Periods of Inactivity

They happen. And if they happen for more than 15 months, your account goes into the void. All those poignant parables. Insightful observations on the human condition. Gone.

As if anyone is actually going to read them, ever, given the immeasurable volume of electronic tripe generated in the world each day. They are hardly the stuff of Marcus Aurelius, even though you think they are. 

It’s not that your humble narrator hasn’t been thinking about enlightening posts for your edification and entertainment, it’s just that there has been a lot of other stuff going on. There are a few posts still simmering. But in a last-ditch effort to save this invaluable electronic legacy, I’m just throwing this one up against the wall as a place holder, to be enhanced later, and hopefully in less than 15 months.

Until then.

***

Watch Your Step

Well just as it seemed we couldn’t do much collectively, we’ve had a moment. Last week, thanks to the Event Horizon Telescope, a startling observation was announced. 

The Event Horizon Telescope is notable achievement itself - a consortium of 80 telescopes around the world peer collectively at a remote object, acting as a single Earth-sized telescope. Then a consortium of over 300 scientists analyzes the data. It allows resolution of objects equivalent to spotting a ping pong ball on the moon. Pretty amazing and no small effort to be sure. I mean, go team.

Well 3 years ago it detected a black hole in galaxy Messier 87, which is not even in the top 200 closest galaxies to us. Following 2 years of analysis, a black hole referred to as Sagittarius A* (or Sgr A*), was detected in the center of our galaxy the Milky Way.

OK so Sgr A* is over a thousand times smaller than the one in Messier 87, but it’s our black hole, the closest black hole. What’s it doing out there? Only sucking in all types of gas and matter into its relatively small size, similar to “sucking an elephant through a straw.” In other words, that would be a really giant sucking sound if only there was sound in space. Thank goodness it is smaller than the one in Messier 87.

In his article from The Washington Post, Joel Achenbach clarifies “Earthlings should understand that it poses no threat to our world and is essentially just a part of the galactic furniture.” Whew. I feel better already.

Sgr A* is more massive than 4 million suns; it “bends space and time and forms a glowing ring of light with eternal darkness at its core (emphasis added).” And to think I was concerned about our pending collision with the Andromeda Galaxy. They better watch out! We’ve got a black hole bitch!

As long as it doesn’t get us first. You gotta watch not to stub your toe on the furniture.

*** 

Me:You:Us:Them

Me: Conscious memories seem to have started some time around year 4 or 5. Perhaps it is before that where a priori comes from. But really, the camera starts rolling 24/7 at that point. Creating a relentlessly inescapable first person perspective. I have led a pretty fortunate life. Done some pretty cool stuff, and unfortunately some uncool stuff. All of which resides in the past. In memories. Well at this point, memories of memories. At night, they return. Stirred and shaken. Jumbled and recombined.

I lie awake in an attempt to disengage the Monkey Mind. I try focusing on the untruth that is duality and I stand at the edge of the abyss, peering in, waiting for the colors. They come in whorls and patterns that can’t be focused on. Always moving and changing. But I can’t focus too much. For it is only softly, softly does one catchee monkey.

I tell myself “I am made of sand on a raining beach.” I listen past the roar of misadventure’s tinnitus, and I hear the forest symphony. An amazingly random and infinite loop of crickets, insects, spring peepers. I am told it is a “sonic hallucination.” It’s always running in the background. But could it be just another jumbled childhood memory - recreated from summers past, sleeping on a screened porch cot or lying in bed with the windows open? It is like the colors, beautiful and uncontrollable. This is the platform I am on, as I try to let the train run through the station.

You: I see you. You are individual. Simply put, Not Me. One easy way I can tell, You don’t look like Me. That’s OK. I am not frightened.

I try not to judge You or label You despite what seems to be the natural tendency of the Monkey Mind. Even if successful I feel a primal need to assess whether You are friend or foe. I understand your camera has also been rolling too, but since I haven’t seen the whole movie, it is difficult for Me to fully appreciate your perspective. 

I suspect You think quite similarly to Me, functionally at least. For clues, I can only observe your actions and attempt to communicate. However as George Bernard Shaw once said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

Your conclusions are not always the same as mine. Also OK. You have accomplished things I never could. You occasionally amaze and inspire Me. And sometimes the opposite is true. From your perspective, You are “Me.” Only different. Me and You. Both extras in each other’s major motion picture. I wonder: What does your abyss look like at night? Do You look? Do You hear forest symphonies?

