that present themselves, warts and all.

Case in point: 

Sure, the Platonic Form of post-holiday combustion events involves something like a hundred fir trees stoked up into a massive conflagration sending sparks and embers several furlongs into the sky.  

And yes, in the proverbial perfect world, every single rider would arrive at Westlake with some flammable remnant of the Christmas season strapped to their body or bike.  

Moreover, the idealized version of the evening wouldn’t include even a minor crash occasioned by the embrace of pine needles rolling down the avenue.

However.

The real world isn’t like that.  If life gives you lemons, as the great Beyoncé reminds us, make lemonade.

Or, in this case, a perfectly imperfect bonfire.

There was that ten-minute span, when the first few of the apparently sparse offerings were giving up their carbon, while the rain came down in sheets, making you feel like the idiot your mom always said was too dumb to come in out of the weather, and it seemed like that was all there was, night over.  

At that point, you might have concluded that since this wasn’t all that, then it wasn’t anything, and gone home, blinded by your vision of what should be to the wonder of the actual.

But in doing so, you would have missed at least a dozen more contributions to the communal pyre and a full moon so bright it made double moonbows in what became a perfectly dry night sky.

Perfect.

Liminal

That state between states, the zone of neither one nor the other, and both: Not quite raining, not quite dry, asleep and awake all at once.

We were there, then we weren’t, and then we were all over again. And again.

Christmas comes but once a year, but the spirit lasts for decades.  If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results, then you’d have to be crazy not to enjoy the predictable thrill occasioned by this routine application of usual suspects, favorite intoxicants, and preferred mode of transport during the holiday season.

And how’s this for a holiday miracle: no broken bones and just one mechanical!  

Santa had time for everyone and melting clocks were real.  The giant hat and boots provided some shelter but hardly was it needed; actual rain booties stayed in the bag all evening.

It’s the gift that keeps on giving and let the games begin: cigars were smoked, bottles emptied, and legs got wrestled.  

And presents, real presents, were present.

Could it be that a baby in a manger was the start of this all?  Or maybe just the animal experience of coming to feel that the light is on its way back?  In any event, the event’s its own story, the greatest one ever told, so they say.

Which is why switchbacks through the woods, and thrilling descents via powerlines, and shelter beneath bombers is a thing.  

It sure takes a lot of space to build airplanes; thankfully, the humble human-powered bicycle navigates those distances with ease, just as Santa’s sleigh goes ‘round the world in an instant.  

Reindeer may, as the song says, really know how to fly; there’s no doubt, however, that two-wheelers, on this December eve, did so, as well.

Naughty or nice and everything else, see how this works? As long as you don’t fall asleep you need never wake up.  And so the holiday(zaster) dream forever rides on.

Salt

According to the BBC, (and some dude I forget who mansplained it to me years ago), smell is the most primitive sense.  Such experts assert that olfaction has its “origins in the rudimentary senses for chemicals in air and water—senses that even bacteria have. Before sight or hearing, before even touch, creatures evolved to respond to chemicals around them.”

So, it makes sense to “follow your nose” when pondering an evening’s destination; you can count on the sense of smell to point you towards the most basic and fundamental sort of human experiences.

Similarly, since olfaction probably evolved somewhere in the vicinity of when those early slime molds began oozing from the primordial soup and making their way upright on land, heading for the water’s edge goes right along with the devolutionary theme.

Moreover, wasn’t the so-called “New World” in which we reside kinda sorta “discovered” by intrepid adventurers on the lookout for a more efficient route to new scents and flavors, especially, probably, that most universal of sensory enhancers, the one that comes from the sea, just like us?

All of which is to say that a simple aspiration to “smell salt” can thus lead to a nearly perfect night out on two wheels, one that includes a seaside destination, a chill plenty chilly enough to complement huddling around a fire sufficiently hot to melt aluminum, reminiscences about reminiscences; eventually, the sound of waves (although ripples might be more accurate), and best of all, no hike-a-bike.

In fact, the only snag in an otherwise ideal fabric of the night was a hasty departure of the assembled which led to a more solitary return home than anticipated, but, of course, you’re never alone when you’re with your bicycle, so ultimately, no harm, no foul.

