Images and Words

Cycling north and I’m edging the west side of the Mississippi River. The first 20 minutes are near-absolute darkness and I might as well be riding through space, through an ever-expanding universe in which invisible clouds have drowned out the stars. It’s cold enough to freeze the water in my water bottle and I can’t squeeze a drop out of it. My front light provides some trail visibility directly in front of me, just enough to dodge the occasional cluster of broken glass.

To my right, moments later, morning breaks and a thin strip of orange glows on the eastern horizon, across the Mississippi. Above this tangerine line the sky becomes a purple sea. Behind me I hear the steady rumble of construction vehicles moaning that “progress is important”.

A flock of wild turkeys loiters ahead. There’s one perched on the cement wall that edges the trail on my left, and another turkey pecking at something, maybe a rat, in the grass to my right. They don’t mind me.

Memories of things I’ve heard over the past week clutter my mind.

At work, a corporate head: “My car broke down and I was sooooo stressed. Like, it’s as if life as you know it ends. You can’t do anything. Sooooo glad to have my car back.”

Another corporate head: “I felt a little sick but like, I got the vaccine, so no wayyyy it’s coronavirus. Like, I got the shot already. I should be safe.”

Suddenly I wonder if I can actually be of the same species as these corporate talking heads.

Thoughts of an older man telling me his life story: “I’ve been divorced for three years. I was married for 23 years. I think constantly about what I’ve lost. We were really in love once. Someone reminded me that I’m lucky, because who gets a good marriage for more than 20 years? And that reframes my mind, even though I may never have that feeling again, and maybe I’m not meant to, but maybe it’s enough that I had it once.”

Words from another person follow these: “The high and low for me are the same thing. I quit my job. I have no plans. I have no security blanket. I don’t care. I felt like it was time. It was time to venture into the unknown. I was tired of waiting. I was tired of the security blanket. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying. I’m ready for the darkness.”

The trail ahead of me is still dark, but it suddenly concerns me less.

Thinking about those words reminds me that people can also inspire me.

I don’t want my bike ride to end because while I’m pedaling I’m absorbed in deeper thoughts and at times entranced by the present moment.

Everything, I think, is a series of expansions and contractions. While pedaling my heart expands and contracts. Trillions of light years away the universe expands, and I wonder if it is inevitable that it will eventually contract and smother us with the nothingness from which we all began, and render all of these thoughts and worries obsolete as I, my being, blends with the planets and stars that at present seem so foreign. And if so, was the security blanket really worth it?

Sunlight brushes my left cheek on the ride back to the apartment.

Who Walks Behind - Memoro Menti

Memoro menti is Latin for “you have to die” according to Wikipedia.

Thousands of years ago, Roman generals appointed slaves the task of constantly whispering to them something along the lines of, “you too will die,” as they rode via horseback. This is arguably the origin of the phrase “memoro menti”.

This is also, I suspect, the subject matter of the Ghost song “Pro Memoria.” The chorus of this song is, “Don’t you forget about dying, don’t you forget about your friend death, don’t you forget that you will die.” The song is therefore the slave’s constant whisper to the general: “you are mortal, and your time will end.”

I find myself more acutely aware of an inevitable end these days (hopefully not soon, but inevitable nonetheless). The following have helped present this truth to me: a current injury, a surgically removed tumor from my 20s, and the realization that time accelerates with age.

I do not delude myself into thinking that this present life is a gateway to some sort of eternity. Such a notion strikes me as vain (what other biological creature is bestowed such an honor, and worse, a self-appointed one?), and also potentially lazy. An assumption of eternity is often an excuse to do nothing with the present moment, under the false assumption that there will always be a tomorrow. One could argue that religion convinces its followers to limit themselves, to go “sinless,” with promises of eternity as well.

Such an epiphany, the realization of finiteness, renders the concept of “sacrifice” a difficult one to grasp. The justification of sacrifice, after all, is for the sake of a better tomorrow. But tomorrow is not a guarantee and therefore sacrifice is a gamble.

Conversely, to neglect tomorrow, to indulge in full-blown hedonism in this present moment, runs a very real risk of creating a hellish future. So, one has no choice but to assume that a tomorrow will exist, that some preparation for it is warranted, and that some sacrifice today could potentially render tomorrow “better.”

Past and present. Sacrifice and indulgence. It is a balancing act. To accept the “hell” of today for the sake “heaven” tomorrow, to sacrifice, runs the very real risk of dying having only experienced hell. I think of a father I knew who died of cancer in his 40s having only known a life of “saving aggressively for an early retirement.” His son, determined not to repeat the same mistake, indulged in a life of extreme hedonism and wound up in deep poverty by the same age.

Tomorrow is not a guarantee and neither is good health. There is a yin/yang sort of walk on a tightrope in regards to handling the present and future. And there are no answers to how far one should stray towards either side.

So we work, but we are wary of working “too much” (to die in a cubicle is to never have lived!). And we conserve, but we are wary of conserving “too much” (to live for “saving” is to forsake life completely!). And we are tasked with meditating and soul search for what exactly “too much” is in our lives. In doing so, do we “die in a happy medium?”

I prepare for running and retirement and cycling and skateboarding and travel and hiking up mountains and swimming in seas and reading new books!

And while I plan I also must whisper to myself, “Don’t you forget about dying, don’t you forget about your friend death, don’t you forget that you will die.”

Weekly Plunder: Week 17 - Looking Glass

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Reality is whatever we construct it to be. In that sense, we are creators to a much further extent than we know. Our villains are evil because we hone in on their faults and our heroes are pristine because we fawn over their virtues.