Us: I have never been much of a Joiner. But occasionally, I have something in common with You. We agree on something, and probably not everything, at least temporarily. That allows Me and You to become Us. As a tribe we are greater than the sum our individual selves. Man cannot play baseball alone, for example. During Us, we tend to ignore the differences that would otherwise divide Us. Otherwise we cease to be.

Them: For some reason if You are not a member of Us, You must be Them. As a group you may look like Us, but clearly there is some important difference. Unless of course you abstain from whatever the difference is, in an attempt to be neither Us nor Them. But by doing so, You just get bundled together with the abstained non-joiners, and also become Them. Just a different Them. 

Back in the day, being Them was OK. Even with our differences, there seemed to be a basic understanding, more fundamental than Us and Them, or Me and You, called Civility. Respect for others. Apparently though, Civility disenfranchised a large quantity of the population. This group has tired of quietly living with their dissatisfaction and feels the need to forcibly make a course correction. Never has it been easier for Me to not be with Them.

Several years ago, in the sea of jumbled memories, I had a dream. In it, all of humanity suddenly knew and understood each other. Kind of like The Borg in the rebooted Star Trek (which was otherwise lame except providing that analogy. And they were kind of creepy.) There was a beautiful harmony among the species. There was no Them, only Us. We acted in our collective best interest; we all knew what that was. Everyone contributed what they could, and if for some reason a person couldn’t, that was OK because we knew everyone was doing their level best. We took care of each other. 

These days, it seems humanity is unable to even agree on what is best for itself, much less act together to improve our collective well being. And to make matters worse, it’s as if all the loudmouth, bullying idiots from childhood are taking over the asylum. Truth should not be subjective. Superman’s American Way is not the same Great America they are trying to recreate. And don’t get me started about justice.

No wonder I’m trying to get back to sleep - at least I can dream there.

***

Get It While It’s Hot

When last we ventured to the Darvaza Gas Crater, it was March 23, 2011. In that post, which I encourage readers to enjoy yet again, I shared its origin story as well as its familiar name as the Door To Hell. In the interest of accuracy, I am providing an update - that it is also known as the Gates to Hell. Not sure if that’s a name change designed to attract more tourists or what.

It’s easy to see the attraction. Nothing like a 226-foot wide crater, 100-feet deep spewing ignited methane and god only knows what else. Pack a lunch.

As it turns out, despite this exceptionally fun and unique attraction, only a couple thousand tourists travel into Turkmenistan each year. Of course, this is a must-see. As Turkmenistan attractions go, it is #2 - right after the Gypjak Mosque and just ahead of the Turkmen Carpet Museum. You can see why I strongly recommend going with the “Skip The Line” country-wide pass.

Apparently Turkmenistan has decided enough is enough, recommending the crater to be filled and the gas somehow extinguished. This will be a neat trick in itself, and one wonders where all that gas is going to go exactly. But the point is - if you were planning on going - you better book now if you want some of that sweet Gates of Hell merch.

And while you’re there, stock up on the Turkmenistan Carpet Museum merch before prices go up and it rises to #2 on the must-see list.

***

Building or Burning and Degrading Gracefully

Degrading gracefully. One of a handful of standard responses my Dad would return when asked how he was doing. There was also “No complaints - nobody listens!” To my brother he was known as The Face. I don’t exactly know the story behind that one but it stuck. 

Anyway, getting back to the blog I was disappointed to discover many of my older posts seem to be degrading gracefully as well. Lost graphics, links to witty YouTube videos broken or turned private, etc. although the words seem to be hanging in there. And the older the posts are, it seems the more likely they are dissembling. Almost like the bits and bytes are just…degrading gracefully. But it is a comfort to know that not everything does. 

For example, I still get mail for my Dad. It has chased me through three addresses since he died 13 years ago and he never lived with me. Pleas for donations of some type, usually. I even get emails, and he never owned a computer. Given this, it is surprising that I don’t get calls for his last chance to lock in on that car warranty.