So many things in the world these days just stink: war, climate change, national politics, unemployment, Twitter, etc., etc., by contrast, cycling retains its primitively sweet fragrance—smells like bike spirit! 

Spooky

The scariest part of the evening for me was feeling that I’d missed out on the opportunity to costume, so I was really glad when Zach enabled me to dress up as a peckerhead.

After that, riding straight up the hill was no problem, even though the electric bike offered no assistance.

Three bananas did not split from beginning to middle, but did, for the most part, inspire smiles from the start to the finish.

The thing about mushrooms is that languid feeling. I’m already asleep, but still mostly awake.

Kindness is not always received as such; with some regularity, what’s irregular is regular.

And then we got to where else could we?

Wanna talk scary?  Yep.

I very much appreciate how ideas are overcome by experience.

And, get this: a pouch makes possible whatever it makes possible.

More importantly, here we are, in the middle of the middle, and everyone is everyone at the same time.

What is a ghost other than the lived experience of someone who’s no longer with us?  What’s weird is that they’re there whether you imagine they are or not.

I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else in the world, from almost the start.  Remember how windy it was?

Sometime, the less you care about things, the more likely they are to turn out okay.  For example, here’s an idea, while, at the same time, everything you could want is already there.  (Except Halloween costumes, given that, apparently, from the standpoint of Capitalsm, it’s already Christmaas.)

And even more: you are surprised by the surprising.  You are compelled by the compelling. You carry on out of love and/or habit or both.

Most, if it not all of us, will notice that this is not all of that.  And, in doing so, will.

Words are just one more instance of the instantaneous experience of the instantaneous.  Notice how you’re still riding a bike all the time you’re still riding a bike. 

Smoke

 

It's here, all right, you just can't see it through the haze.

Pointless

Of course life is pointless.  Everyone knows that.

We live in an accidental Universe, devoid of purpose, without rhyme, reason, or design.

The human condition is absurd.  Condemned to be free, we flail about, fruitlessly trying to make our lives meaningful in what is an essentially meaningless existence.  

Every instant, like Sisyphus, we roll the rock upwards, only to have it roll back down again, our feeble aspirations squashed like a bug, our lives rendered empty by the emptiness of it all.

We’re born, we live, we die, alone at the beginning and at the end, our so-called “accomplishments” as futile as the whole human experience, ultimately nothing more than a random collection of atoms randomly arranging themselves amidst the vastness of time and space.

Party on.

What else are you going to do, really?

May as well ingest mind-altering chocolates and tell shaggy dog story jokes that are so unfunny that you cackle with laughter at the delightful stupidity of it all.

May as well climb hills on your bike you don’t need to and marvel at the vista while drinking whiskey from a paper bag.

May as well go up to go down and down to go up and circle around underneath to arrive on top of the scary bridge that isn’t so scary at all when you’re in a pack of cyclists cycling behind balloons whose reason for being only emerges in context of the moment.

May as well visit a closed zoo and realize, naturally, that the strangest animals of all are on the outside looking in.

May as well take over a bar and cram yourself into one tiny table and then another, interior or exterior, what’s the difference?

May as well order another pitcher of beer and another and one more after that.  And oh, may as well finish that mind-altering chocolate.

May as well make plans for more but decide to head home since nothing matters anyway.

May as well.

Cowboys

A pair of boots that don’t match seems an apt metaphor.

And in the taste test of Japanese beers, Kirin is Rainier; Sapporo is Bud.

The moon was swell, too.

That is all.

Lucky

It’s crazy to think about: 

You could be in Ft. Myers, Florida, half-drowned and digging out of your hurricane-ruined home, but instead, you’re standing atop a deserted parking garage, seven stories up, drinking beer and marveling at the crescent moon hanging over a baseball stadium where fireworks have just been set off to celebrate a home run by the home team on the verge of their first playoff appearance in more than two decades.