On a long walk through downtown today I thought about how I could choose to see the magnificence of the man-made city structures and the electric bulbs affixed to them that render them ethereal at night. Or, I could choose to see the sickness hanging over the streets, the homeless who freeze to death on cold January nights and the rats that scuttle through sewers beneath the sidewalks, where they can breed disease and occasionally sneak above to the world of man and forage for food.

Much of our interpretation of reality is subjective.

On another front, my physical therapist says I am ready to start some light running and jumping on Wednesday. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this is the final stretch of rehab, though I’m not announcing myself healed just yet. Still, I feel that I am on the cusp of “going full-throttle.”

What I’m watching: The Silent Sea, Season 1 on Netflix. Another exemplary Korean show in a long list of excellent Korean shows. Korean screenwriting has really honed the craft of story structure. Layers are peeled from the story’s world at a perfect pace to keep the audience guessing and intrigued. Screenwriting is an interesting combination of mathematics and imagination.

What I’m reading: The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter. Because comfort kills.

What I’m listening to: “Hotel California” by the Eagles. In my opinion this is their masterpiece. It’s essentially a song about someone who has gone to hell and doesn’t realize it until he can’t escape. That scenario can be applied to an infinite number of personal situations.

What I’m thinking: There is an implicit contract between writer and reader. I, the writer, imagine my words will have a certain emotional effect on you, the reader. However, I don’t know how much you will read… if you’ll read a certain passage once, multiple times, or just skim a few words. I only assume we will connect somewhere, however briefly, in the two dimensional realm you’re staring at now.

Out here, outside social media, we are in the Wild West. We have no skin in the game, no one to compete for followers with, no agenda to push (outside our personal opinions). We do not push for attention or popularity, or even sales. We don’t even know each other, you and I. And therefore, with nothing to lose and no reason to continue, we are fully free to be ourselves.

2021, Goodbye Forever

It’s time to pull the curtains on 2021. As Seneca is credited as saying, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

I spent the afternoon lounging outside Mike’s Bike Shop in Central West End with some pals who work the store. We shared a beer together; the weather was cool and yet bracing enough to wear just a tee. The atmosphere was jovial, a festive ambience in the air. Randoms sauntered by the shop, hopefully on walks without destinations, and wished us well.

For a change it seemed the world was content to pause. How nice to spend the last afternoon of the year outside, with random conversation about celebrity deaths (Betty White died shortly before her 100th birthday), crappy Hollywood sequels (common consensus is the new Matrix movie sucks), bike tire upgrades, and aging.

The store owner’s dog was adopted; I was told its previous owners brutally beat and starved it, nearly to death. It was nearly dead when found, reduced to being a skeleton wrapped in torn-up skin and containing a host of internal issues.

The dog cannot keep the owner out of his peripheral version. He constantly rested his head on the owner’s lap and gazed into the owner’s eyes, as if thinking, “my love for you will never end, and I’ll show you this devotion for every moment of my being.” The dog has a gentle demeanor. It’s as though because he realizes the full extent of pain’s possibilities and the horrors accompanying true suffering, he aims to make everything and everyone around him as comfortable as possible.

As the owner told me, “I had to build the dog from the bottom up, from a starved heap of bones to a living thing. Now he knows what the alternative feels like, and he loves what he has with every ounce of himself.”

And with that, my last relevant lesson of 2021: the darkest depths of fear and suffering give us the fullest appreciation for love and life. Further, we can’t fully appreciate health unless we’ve fully experienced a lack of it.

I couldn’t help but think of my foot when I think of the dog. “Building from the bottom up” describes what I’ve been doing with an injured foot for the final months of 2021. A new appreciation for walking is what I’m ending the year with.

Every walk is a gift. I was given a glimpse of the alternative to being bipedal. Therefore, I finished 2021 with a blessing: every painless step now feels like magic.

My friend told me, “God realized He couldn’t give you COVID this year, so he decided to hit you with a freakin’ car instead. Because that’s the equivalent challenge for the Manimal.”

And as I think about the reconstruction of my foot, I also think about the countless adventures from this year. Adventures are great, and if you are lucky enough to experience them with someone else, all the better.

A few highlights (many photos captures in Sights section):

• Lots of important weddings, one of them (my brother’s wedding) giving me a trip to Puerto Rico. And what a lovely week that was!

• A bikepacking trip through the Blue Ridge mountains!

• Key West, Florida, and the Hemingway house cats!

• Hiking Turkey Run in Indiana!

• Megadeth show!

• Hiking Elephant Rock and the forest and bluffs around it, and reaching the highest point of elevation in the state of Missouri!

• Trips to Missouri/Illinois wine country and the imbibing that ensued (Hermann, Augusta, St. Genevieve, Grafton, among others)

• Hiking through Shawnee National Forest (and drinking wine along the Shawnee Wine Trail on top of it).

• A trip down memory lane in North Carolina to see places, people, and things that were a relevant part of my life before my China days.

• Befriending Grant’s Farm goats and camels!

• Incredible Christmas light shows in Saint Louis

And now, on to the next adventure. Don’t spend too much time waxing nostalgic, my constant reader, or you’ll miss your next great opportunity. After all, the only constant is change…

Spirited Away

I took a long bike ride this morning along the Mississippi River greenway. The roads were damp and strewn with puddles and debris, the skies were overcast, and a light drizzle of precipitation seemed to hang in the air, invisible but felt. The temperature was about 38 F (4 C).