The post below, from 2010 originally, is a product of this discovery. I inadvertently updated it while trying to figure out what happened, and it brought it to the top of the pile. Can’t undo that. And no point in providing snappy graphics I guess, or trying to fix the old posts, because their temporal context will be lost. Oddly enough, this relates to the 2010 post below:

Today I needed to get outside of my head, so I set out for a bit of a longer ride. The destination: the western end of the W&OD trail in Purcellville, about 21 miles one way. The weather complied, and I set off into the climbing hills. Somewhere around Leesburg, there is a decaying barn just off the trail. I recalled this quote (but not the source unfortunately): “You spend all this time building your barn. Then you burn it down. Sometimes the gods burn it down for you. You rebuild it. That's what we do - it restores our sanity.” As Jimi Hendrix also once said, "And so castles made of sand, melt into the sea...eventually." I found myself presented with a choice of burning down the life I built or waiting for the gods to do it for me. I chose to continue building.

***

You Think, Therefore I Am

Consciousness. At what point does it occur? And what is it really? The brain observes, assimilates, reflects, stores, responds and reacts. We can't help it, that's just what the brain does. Recognizes patterns. Sometimes. Evaluates. Considers. Includes both positive and negative reinforcement experiences. Stir it all up and out comes The Mind. 

Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock performing the Vulcan Mind Meld. 

Is there really room for more than one?

Growing up, there was no Internet. We had these things called libraries. You either believed what your parents or teachers told you, or you were forced to go look it up. OK sometimes friends were consulted. But if you really wanted to KNOW something, you looked it up, with the understanding that what was written was factual and objective. Newspapers counted. Even the evening news I guess, although I never paid much attention to it. Except the nightly tally of the soldiers killed in Vietnam. And now? Good god.

The Internet starts off with good intentions. And Google made it easily accessible. You no longer had to go to the library to write that paper. Then it dawned on someone - probably a teacher either recognizing plagiarism or outright BS - that you can't believe everything you read. Like, “Wow, you maybe oughta fact-check some of that crap before you put it in your term paper.” And about then was the dawn of the misinformation age. An endless sea of clickbait catering to every ridiculous set of notions imaginable, which is a story for another time.

Well much has been said of what it is to claim one KNOWS something, and what that even means. Is there really such a thing as a priori? OR is it what got processed prior to sentience? Whatever the subject, it has been stored somewhere within and can now be recalled with concrete certainty as to its integrity. It is now BELIEVED to be true. And this collection of beliefs and experiences congeals and combines with a self-awareness that we casually identify as ourselves. Then along comes the Matrix and Harrari's Homo Deus and one starts to wonder just who you are talking to.

In the Turing Test we are charged with determining whether the respondent is human or machine. If we can't say with any certainty, or how can we KNOW whether the respondent has consciousness? Because we ask them. And for that matter, how do we know whether the hamster is still alive within our neighbors? The wheels are turning. They claim to be conscious. We generally take their word for it. So I KNOW I’m conscious, I’m just not sure I believe you are. I’ll have to think about it. As well as the question about whether you exist.

Which brings me to a relevant passage from Philip Roth's American Pastoral: 

"You fight with your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals, man to man, as we used to say, and yet you never fail to get them wrong. You might as well have the brain of a tank. You get them wrong before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you're with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion empty of all perception, an astonishing farce of misperception. And yet what are we to do about this terribly significant business of other people, which gets bled of the significance we think it has and takes on instead a significance that is ludicrous, so ill-equipped are we all to envision one another's interior workings and invisible aims?...The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we KNOW [emphasis added] we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget about being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that - well, lucky you."

So therein is the challenge. Recognize that we get people wrong. That’s life. Try and go along for the ride instead. Believe them when they say they are conscious, but be wary. As Ronald Reagan once said “Trust but verify.” Good luck, and until next time, I’ll be thinking of you.

***

2 - 2 - 11 - 22

Here’s a draft from 8 years ago that never made the light of day.  2-2-19-30 somehow lacks the symmetry that started it.  This post isn’t about procrastinating.  Necessarily.

For me it all started 30 [now 38] years ago, the night I met Mrs. Incredible. The picture in that post actually looks like my grandmother did, but that was essential for the story.  This is a little more like it:

That’s better. My brown-eyed girl.  About 8 years later our son was born.

Recently Mrs. Incredible discovered some old notes that I sent to my Mom. Therein, I describe one of the effects that my children had on me - they helped me to see the world through a child’s eyes.  That is - without all of the unfortunate things we retain as we become adults.  It can be hard to shake that stuff off.

I say retain, because everyday behavior reflects a combination of retaining what we have observed and what we have learned.  Learning implies a desire to retain.  Observing happens, and is retained involuntarily.  And so it would seem a simple matter to shed unwanted behaviors.  But why is it so difficult? Unfortunately, the mind is often willing but the body is weak.  Or is it the other way around?  So these are the things we try desperately to shake off.