Or, you could be in Ukraine, without water or power amidst the rubble, defending your homeland from military aggression by one of the world’s nuclear powers, but instead, you’re hanging out at a secret gazebo in an arboretum, surrounded by native and exotic trees and shrubbery, (also drinking beer) and contemplating life, death, and everything in between including rock stars with a small but enthusiastic group of cyclists, some of whom have made the classic blunder of carrying their bikes down the steps, but that’s about the worst of it, to tell the truth.

Or, you could be in Wittenoom, Australia, a town so polluted by asbestos that it became a carcinogenic time bomb as mining waste products known as tailings were brought there, paved into roads and scattered in playgrounds to suppress dust, but instead, you’re bombing down a hill free of cars, thrilling to the speed of descent and laughing maniacally just for fun.

So many places in the world touched by so much tragedy and loss, and yet here you are, on a Thursday night in the upper left hand corner of the American map having nothing to really complain about, but rather, nearly everything to celebrate: cycling, fellowship, gentle intoxication, the unseasonably warm and dry weather, the simple, unparalleled joy of pedaling through the woods to someplace wonderful, casual banter and the occasional joke at someone else’s expense, and all of this for free (more or less).

It's enough to make a person cry.  Or laugh maniacally.  

Or with luck, both.

Enthused

I think Bertrand Russell put it best.

Take it away, Bertie: 

“Prudence may easily involve the loss of some of the best things in life.  The worshipper of Dionysus reacts against prudence.  In intoxication, physical or spiritual, he recovers an intensity of feeling which prudence has destroyed; he finds the world full of delight and beauty, and his imagination is suddenly liberated from the prison of every-day preoccupations.  The Bacchic ritual produced what was called ‘enthusiasm,’ which means, etymologically, having the god enter into the worshipper, who believes that he became one with the god.  Much of what is greatest in human achievement involves some element of intoxication, some sweeping away of prudence by passion.  Without the Bacchic element, life would be uninteresting; with it, it is dangerous.”

Although William James was no slouch, either.

On you, Billy:

“The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. It is in fact the great exciter of the Yes function in man. It brings its votary from the chill periphery of things to the radiant core. It makes him for the moment one with truth. Not through mere perversity do men run after it. To the poor and the unlettered it stands in the place of symphony concerts and of literature; and it is part of the deeper mystery and tragedy of life that whiffs and gleams of something that we immediately recognize as excellent should be vouchsafed to so many of us only in the fleeting earlier phases of what in its totality is so degrading a poisoning. The drunken consciousness is one bit of the mystic consciousness, and our total opinion of it must find its place in our opinion of that larger whole.”

Almost like they were there.

Infrastructure

Maybe not quite there, but you can see it from here: biking the entire way from Pike Market to South Park on cycling infrastructure.  

It isn't all newly-paved and striped separated bike lanes, but can you imagine how awful it would be to ride on West Marginal Way at night, with cars literally racing by, without the Duwamish Trail to take instead?  It may not be all that scenic from start to finish, but it sure beats getting creamed by some dude in his souped-up sporty car.

Old skool Thursday: First and only stop an old favorite watering hole, now with outdoor Parisian café motif rather than Airstream hotbox.  Plenty fine, though, including an impressive sandwich and ice cold tallboys.

Got a little confused on the parking garage egress at the beginning; thanks to those with a greater willingness to descend for finding the way out.

No more hot sunset rides until March; Civil Twilight and arm warmers does the trick for now.

The low bridge opened exactly on cue; aspirations to explore its bigger brother were set aside, probably for the best; no swims were passed up, at least.

What can you say that hasn’t been said?  In all likelihood, not much.  Traditional admonitions are nevertheless worth repeating: lock to locks, not bikes; don’t eat the whole cookie (eat two!); bring a sweater, and don’t consume anything bigger than your head.  Repeating does not always mean following.  Obviously.

I would offer this, however: an intoxicating evening sure makes the ride up through the International District and Jackson Street much easier.  May just be a matter of short-term memory loss, but that works.  

There’s an old philosophical thought experiment that asks whether you’d rather pay a thousand dollars for a major surgery with traditional General anesthesia or five dollars for the same surgery without anesthesia, but with a drug that makes you completely forget the experience.

If you can’t remember, it never happened.  Or did it?