Three miles in and I was violently pedaling through mud and crunchy gravel, evading crisscrossing construction workers steering their trucks and lifts, and crossing over railroad tracks. Riding in harsh weather is exhilarating.

Then my front tire went flat. I changed the flat with my final spare tube and considered my options.

I could keep going without a spare. I didn’t bring my phone. If I had another flat tire, I’d have no one to call and potentially no one to ask for help. This could be trouble if it happened enough miles away from my apartment.

The alternative would be to turn back.

Naturally, I decided to keep going. Sometimes you just gotta tempt fate.

In the worst case scenario (and worst cases are typically unlikely) I’d be about 25 miles (40 km) away from downtown. However, that would be if my bike went flat near the furthest point of the journey. The human body can survive for days without food. I’ve therefore endured worse.

Even with a bad right foot, I could physically maneuver the walk home in a day or two. Further, there are typically at least two other cyclists on the trail. Odds are that if I needed help, I’d be able to find it.

My point is that the worst case scenario is often not as bad as we fear. And sometimes, you have to experience the worst case scenario to truly feel alive.

I kept riding northeast, mile after mile. And suddenly it was as though I was transported to another world. I thought of the train ride in the film Spirited Away. It’s a ride of gloom and ghosts that transports Chahiro to the witch she seeks. Chahiro’s journey was a one-way trip over an endless ocean, which seemed eerily similar to my own ride.

A dense fog overlapped the atmosphere as I crossed Chain of Rocks bridge, which took me over the Mississippi River and away from Saint Louis.

The fog was like thin strips of white cotton candy that sifted through the the bridge’s steel frame.

I glanced out at the river as I pedaled. I heard a steady roar of water hitting rocks and I viewed the resulting white color. There was quiet in the roar, which is a phenomenon only nature can produce. A lone boat was out there on the river, near Chouteau island.

There can be so much beauty in gloom, sometimes more beauty than warm sunshine could ever hope for.

Normally I’d turn back at this point. I decided to keep going into uncharted territory. I pedaled beyond the bridge, mile after mile. I did not bring a watch and had no concept of how far, or how long, I was going. One of the best things to escape is time itself. Chahiro’s train ride seemed to exist outside of time as well; ghosts enter and leave the train but only repeat the mundane actions of their past lives.

I road over gently loping hills as I left the state of Missouri and entered Illinois. The landscape was dotted with ponds, lakes, and farmland. Far to my left was an interstate and a steady stream of cars moving over it.

I heard a large hawk cry above me and the cry was eerily childlike. The bird glided in a sky veiled with fog and its soaring could easily be mistaken for floating.

I crossed another bridge that took me over a canal. I realized that I was completely alone in this strange ghostly world outside Saint Louis. I kept going, over yet another bridge, lost in the moment. It felt as though I was leaving the human world.

I don’t remember when I turned back, but eventually I did. My tire never went flat. I arrived with a layer of mud on me and several layers of mud on my bike. My ankle held up.

I had been gone for more than four hours. The worst case never happened.

There’s merit in preparing for a worst case scenario. It’s said that in the first race to the North Pole, the surviving expedition was the one that was the best equipped.

But in a world consisting of pills for every ailment, spares for every possession, and sterilization for every smudge of dirt.. sometimes it’s worthwhile to just let go and see what happens.

Weekly Plunder: Week 16 - The Devil Rages On

I’ve had two vivid dreams this week that I can remember.

In the first dream I found myself competing again; the old athlete whom I thought had died years ago was seemingly resurrected. There is a genuine shock from the witnesses of my sudden comeback; physically, it doesn’t seem natural that a 36-year-old can still compete like a 22-year-old. It was a relatively triumphant dream.

The second dream was a night terror that I hope to forget.

What I’m watching: The Witcher season 2. Difficult for me to understand a lot of the dialogue and register the names of places and characters, but overall I enjoyed season 2 more than season 1. More fun, more kinetic, more brutal, and more narratively streamlined.

What I’m reading: The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Ortberg. This has been useful in unhinging my reliance on satisfying people’s expectations (and society’s expectations). Expectations are the source of so much modern stress, and so many of these expectations are either unrealistic or downright asinine.

What I’m listening to: “The Devil Rages On” by Volbeat. Not a song that immediately draws the ear in, but I find myself listening to it a lot. I find it interesting both lyrically and melodically. Melodically it’s a catchy rockabilly song, whereas lyrically it’s a song about someone praising hell and Beelzebub as a savior. I enjoy dichotomy. Rockabilly songs often detail a lost lover or betrayal, and it’s during heartbreak or loss that hell and its inhabitants can seem more like saviors or harbingers of hope. The song is therefore sinister and uplifting at the same time.

What I’m thinking: I’ve enjoyed a few festive days. You can overwork, but you can’t oversmile.

My final thought: it’s said that the Diné Navajos have nothing and are spiritually the happiest inhabitants in North America. Their spiritual health, in fact, is directly proportional to how little they have.

Battling the Dragon

One of the more intellectual arguments against the existence of what many imagine to be heaven, or eternal salvation when described as infinite pleasure, is simple:

A constant state of euphoria cannot elicit pleasure unless there is a counterbalance to compare it with. A high cannot be understood or appreciated unless it is attained by surmounting a low. One would become numb by constant goodness, and it would quickly cease to have significance.

In other words, we need a dragon to battle, a threat, and the possibility of losing the battle.

• A fall helps us understand the significance of standing back up again.

• A scrape teaches us that flesh can heal.

• A loss reveals there’s something to win.

• A failure reveals there’s something to improve.

• An oppression reveals there’s something to liberate.