That’s really the goal: continuous improvement.  If you’re not pedaling, you’re either coasting, falling over or going nowhere.  For example - if we are alone on the street, and we see a $20 bill in the trash can - what to do?  That’s right, you take the treasure and leave the trash.  That is how we should learn from people we observe.  But somehow, we frequently pick up some trash along the way, and then have the hardest time getting rid of it.  Shake it off.  Make the decision and move on.  And if you fall back into old patterns, don’t be so hard on yourself. Tomorrow’s another day. Just don’t give up.

This is another one of the things I’ve learned, and I got some help from my children.  Good choices can be easy when you can see someone making them.  Love each other.  Be grateful for what you have, and not forlorn for what you have not. Keep pedaling! And keep shaking.

Dark Territory

Today we got the first snow of the year.  I geared up and set off for a run because there is nothing quite like a nice hike or run in fresh snow.

It’s quiet.

While I’m out there I decide to try something different.  I close my eyes to see just how far I can run and be comfortable about it.

I figured it should be pretty easy to go 20-30 yards at least, and I should be able to gauge if I’ve wandered left or right on the trail.  Why, you ask?  We had just watched CBS’s Sunday Morning, featuring a story on Simon Wheatcroft, a blind runner.  I can only go 10 yards or so before I have to check myself.

He started running on a soccer field, from end to end, between goal posts. After mastering this, he got bored and decided to go navigate his local trail loop.  Not long after, he saw it fit to go play in traffic so to speak.  He is able to detect the lane stripe under his foot.  He is also able to give directions around his neighborhood from the passenger seat, to the point where he can tell you if you’ve missed a turn.

Crazy, right?  Wait, he’s run three marathons and he has become a “test pilot” for all kinds of guidance systems that will help blind people regain their mobility.  What an inspiration.

Seeking further challenges, he decides to go the Namibian Desert to run a 155-mile ultra-marathon.  And he will do it unassisted.

Well, almost. At the halfway point, he has to stop for assistance, because he runs into a flagpole. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?! A FLAGPOLE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT?!?! As if there was any doubt, that does it. The Gods must be crazy.

Use It or Lose It

After a full summer of not thinking about school, or what I had just learned 10 weeks earlier, I sat in class hoping for essentially a free pass and a soft start to the semester.  The professor had other plans. He picks up exactly where he left off, and when he asks the entire class to fill in the blank, that was all he got - blank stares.

It wasn’t that we weren’t attentive.  Or interested.  And the teacher was one of the best I’ve ever come across.  It just wasn’t there.  Oh sure, the summer was well spent.  Any brain cells that couldn’t keep up were left for dead.  The thinning of the herd.  Never thought I’d need those again.

Dr. Holzer just looked at the class.  But he wasn’t bewildered.  It was turned into another teaching moment.  He just said - “That’s right! This is what happens when you don’t use what you’ve learned!  You lose it.”

There was another time when I went to class, pretty darn crispy from the night before, and I went to my usual seat in the far back corner.  Time to review the study and homework assignment on the board.

The professor looks out over the class for a knowledgeable student to get the problem started. Despite  my best Invisible Man impersonation, I was selected and had NO CLUE where to start.  Because I hadn’t done the work.  After my first 3 failed guesses, he ended the torture and said “That’s right class.  At the end of the week you will all be getting paychecks.  Mr. Rusk however will be getting a Pink Slip.” Ouch. Quite few lessons there.

Another teaching moment, although a different professor.  And over the years, both lessons have proven true, no matter the subject area.  If you don’t do the Work, you will have no clue where to start or what to do.  And if you don’t use it, you will lose it.  That last one seems to work on just about everything.  If only it worked on my love handles.

Haha. I’m not talking about trigonometry, either, although it applies too.  I’m talking humanity.  Spirituality.  Your mind.  Use it or lose it.

With thanks to Dr. Siegfried M. Holzer, who prepared me well for life.

The Journey of 100,000 Meters

It seems like only a post ago, and yet here we are.  Assembled again for the Tour de Cure 2016.  I guess it was just a post ago.  Which seems like yesterday.  For such is The Ribbon of Time.

Conditions for the day were questionable. So much so, that the Tour cancelled the Century route.  Thunderstorms, hail, dogs and cats threatened the ride from the west.  The Metric Century was moved up to a 6:30 start. We raced against the elements.  For nothing much is more miserable than a 5-hour ride in the rain. Or hail.

