What a fuckin’ trip.
Long, hot, expensive and a true test of my ability to overcome situations that
I never even thought would ever happen. An epic journey the likes of which I
wasn’t able to conceive in even my most delusional state. A true test of this skinny
fuck’s ability to overcome anything if I was just able to think things through
and be fuckin’ patient.
It was an adventure
in every meaning of the word. Challenges both mechanically and environmentally made
this relatively short trip of 5000 miles a true challenge of my need to make it
on two wheels rather than the back of a truck (trust me it would have been a
lot easier to just fuck it and truck it).
The motorcycle is a perfect
metaphor for life itself …simplified. On a long trip all your focus is to keep
moving forward anything else is just a set back or a novelty. Moving forward is
your only goal and therefore your only focus.
The movin’ forward
thing on a bike is easy. It’s simple.,specific and the only way out of the
place that you’re at. The metaphor is obvious but in life it’s much more
complicated than that. The road on a bike is just a simple ribbon of payment
that you need to travel, in life the road isn’t laid out for you in such
fundamental form. It’s a complicated, trying endeavor that isn’t as easily
navigated as a stretch of asphalt that you propel yourself down. Life’s road is
vague with misdirection’s, breakdowns and wrong turns not so easily
identifiable.
When life gets too
convoluted though, hit the road on your bike and stay out there until you
figure the rest of it out. A few weeks on your bike moving forward (or doing
what you have to to keep doing so) and your focus tightens, even as the rest of
your life falls apart. However the case, hittin’ the road is the best thing to get
your head around the rest of the things that are giving you aneurisms in your
normal day in, day out.
I used to consider
pullin’ the long miles as an abrupt form of escapism but I recently realized
that it just creates an opportunity to strip your psyche of all the bullshit
that clutters you normal life and on your return you are equipped with the
right tools to see through the fog that inevitably clutters the focus you need
to succeed in the life you have once the wheels stop rollin’.
5000 plus miles
full of set backs, bad weather and mechanical calamities brought me a new kind
of edge. I feel invincible and the things and people that were driving me out
of my skull no longer seem as important as when I first lit the fires and set
my sites east all those miles ago.
I now know that I
really don’t need an address. I can (and have) set up on any piece of ground,
anywhere in the country and just live out my life doing so, but I have a need
to paint. That takes a stable structure in which to follow this path.
The miles this time
have become my dear friend and mentor. Life can be unbelievably simple, life on
the road makes you realize this. A guy don’t need much when the wheels are
spinnin’ so why do you need more once they stop?
It was simple and easy
until the moment that I shut down the slow churn and put down the kickstand. At
that moment I felt the world crawl right up my fuckin’ ass. The life that I
left behind was now tangible and collapsing. Its tiny barbed fingers clawing to
regrab a big piece of my contentment and replace it with frivolous worry and
shortsighted problems.
For the next day I completely
lost my mind forgetting all the things I had learned over the miles and worried
about what the rest of the world was still considering important. Society again
was dancing on that brightly lit stage like a stripper with a colostomy bag it
tried to drag me in but the smell of bagged shit kept me from being taken for a
sucker. I adjusted my thought pattern previous to grindin’ the miles and tried
to keep my head the way it was when I was behind a twenty one everyday just
tryin’ to get down the road. Now matter what, take care of the biggest problem
that is keepin’ you from moving forward and address the smaller issues as they
become important.
It was all going
well for a few days until I was sitting out front of the RV under a weeping
willow tree. Someone who I was familiar with but would not consider a friend
came racin’ into the driveway. He went to the main house (I tried to tell him
it that everyone went to Sturgis but he was a man on a mission). He checked the
house, turned around and walked directly down to me.
I was seated in a
lawn chair without a care in the world, I extended my hand to shake his and he
nailed me with a right cross…a real good one. It laid me out and that’s when he
laid the boots to me. There was no defense even if I had my gun with me. He
took me completely by surprise and the fucker was VERY good at his job.
I’ve been stomped
before but I always knew what they were for. This time…no idea. No cuts or
anything but my head is swollen, my back is fucked and my pride is bruised. I
have anger issues myself so I have to be aware of it. I don’t do cops and I
won’t. This could quickly escalate but my pride isn’t as important as my
freedom…so I have successively kept it all at bay. I have to just shrug it off
or it will get real ugly real quick.
Seem like a pussy
move to you, yea, me too. But time has a way of making things right, I have
patience and I am sure somehow I will end up on top. For now though it’s
nothing more than another insignificant problem that is keeping me from moving
forward and I plan to keep it that way…it’s a dish best served cold anyway.
It does grate at ya
though, that gnawing feeling that you just want to even the score with a
bulldozer. But I have another great year ahead of me and nothing, not even
this, is going to keep me from where I want to be this time next year…so I am
biting the bullet.
The Hamsteak isn’t
far from being mobile. I’m getting a better studio, the bike is just sweet as
it can be and I have plans…plans that make me smile. You can have it all if you
just keep moving forward…damn the torpedos, full steam ahead. “GTP”