• A rejection teaches that acceptance is significant.

• A sickness reminds one that health should never be taken for granted.

Why are we (okay, why am I) obsessed with dragons? How did we conjure up this fictitious creature, and why are they always a threat to the kingdom?

I heard one intellectual argument that makes sense. Evolutionarily speaking, our ancestors likely faced two threats: venomous snakes from below (and hidden within the trees, competing with us for food), and birds of prey from above. The dragon, then, is a combination of these two magnificent predators. It is the creature that can destroy us from any vantage point. It impales us with its talons, it swallows us whole, it crushes our rib cage with its tail, and it incinerates us with its fire.

Good can only be defined if bad exists. Even a kingdom loses worth without a threat to protect it from.

It brings to mind a silly example. I have an Internet friend who has long been in search of “the perfect pair of pants.”

”What will you do when you find the perfect pants?” I asked him once.

“I know full well there’s no such thing,” he said. “But I’m invested in the quest. It’s the chase that we need to have. Let it go on forever. Take part in the chase!”

To that I say, battle the dragon. Whether it’s beaten or not is insignificant.

An Axe for the Dragon - Thoughts on Aging

As I rehab my ankle I find my thoughts more frequently drifting towards the subject of aging.

Regarding aging, I am approaching what many people regard as the “start of the downhill trajectory,” also known as the late 30s. Things are supposed to slow down in the latter half of the 30s, and I guess they do. Recovery takes longer, muscles get weaker, and hair gets grayer. Time is an undefeated opponent; that’s what science says.

It seems there are several options regarding how to approach aging:

• Accept the body’s inevitable decay and acquiesce to its deterioration. Do what most do: allow the body to transform into an old vegetable, a shell that breathes but doesn’t live, imprisoned within a retirement home.

• Fight aging relentlessly in a futile quest to “stay on top”. This is essentially a lifelong struggle to “remain close to the peak.” You aren’t fighting to defeat the inevitable slowdown, only to delay it. The “quest to fade less quickly.”

• Age with moderation, somewhere between the other two options. Remain active, but not intense. Take walks, but accept that the adventures of yesteryear must be replaced by garden walks.

Regarding these options, I vote to reject both moderation and surrender. Full speed ahead! Bring me the Grand Canyon rapids. If my 80-year-old body can’t handle them, let the turbulent waters swallow me as I fight to reach the end.

If, one day, scoffers say that the future 80-year-old man that I am is delusional for thinking himself still a warrior, I say I’ll pick up the metaphorical axe and let fate decide.

Metaphorically speaking, when I think of aging and death I think of the film Reign of Fire, specifically the Matthew McConaughey character, Van Zan.

In arguably the greatest death scene to ever grace a bad movie, Van Zan stands on top of a building, realizing his dragon adversary is going to kill him. He has lost his battle.

So what does Van Zan do? He suicidally jumps off the building with his battle axe, preferring to die fighting. The dragon devours the defiant and screaming Van Zan as he attempts one final swing of his axe at the beast!

If the dragon is death, I’ll gladly be Van Zan. And on my way into the dragon’s throat I’ll shout, “Come on, big boy!”

China Memories - BBQ with Friends

Through my final months spent in China, one of my best friends was someone who’s name I never fully learned. I guess that’s not entirely shocking when living in a country that speaks a language you don’t understand.

His name existed only as a series of symbols in my “WeChat” application (the main social media app in the country) that at one point I vaguely understood, though I could never remember it. And of course, I’ve since forgotten his name.

He owned a dumpling shop that I often stopped by after work. “Jiaozi” is the Chinese word for dumplings, and “zhū ròu” (if you don’t understand pinyin this might not mean anything) is the word for pork.

I ordered the pork dumplings (with soured vegetables) from him on an almost daily basis, to the point that he started to deem my predictability laughable. “My dumplings seduce you so thoroughly, or is it me?” He’d often joke through our phone apps.

“Zhū ròu jiaozi, suancai? (Pork dumplings with sauerkraut?)

“Yǒu.” (I’ll have)

I typically ate alone at his dumpling store during my final winter months in China. The store was essentially a food stand, amidst a maze of food stands, within the first-floor supermarket of a tall and decrepit business building.

If the customer line wasn’t too long, we’d have an extended conversation. He couldn’t speak a word of English and my Chinese was shaky at best, so we communicated almost entirely through our phone apps.

We talked about life, work, the daily grind, and the daily pressure of putting food on a family’s table. He asked me about culture in America, and I asked him about culture in China.

We made jokes about how easily the Russians in the area were mistaken by Chinese locals to be American.

After a few weeks of pleasant lunch conversations, we started having dinner and drinks together. “You have to experience Chinese food beyond my dumplings, after all!” He’d joke. His wife worked with him and she often joined us in our gluttony (and we truly feasted). Chinese bbq was typically our favorite meal.

This was one of our favorite bbq spots. These photos were taken three years ago to this day. It brought back a smile to see my old friend again.

I’d since deleted my WeChat profile, and I often regret it. There is a pang of nostalgia and a wish to send him a message to catch up on life; I can only guess that his store is doing well (they were excellent dumplings after all!).

The Weekly Plunder: Week 13 - Change

This week, an unusual warm front meant that I took my afternoon walks without needing a jacket. One of my favorite colleagues retired, my first boss is retiring at year’s end, and my foot is inching closer to a return to running (after re-learning to walk and bike, it’s the elusive next step). It seems appropriate for late fall to signify a lot of change.