My previous experiences in rain and hail had confirmed this.  Once on a trail ride with Miss B we returned from the west in an epic downpour.  Water bottles not necessary - you could tilt your head back and get a full mouth of water - that is, if it didn't drown you.  As we crossed Dry Mill Run, we encountered an individual who face-planted without a helmet.  He was bleeding out.  It took almost 30 minutes for the ambulance to get there.  And when he came to, his first words were "where's my bike?"  The helmet clearly wasn't protecting much, but it would have saved him a fractured skull.

Another time I got caught in the rain wearing jeans.  A casual ride turned bad.  Riding in wet jeans ranks second-worst to riding in the rain.  Until it started to hail.  Then wet-jean riding became third.  I struggled through it enough to get home, with a sudden and splitting headache.  And when I took the helmet off, all was revealed.  The openings in the top of my helmet (like 2" deep) were filled with hailstones.  Kind of like a mobile snow cone.

Back to the ride.  I was only planning on doing the Metric anyway, so not a major disappointment.  68 miles +/-, but it sounds so much more impressive as 100,000 meters, right?

The temperature was fair, and I was out early.  As we reached the first rest stop, the fabulous volunteers were mixing a fresh batch of Gatorade.  As I slugged back a couple cups, I thought of all the riders behind me - followers - who would also drink the Gatorade.  On the return run here we were cheered on by none other than Wonder Woman.  Until then I did not know she had a sidekick, known as T-Shirt Man in Grass Skirt.

We were routed through possibly every suburban street in Ashburn, Ashburn Farm, Village, whatever.  Out to South Riding, and back again to the trail.  Up, up, up the Blue Ridge Ascent, now rerouted around and under Route 9.  And into one of my favorite trail sections west of Paeonian Springs.  Until finally, the rest stop and turnaround at Purcellville.

It seemed like the rain was chasing the back of my helmet.  At times it seemed like the humidity was just forming in horizontal droplets suspended in mid-air.  My jersey was soaked through and stayed that way (possibly 4th worst ride condition).  The Time Ribbon appeared before me.  The miles behind no longer existed, lumped together with all the previous Centuries.  Only the miles ahead were there.  And they weren't coming soon enough.  Another rider down.  Medics.  More Gatorade.  And the final pull up Sunset Hills and into the Town Center.  The Time Ribbon snapped - like a wet towel in gym class - and the Journey of 100,000 meters was over.

With heartfelt thanks to all the sponsors, we raised over $1,000 to fight diabetes.  Thanks to the support crews who came to the aid of both riders I saw on the pavement.  And thanks to the volunteers at the rest stops and the event organizers.  See you in the fall for the DC 50 miler!

Best Gift Ever!

Before we embark on the Great Material Unveiling, let us pause to contemplate what lies beneath the wrappings. For in the words of Ozymandias, "look upon my works ye mighty, and despair!"

For all the things within the wrappings are made of sand, or ash or dust, and in the end will return from whence they came. But do not despair entirely! Marvel instead at the ingenuity of man, the creativity and thoughtfulness of those works in an effort to provide you with an instant of fleeting delight. Or better, marvel at the works NOT made by man, for they will last far longer, be with you always, and provide a lasting, greater delight.

Peace on Earth. Good will toward Men.

Time Travel at its Finest

The dial of the time machine finally stops spinning at 2015. Your Humble Narrator and his friend Sam find themselves back in the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure. 500 A.D. seems like a long time ago. But it was also last week. For this was the Fourth Century.

Suddenly, the year was 1972. That's right, before the Internet, cell phones, personal computers, or even color TV (at least at my house). The class of 12, 13 and the occasional 14-year old boys gathered in their ridiculous junior high gym "uniforms." They were also wearing ORIGINAL Chuck Taylor Converse All Stars, Black and White, hi and lo-top. Because that's all there was. And you laid out a lot of hard-earned cash to get them through the school discount, for $7.50. But that is another story for another day.

The occasion was the third and final day of Track and Field. Just as the Olympics has its 100-meters, so junior high school has its premier event, the 50-yard dash. You knew who the fastest guys were. When your turn came you wondered what time you could post. Neither the fastest nor the slowest, and when it was over you went to the sideline to watch the next heat.