Speaking of change, I think there are two interesting philosophies regarding a person’s ability to change. The first is what I deem the “Stephen King” belief. King seems to (almost cynically) believe that we are all trapped in a vicious circle, forever doomed to repeat our past errors and (quite likely) the errors of our parents. Note how the abused child tends to become the abusive parent.

King’s Dark Tower series, for example, signifies that a quest to find the meaning of it all, a quest to the end, inevitably takes the pursuer back to his or her beginning.

Then there’s the more optimistic view of humanity’s ability to change: that as long as we’re willing to change and willing to undergo pain, change is entirely possible and never too late.

I like to think that my belief on change falls somewhere between these two sides.

What I’m watching:

I found this to be pretty hilarious!

What I’m listening to: “Changing” by John Mayer. I listened to a lot of John Mayer this week and find this song relevant for the blog topic.

What I’m reading: A little philosophy by Sartre. If it’s true that there is no reality besides the reality that the individual perceives, anyone able to shape a culture’s doors of perception is essentially a God. The social media gatekeepers therefore have far more power than even the most cynical of us believes.

What I’m doing: I assembled my skateboard and have been doing some early practice with what my ankle can currently handle. I’m also making travel plans for next year.

I had thought about training for a triathlon, but frankly I find the idea too “linear” and the training too boring. I might do one for fun, but it would have to be in my own style, and my own style would involve more randomness than a traditional training method would encompass.

I’m thinking about change and how it relates to me. What will I (we) change this week for the better, both in myself (ourselves) and the world around me (us)?

Fall Ride to Riverfront Trail with Mission Workshop Apparel/Bag

I took my gravel bike and some new Mission Workshop apparel on a fall ride along the Riverfront Trail (about 24 miles/38 km total). It was a cool 38 degrees F (3 degrees C) but I felt warm (without overheating). Mission Workshop products are on the pricey end, but made of high quality materials. They tend to last.

Mission Workshop

Thankful: Negatives and Positives

Zero negatives in life do not necessarily compute to a net positive.

How many people seemingly have nothing going wrong but still feel so empty?

In fact, mathematically speaking, if you’ve had more than three negatives in your life (and you’ve likely had innumerable negatives), you are net positive.

What is the cliche? A diamond in the rough; they’re shaped by pressure.

Maybe we (I?) should embrace the negatives.

For example, 11 negatives computes to a net positive of 4. How? If two negatives become a positive, the total sum is 5 minus 1. I’m in net positive territory, if I choose to believe it.

Our negatives have the potential to strengthen and embolden us. Over time, they solidify like clay and transmute us into something new entirely.

If this is true, it’s better to have a lot going wrong than to live in a painless vacuum.

Our negatives give us potential to change. They are what pave the trail ahead. And it’s better to journey forward than to languish in place.

I’m thankful for my negatives today, and the list runs far longer than the first things that sprout to mind:

• For often feeling overlooked as a young age group swimmer.

• For failing my first few leaps in ballet.

• For all of my innumerable rejections, which span a wide gamut of endeavors and attempts.

• For being told my first resume was crap during my first internship interview.

• For being disliked at my first full-time job.

• For being told my teaching was terrible in my first training school session.

• For failing to get a presidential award at the middle school shuttle run.

• For being out-touched at the finish in my final NCAA 200 yard freestyle race.

• For being hit by a car and walking myself home on a torn ankle as adrenaline surged through me.

• For dealing with any and all consequences of the things I’ve said that were wrong.

Each of these in some way led to a net positive.

Today I’m thankful for my failures and the people who were part of them. I’m also thankful I’m still around; I’m ready for the next adventure. And of course, I’m thankful for the positives, and the people who were a part of those!

And I’m thankful for you, because by reading you’ve shared a connection with me.

The Weekly Plunder: Week 11 - Off Road

The beauty of the gravel bike is in its lack of limitations. While a road bike has the advantage of speed, it’s also bound to pavement, and therefore subjected to most of the rules of the road.

A gravel bike can handle roads and much more. You can ride through forest, desert, and mountains. You can venture where most dare not walk. You set your own rules when you leave pavement. This gives gravel bike riders a true sense that the world is at their fingertips. Cycling across a country suddenly becomes possible.

Needless to say I’m really enjoying my gravel bike.

What I’m reading: Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen. As far as I can tell it’s a book about shame. There’s a passage in the beginning that I found particularly interesting, about a widow whose husband recently died. A pastor who has romantic interest in her suspects that she will only stay alone for a short period of time out of emotional loyalty, but that what she primarily misses is simply the feeling of companionship. After all, the pastor reasons, we tell ourselves that we will never replace our dead pets, but in due time we find justification for a new cat or dog.

This brought to mind a story I heard of a man whose wife died of cancer. He was back in the dating scene within a short period of time. What a dark epiphany about human nature.

What I’m watching: The Circle on Netflix, season 3. It’s just trashy reality television that kills time. I shouldn’t watch it… but then we shouldn’t do a lot of things that we do anyways.

What I’m listening to: “The Scarecrow” by Avantasia. What a dark, nostalgic, and poignant song. Jorn’s vocals are among his best on this one. As far as I can tell it’s a song about a lonely person who sets out on his or her own strange and twisted journey. Along this person’s journey, there is someone else trying to destroy the person’s belief system. I find it interesting; it brings to mind the transition out of school.

What I’m doing: I’m planning some pretty epic bike rides. I’ve also been searching for a physical therapist for my ankle in hopes of getting it healthy enough to run again. I’d like to run before 2021 ends and am faintly optimistic that I can get there. You don’t expect an injury to take you out of the game for so long, but you have to play the cards you’re dealt.

I also finally bought a skateboard. Why? Because I believe there is incredible value in constantly leaving my comfort zone, in seeing new places, in learning new skills, and in trying new things. I’d rather embrace being a beginner and enjoy being awkward while braving the unknown than remain in predictable territory.

I aim to disrupt my own routines when I can. It’s not about “cycling really far every day” or “running really far”. It’s about moving with a smile. That’s why I got the skateboard.

Where is the Awe

I close my eyes

A long inhale

New Mexico, I must be 10

Running along the edge of Echo Canyon Road

One foot hitting tarmac, the other hitting sand

My best friend beside me

We’ll be friends forever, we say

Show the adults what loyalty means

What everlasting looks like

And we’ll be superheroes one day

Crayon colors streak the sky as sunlight fades

The horizon soon just an ember glow

Ladybugs hover in the crisp air,

Their shells a rainbow spectrum of color

A family of quail wanders near an adobe house

Cacti and sage guard the suburban lawns

Tumbleweeds race down the road ahead

Spindly dead things pushed by ghosts

Let’s build a fort and live there, deep in the desert

Where the teachers and dull ones can’t find us

Live off the land

Eat tarantulas and scorpions

Catch them with bows and arrows

Gather water from the Rio Grande

Hope and prey magic is real

The Lost Boys in Neverland

Fend off civilized reality

It would strangle us with its tentacles

A siren outside wakes me

Present day, everlasting long-ended

I haven’t seen you in 25 years

A feeling of longing for White Sands Missile Range

Where the desert becomes the Alps

Our sleighs ready at slope’s peak, standing side-by-side

Hoping to race down one more time

One more chance before sunset

But we never will again

The Weekly Plunder: Week 10 - Tiny Moments

Late on Friday I ventured to a small bicycle shop in Central West End in search of a solid gravel bike (I’m glad to say I found what I was looking for). The shop was small and the staff’s vibe was laid back and personable. In other words, it was my kind of shop.

As the sun set and the outside winds howled, I found myself talking for awhile with one of the employees, a 48-year-old former bike messenger, about life in general, about our injuries, our triumphs, and our failures. We shared a beer as the store neared closing. It was a moment I greatly appreciated.

“One thing I love about cycling is that you see the world differently,” he said at one point. I was about 3/4 through my Urban Chestnut brew.

“Yeah, you see the worst of humanity.”

”People, yes. You see the ugliness in people. But also, beauty. Not always beauty in people, but beauty in nature. You see nature.”

I thought about bikepacking on Skyline Drive, thousands of feet up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I remembered the sun cresting along the horizon to my left and a view of the country, vast and green and endless, thousands of feet below. Deer grazing in a patch of grass to my right. An owl swooping overhead as the trees cast their long shadows over me and my friend pedaled ahead. Time slowing down, every mile feeling like a year. In that moment of utter exhaustion, I was truly free.

In that moment I understood time and my relationship to it.

And I thought of the cars that whirred by, and of the drivers that only saw a tiny fraction of this at most, trapped within a steel cage and likely distracted. They were there, but they were not truly there.

”Yeah,” I said. “You see the beauty of it all. And once you realize you can see beauty anywhere, just by hopping on a bike, it’s tough to get in a car.”

“And then you really get it, that it’s not about getting a really expensive bike. It’s about being part of everything.”

What I’m reading: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I’m reading this because I know of one concept in the book: the idea of focusing on one’s immediate circle of control. The basic argument is that one should focus almost fully on the things that one can immediately influence: loved ones, peers, and one’s immediate environment. The further removed from this immediate circle something is, the less likely it is to be worth thinking about (the news and federal politics). The more you think about things outside of your immediate circle, the more stressed you become.

What I’m watching: Squid Game. Might be the most powerful show I’ve ever watched. The final two episodes are haunting. I’m still thinking about the old man’s quote near the end: “What do people who don’t have enough money and people who have too much money have in common? Misery.” Followed by another, on his deathbed, when asked why he played such a despicable game with the show’s protagonist. “I think about when I was a kid, playing outside with friends, and how we lost track of time. I wanted to get that feeling back.” Wow, what a show.

What I’m listening to: “Shadowminds” by The Halo Effect. It’s what I expect from catchy melodic death metal.

What I’m doing: I’m breathing. I’m pausing and appreciating that I’m here, that I’m writing passages that you may or may not relate to (though if you’ve made it to this sentence, maybe something has struck a chord).

My foot is healing. I’m planning the next adventure… off-road cycling awaits. Let’s see where tomorrow takes me.

The Weekly Plunder: Week 9 - Pain with an Anchor

Winter first sinks its talons into you in the early morning and evening hours. Outside my window I can see a thin coating of frost on the neighboring library’s lawn grass; it glistens under the early morning moonlight and the city street lamps.

We (I) have to accept our (my) present situation. It can be easy to dwell on the bad and forsake the good. I attempted a run on Wednesday and quickly felt a damaged ligament tear open again; I guess it wasn’t fully healed and couldn’t take the impact that running requires. Running was a horrible mistake. I’ve felt severe pain in my walk since. If it doesn’t abate in the next few days I’ll visit a doctor. It seems that I can’t put a timetable on a return to running. It won’t be soon, I do know that, and that sucks. That’s just reality.

I can still ride a bicycle, so there’s that. Last week I managed a hike, and I should regain that ability quickly. I just have to accept a long waiting period before running is possible. Until then, I’m sure I’ll dream about it. I’ve been dreaming a lot lately.