No one expected great things from Mark, except Mark himself. He SHOT out of the blocks and at the 15-yard mark we all knew, that this was going to be something special indeed. We stood agape as he extended the lead over the fastest boys. It was a miracle.

But by 30 yards, the upper half of Mark was running faster than the lower half. The treadmill had gone berserk. He desperately tried to make his legs catch up, but the ground came up to meet him. In the face. As he was carted off the field with a broken arm, we all knew we had witnessed something.

What we had witnessed was an epic fail before there were such things. That first bitch-slap from life that reminds us to not get ahead of ourselves. We all get it sooner or later. And for the rest of the year we would laugh when we would see the cast, remembering the cosmic slapstick we had watched unfold. But somehow there was respect too. Because in his mind, and for about 5 seconds, he was the fastest guy out there that day.

1972 was a long time ago. But the Fourth Century had a way of reminding me. It also reminded me why I only rode 88 miles last year.

We've been over this before. The relentless pedaling. The hills. Keep pedaling. Avoid Whining. 4 months ago, Sam didn't even have a bike. This day, he helped push Your Humble Narrator through the hills. But not before I found my own version of the 50-yard dash. We made it to the half-way mark in 3 1/2 hours. We made it back in 5. But we made it back.

Somewhere along the way, I became free again. The metal was made ready for the hand of the Maker. And that's why you ride. Or run the 50-yard dash.

Thanks Sam. And thanks to the generous sponsors. And ADA, and the volunteers along the way. Until next year my friends, live in the moment.

Epic Metric

Epilogue - June 1 2014.

Once again Your Humble Narrator participated in the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure.

Regular readers will recall the post-event narratives of the past 3 years: There was 2013's "108 Miles of Solitude". 2012's "2nd Century" and 2011's "Ride of the Century".

But the team failed to form this year. As a solo rider I questioned whether it was going to happen. And then. At about 8 weeks out, fellow 2011 and 2012 team rider Cerasela contacted me to get some training rides in and join her team. So with 2 weeks before the ride, the calls went out. And generous donors responded to the tune of over $1,400 in support of a cure for diabetes.

Cerasela was ready for the complete 108 mile ride. YHN was committed to only the Metric Century. However, the beautiful weather and team spirit called for something more epic. So the game-day decision was made to split the difference and ride the "Century Short-Cut Route", 88 miles, through the rural and rolling Virginia countryside.

The 2-member Ride For Health team rolled out at 7 AM. Cerasela hailed her signature, the musical "Pass-ing Left" along the route to Trail's End in Purcellville. She has explained to me it is the modulation of tone (lo-hi-lo) that makes it so effective. Somewhere southwest of there, the team separated and rode together in spirit only. You have to ride at your own pace.

At the shortcut checkpoint, there was only gratitude to turn east along a new route. I had sufficient recall of the route's southernmost 20 miles through Rectortown to last a lifetime. Much of the shortcut's ride experience was the same, but I was glad to bypass the "Beware: Extremely Steep Hill Ahead" section this year.

Somewhere around mile 50 an oasis appeared in the middle of nowhere. At an intersection of 2 gravel roads in the middle of a field, 2 cases of bottled water stood warming in the sun. If it weren't for the fact they were in the shoulder next to a route marker, one would have thought they just fell off a truck. But we were all grateful for the water, warm or otherwise.

As explained previously, it is at this point - about 3 hours in - that one needs to find the zen of the ride, because there is still another 3 hours + to go. Stop looking at the odometer! Stop looking at the clock! Keep Pedaling! Mercifully, it occurs. You lift up your head as you return into Purcellville. A sea of roofs once again on the outskirts of town. Civilization?

AND THEN. As I am casually looking around the neighborhood to continue my intentional distraction I traverse the Pothole from Hell, Purcellville's own Darvaza Gas Crater. I was amazed that I wasn't swallowed whole. Instead I received the most bone-jarring pothole hit of my career. OK, maybe I was just sensitive at 68 miles, but every time I see a pothole now I think of that one. And every time I hit one, I think "IDIOT! PAY ATTENTION!"

Glad I was able to ride, glad it was over, and glad it's only once a year. But hey it's not too late! They are sponsoring a 50-mile ride through DC in September! There are also 13 and 33 mile routes. If interested - here's the link.

Thanks once again to all who donated! Thanks to the sponsors, and thanks especially to FreshBikes, who attempted to fix my failed front shifter at mile 70. Visit them in the Mosaic District.