That’s okay. There’s too much good in life to dwell. I’m trying to reign my thoughts in to focus on what good I can do today.

What I’m watching: Willy’s Wonderland starring Nicolas Cage. This is a terrible film. Even as a Cage apologist I regret paying for this one. Let the man speak, that’s what we pay for!

What I’m reading: My Brain Has Too Many Tabs Open by Tanya Goodin. It’s amazing how much social pressure there is to have an “online identity,” and how much of ourselves is stolen by giving this identity to social media companies.

What I’m listening to: “Pain as an Anchor” by Mastodon. The opening song on their new album. Title seems relevant to my foot. It’s an eerie and somewhat melancholic rocker. I actually like it, and usually I’m not a fan of the band.

What I’m doing: The weather will warm up by noon today. I’ll do a group bike ride with some friends, then visit my favorite winery tomorrow. Wearing the foot brace again. I didn’t expect to be physically limited for this long. But it’s important to not have expectations.

What I’m thinking: Thinking about a classic film called The Crazies. In the movie there’s an unknown virus that turns people more belligerent and violent. It hits a small town and a mass paranoia sets in as people wonder who is infected and who isn’t. How can you tell when the only symptom is aggressive behavior?

When I walk the downtown streets I see more belligerent behavior than usual. Maybe it’s because people were cooped inside for so long, many not working, many isolated, many stress-watching television or stress-reading news on phone screens. People do generally seem angrier and more anxious in urban areas. They drive more aggressively and indeed, by virtually all metrics, crime and obesity are rising.

Finally I’m thinking that there is too much beauty in the world to dwell on the negatives for long. Our days are finite. There’s always a pleasant surprise around the corner, regardless of what’s behind us… we just need to let ourselves look ahead. Always thinking about what my Chinese student Tony told me, back in 2018: “Be happy every day.”

Beauty is Natural

Modern industry’s job is often to make you feel inadequate, to make you strive for something that seems out of your grasp, to belittle you, and to push your mouth an inch below sea level. These are the feelings that cause a person to open up a wallet. Products, they tell you, will solve issues of appearance.

You are beautiful just the way you are. In fact, you are more than beautiful. You are a masterpiece of evolution, a modern miracle. Your cells are among the fiercest survivors for having made it out of the womb. Your DNA is the product of hundreds of thousands of years of adaptation and survival. Your ancestors were a combination of the fastest, strongest, and smartest humans.

Your ancestors evolved to survive the harshest environmental conditions. In Africa this may have included a brutal sun and the fiercest predators. In the Nordic regions it involved a frostbite-inducing cold and long periods without any sun at all.

You skin is perfect. It has beauty in both form and function. It adapted to allow your ancestors to receive an adequate vitamin D intake regardless of whether you lived under a constant brutal African sun, or a humid and muggy Southeast Asian air, or a Nordic region with longer winter nights than days.

Your hair is perfect. Billboard images are carefully curated to make you feel as though something critical is lacking; your hair must fit the image of someone else’s version of beauty, some sort of “silky and smooth” westernized version. Beauty in a bottle. But anyone who expects something different from what you already are is not your friend.

We are too wonderfully diverse now to live with one version of beauty. Your hair adapted to help you thermoregulate… to retain warmth in the cold and to keep cool in the heat. Human hair beautiful in all of its varieties, from smooth to coarse, from straight to curly to frizzy, regardless of recent societal standards. Your hair exists because at some time, long ago, someone else with similar hair was deemed the perfect specimen. That person thrived while competitors languished.

Your body, too, is perfect. It has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years of withstanding changing climates and wars and various predators that are long since extinct. Attached to you are two incredible feet, each with 26 bones and thousands of neurons that fire with each step, that help you feel the earth. Your feet have something other primate feet don’t: the ability to outrun a deer if necessary. Think about the stamina that requires. It’s built in you; it doesn’t come courtesy of a shoe purchase. Your natural feet kept your lineage alive while other primates died out.

Your face is perfect. It is not too big, too thin, too round, or too long. You speak perfectly, with a perfect mouth and perfect lips. You evolved to perfectly articulate the language of your ancestors and speak precisely, to taste your food, to detect potential poisons, and to find mates.

You are a modern miracle, a self-conscious being, one of the few that is aware of being alive. A shampoo or cosmetic will not augment your true beauty because it’s already there, outside of you and within you, whole as you are right now. Your beauty is tethered to your skeleton.

Your beauty is in your mind as well. You can think, laugh, plan, love, hate, and forgive. You are aware there was a past and that there will be a future. You are aware of your mortality (most likely). No other creature that we know of possesses all of these abilities.

You don’t need better shampoo, or better lotion, or a different skin tone, or a different accent, or a different personality. You are a miracle. Love your reflection: your image is worthy.

You as you is utterly amazing.

The Weekly Plunder: Week 8 - Beginner Mode

A few days ago I found myself thinking about how we adults are often scared of new things. We cling to what we know out of fear of what we don’t. Experience and wisdom are supposed to flourish with age, so we cringe at the thought of being old newbies. We want to, metaphorically speaking, play all of our games at “advanced mode.” And so, as we get older our list of fears grows, while our willingness to try new things diminishes. We increasingly hate being beginners.

If there is a competition I want to engage in, it’s this: I want to be a beginner at more things than anyone else, and continue to be a beginner at more things as I age. If I suck at something, it at least means I’m willing to venture into the unknown. There is more adventure in being unfamiliar with the outcome. If I’m learning something new, it means I’m learning, and that’s certainly worth experiencing.

What are you willing to be a beginner at? My list of “beginner mode” things: skateboarding, chess, and camping.

What I’m reading: The Running Revolution by Nicholas Romanov. Though I am still unable to run, I’m very close, and I have my sights set on running at much longer distances than I ever had before.

What I’m watching: Dune (review posted). Finished season 3 of What We Do in the Shadows (really funny show, watch the movie too if you haven’t).

What I’m listening to: “Message in a Bottle” by The Police. My tribute to Sting since he played a pivotal role in the 1980’s Dune film (I am one of the few who enjoyed it). Also the new album “Dark Connection” by Beast in Black. It’s some solid 80s style metal. Pure, simple, and catchy high-octane fun.

What I’m doing: Took a long hike with my girlfriend at Turkey Run in Indiana. It involved climbing down a pretty steep waterfall and maneuvering my feet at angles I hadn’t in months (been recovering from an ankle injury). I was glad that the ankle held and I made it. It’s refreshing to breathe in some fresh fall air while walking through the assemblage of ochre, yellow, orange, and red leaves that both sheet the earth and decorate the trees (but not for long). The ankle is healing pretty well. I’m also cycling further each day.

Also shopping around for a skateboard. Because why not? I don’t want to be bogged down by routine. Regimented exercise is not my thing. I’d rather learn something fun. Yes, I intend to run, but not in the predictable linear paths of adults who tend to tether themselves to machines. And I have no qualms in breaking up an exercise with excitement. I’d rather be “skateboard zen” than “really good at running.”

All Life is Electric

We are all essentially masses of electromagnetic energy. It has been proven that all life is essentially electric, and death is a short circuit to our operating systems. This is often overlooked, but the idea was posed long ago (the great Nikola Tesla and the fraud on the other side of the Atlantic, Edison, among others).

Devices we hold in our pockets, on our wrists, and in our ears (Bluetooth) are radioactive. They essentially act to decelerate and weaken our electric currents. They debilitate us over time. They decay us and aid in our diseases. They erode our minds and hearts. Yet we carry them for the sake of convenience and social acceptance.

What am I getting at? If all life is electric, that electricity must go somewhere when we die. It is entirely plausible, therefore, that many ghost stories have some validity. A strong enough electromagnetic power must have a transference of some sort if the organism’s death is sudden and brutal.

Yet if ghosts exist, the invisible frequencies they ride would inevitably be muted by the very radioactive devices and 5G signals that permeate the air and kill everything else.

So, ghostly occurrences in the modern civilized world, I would think, would be more rare.

There you have it, some food for thought on Halloween.

Today I had coffee at Sump (one cup of an Ethiopian blend and another Peruvian). The Sump black coffee tends to be light and tinged with fruity flavor. No milk or cream crap needed. Black coffee is plenty fulfilling. I like it.

After coffee I rode my bike approximately twenty miles (32 km) on a route through Carondelet Park, across the River Des Peres greenway to Jefferson Barracks Park, and back downtown via Broadway street. My foot felt nearly painless. It was the first day since just before my 36th birthday that riding my bicycle felt like it did before the car crash. That, plus a few hours of sunshine, improved my mood considerably.

The fall sun is relatively pale and tolerable, and today’s chilly weather required a jacket. My chest was warm while the wind lashed an icy air at my hands and ears. I loved it. I felt like my old self. The journeyman is returning. He is not dead yet.

Adventure will resume soon…

The Weekly Plunder: Week 6 - Divine Intervention

Gray hues streak the sky and a dense fog hangs over the tops of the downtown Saint Louis buildings as I write this. The lack of sun renders everything pallid and gaunt.

I attempted a bicycle ride this morning. A mile uphill started the ride and it was particularly grueling for the foot. Pain shot through the upper left part of the sole, the same spot where the most severe sprains occurred from the injury. It’s the spot I have felt with every step, with every movement, over the last few months. I guess it’s my “Achilles Heel”.

The thought that the pain could carry for much longer gave me a feeling of despair (I know, logically, that the foot will heal eventually). I wondered, though, if this was my purgatory, to be constantly yearning for a healthier tomorrow that doesn’t seem to arrive (this must be the inevitable conclusion to aging). It’s strange to me that in extreme moments we seek out biblical metaphors for our problems. Everything is rendered hellish or heavenly or purgatorial.

I kept pedaling, thinking that it was unfair that I should be beaten by my own damned foot.

And as I thought this, I just kept pedaling. And slowly the pain in my foot subsided, for reasons I don’t understand. Hours later, the foot felt better still. Miraculously better. Suddenly I was walking reasonably well. I hadn’t done that since I was 35. I don’t know if the feeling will hold, but some things make no sense.

What I’m doing: I am thinking about stories, in general, and where they come from. I’m also thinking about fall and the beauty in a ground strewn with puddles, fallen acorns, and brittle yellow leaves. I’m thinking about walking, running, and swimming. I’m thinking of the past and present and the wonderful lives that have crossed paths with mine.

What I’m listening to: 1. “A Crisis of Revelation” by Trivium. I’m a sucker for a fast metal song with a solid chorus. 2. “Hunter’s Moon” by Ghost. An odd song dedicated to Michael Myers about sibling love, devotion, and obsession. 3. “AEnima” by Tool. 4. “Goodbye Blue Skies” by Pink Floyd

What I’m watching: Midnight Mass. Wow, what an excellent show. It’s much more than a horror show: it’s a show about family, community, faith, and forgiveness.

What I’m reading: Trying to finish up Full Throttle by Joe Hill. I’ve been slacking with my reading and intend to pick up the pace.