It's A Thin Line

"All love has hate in it. Because you are tied to anyone you love, and it takes away your freedom, and you resent it, you can't help it. And while you are resenting the loss of your own freedom, you are trying to force the other to give up to you every last little bit of (their) own. Love can't help but make hate. As long as we're living on this earth, love will always have hate in it. Maybe that's the reason we're on this earth, to learn to love without hating."

- James Jones,  From Here to Eternity

The Purpose of Being

We ran together in the filtered light of the tree canopy

To the river.

I took off my leash

And chased dragonflies

Across the mats of river grass

***

The Reality Song

Prewitt was the best bugler in regiment. He played Taps once in Arlington. But he quit the Bugle Corps to pull straight duty on principle. He had his pride. The year was 1941. One night long after he was in G Company, when Andy felt more like playing the guitar than Taps, he let Prewitt play. It went like this, in James Jones' From Here to Eternity:

Montgomery Clift as Robert E. Lee Prewitt

Prew took his quartz mouthpiece from his pocket and inserted it. He stood before the big tin megaphone, fiddling nervously, testing his lips. He blew two soft tentative tones, wiped the mouthpiece out angrily and rubbed his lips nervously.

“My lip’s off,” he said nervously. “I aint touched a horn in months. I wont be able to play them for nothing. Lip’s soft as hell.”

He stood there in the moonlight, shifting nervously from one foot to the other, fiddling with the bugle, shaking it angrily, testing it against his lips.

“Christ,” he said. “I cant play them like they ought to be played. Taps is special.”

“Oh go ahead, for God sake,” Andy said. “You know you can play them.”

“All right,” he said angrily. “All right. I dint say I wasnt gonna play them, did I? You never get nervous, do you?”

“Never,” Andy said.

“Then you aint got no goddam sensitivity,” Prew said angrily. “Nor sympathy, nor understanding.”

“Not for you,” Andy said.

“Well for Christ’s sake, shut up then,” he said nervously.

He looked at his watch and as the second hand touched the top he stepped up and raised the bugle to the megaphone, and the nervousness dropped from him like a discarded blouse, and he was suddenly alone, gone away from the rest of them.

The first note was absolutely certain. There was no question or stumbling in this bugle. It swept across the quadrangle positively, held just a fraction longer than most buglers hold it. Held long like the length of time, stretching away from weary day to weary day, Held long like thirty years. The second note was short, almost too short, abrupt. Cut short and too soon gone, like the minutes with a whore. Short like a ten minute break is short. And then the last note of the first phrase rose triumphantly from the slightly broken rhythm, triumphantly high on an untouchable level of pride above the humiliations, the degradations.

He played it all that way, with a paused then hurried rhythm that no metronome could follow. There was no placid regimented tempo to this Taps. The notes rose high in the air and hung above the quadrangle. They vibrated there, caressingly, filled with an infinite sadness, an endless patience, a pointless pride, the requiem and epitaph of the common soldier, a woman once had told him. They hovered like halos over the heads of the sleeping men in the darkened barracks, turning all grossness to the beauty that is the beauty of sympathy and understanding. Here we are, they said, you made us, now see us, don’t close your eyes and shudder at it; this beauty, and this sorrow of things as they are. This is the true song, the song of the ruck, not of battle heroes; the song of the Stockade prisoners itchily stinking sweating under coats of grey rock dust; the song of the mucky KPs, of the men without women who collect the bloody menstrual rags of the officers’ wives, who come to scour the Officers’ Club – after the parties are over. This is the song of the scum, the Aqua-Velva drinkers, the shameless ones who greedily drain the half filled glasses, some of them lipsticksmeared, that the party-ers can afford to leave unfinished.

This is the song of the men who have no place, played by a man who has never had a place, and can therefore play it. Listen to it. You know this song, remember? This is the song you close your ears to every night, so you can sleep. This is the song you drink five martinis every evening not to hear. This is the song of the Great Loneliness, that creeps in like the desert wind and dehydrates the soul. This is the song you’ll listen to on the day you die. When you lay there in the bed and sweat it out, and know that all the doctors and the nurses and weeping friends dont mean a thing and cant help you any, cant save you one small bitter taste of it, because you are the one that’s dying and not them; when you wait for it to come and know that sleep will not evade it and martinis will not put it off and conversation will not circumvent it and hobbies will not help you escape from it; the you will hear this song and, remembering, recognize it. This song is Reality. Remember? Surely you remember?

“Day     is done  .  .  .

Gone   the sun  .  .  .

From-the-lake

From-the-hill

From-the-sky

Rest in peace

Sol jer brave

God is nigh  .  .  .”

With thanks to our troops on this, the 68th anniversary of the end of World War II, my father's war.

--- SPOILER ALERT ---

READ NO FURTHER IF YOU ARE GOING TO READ THE BOOK 

(or watch the movie, I guess)

600 some pages later, Pearl Harbor, Ford Island, Wheeler Field, Hickam Field and Barber's Point had been attacked. Prewitt, having gone over the hill, saw his chance to return to his unit without doing more time in the Stockade.

He left under cover of darkness. Eventually he crossed the golf course, and was spotted by the MPs. Taps had already been played that night. But as he laid face up in the bottom of a sandtrap, his chest all tore up from the Thompson gun, I wonder, if somehow, he still heard it.

OK that's not quite the end. Guess you'll have to read it after all.

Get Your Own Reality

Before my overdue fees became equal to the price of the book itself, I wanted to share a passage from Saul Bellow's "The Adventures of Augie March":

Read Saul Bellow

"It wasn't right to think everyone else had more power of being. Why, look now, it was clear as anything that it wasn't so but merely imagination, exaggerating how you're regarded, misunderstanding how you're liked for what you're not, disliked for what you're not, both from error and laziness. The way must be not to care, but in that case you must know how really to care and understand what's pleasing or displeasing in yourself. But do you think every newcomer is concerned and is watching? No. And do you care that anyone should care in return? Not by a long shot. Because nobody anyhow can show what he is without a sense of exposure and shame, and can't care while preoccupied with this but must appear better and stronger than anyone else, mad! And meantime feels no real strength in himself, cheats and gets cheated, relies on cheating but believes abnormally in the strength of the strong. All this time nothing genuine is allowed to appear and nobody knows what's real. And what's disfigured, degenerate, dark mankind - humanity.

See Rutger Hauer (as the Replicant, Roy) in Blade Runner

But then with everyone going around so capable and purposeful in his strong handsome case, can you let yourself limp in feeble and poor, some silly creature, laughing and harmless? No, you have to plot in your heart to come out differently. External life being so mighty, the instruments so huge and terrible, the performances so great, the thoughts so great and threatening, you produce someone who can exist before it. You invent a man who can stand before the terrible appearances. This way he can't get justice and he can't give justice, but he can live. And this is what mere humanity always does. It's made up of inventors or artists, millions and millions of them, each in his own way trying to recruit other people to play a supporting role and sustain him in his make-believe. The great chiefs and leaders recruit the greatest number, and that's what their power is. There's one image that gets out in front to lead the rest and can impose its claim to being genuine with more force than others, or one voice enlarged to thunder is heard above the others. Then a huge invention, which is the invention maybe of the world itself, and of nature, becomes the actual world - with cities, factories, public buildings, railroads, armies, dams, prisons, and movies - becomes the actuality. That's the struggle of humanity, to recruit others to your version of what's real. Then even the flowers and the moss and the stones become the moss and the flowers of a version."

Spin Your Top. Frequently.

Maybe this helps explain what has been happening to me. Or not.

Cutting Edges

In one of my favorite old movie quotes, the neighbors get together for the typically awkward block party/cookout, and the established neighbor says to the new neighbor "There are two things I admire about you: your wife, and your lawnmower." (Awkward silence). For this is suburbia.

But if I pay attention on my daily rounds I can find lots of activity in Nature's Half Acre. On my return trip from Purcellville, following a temperature-cutting thunderstorm, I stopped to clean my lenses and snap a photo of Mr. Box Turtle, deciding whether it was safe to cross the trail:

And later in the ride, the Prothonotary Warbler crossed my path:

As I jogged the trails with Dog, I had the chance sighting of an Indigo Bunting:

But like every weekend, the chores had to be done. As I dutifully fired up the lawnmower to mow down Nature's Half Acre, I noticed a lot of activity down in the grass. Fortunately, I'm always replaying the scene in Honey I Shrunk The Kids in my mind, so I stopped the mower, and inspected:

This young peep would be saved. This time. Moved into the shade, where the wild strawberries are plenty. Later on I discovered another down by the trail. I couldn't just stop the mower! So I decided it would be fair to leave that section uncut. Let that peep scramble about in the uncut grass.

Oh, and keep your hands off my lawnmower.