Tear the Stretch
Submitted by antennahead on Tue, 2006-11-28 15:26.
I’ve torn the stretch between Dallas and Fort Worth. The highway ramps coming through Dallas along I-30 are pretty amazing. I made a video which I’ll put up some day.
So I hauled it to Austen (changed of plans at the last minute – figured it was on the way to SoHo). Thought about stopping in Waco then I thought again. I made it to town in time to catch the Monday night scene, which was actually quite happening. I took my bike out and wandered the city. This is a lovely place for bicycling. The air was still up in the hills and it had that comfortable smell: first of college then of warmth. Fucking great weather. Great sleeping temperature.
After riding for a while and getting sufficiently lost I stumbled onto the strip. Found a punk rock bar and got a home-brewed cask ale – hit the spot. I met a nice girl with a Welsh name I can’t remember. She had just moved from Alaska (I had just heard on the radio about how dangerous and amazing the crab fishing industry was there: most dangerous job in the country actually – new regulations have kind of taken the bite out). We talked about traveling and how we both liked Austin so far.
I’m getting ready to hit it south. I think I oughtta stretch my back first. On the way here I finished up the Sound and the Fury. I’m definitely going to listen to it again on the long ride home… it’s only 7 ½ hours and there’s a lot in there. The major theme of it really struck me by the end. It brought on a powerful emotional state about 20 miles outside of Waco.
Amongst many other ideas the overt theme is embedded in Benji, the retarded son, who lives with out the progression of time. A constant acting-out of routine that maintains a certain memory loop, without much addition or progress, yet charged with emotional experience. This is the frightening truth for the family at large as it is their lives that facilitate this routine for Benji.
This is a deep truth for all of us. It’s charged for me with both nauseating fear and some hint of liberating reality. It’s more than depressing. From breathing to blood, driving and working, this constant rhythm is pushing and pulling. We’ve got to embrace it. It’s the memories that are unwittingly playing in your mind, triggered by this fork or that touch and amplified by idleness. Depressing stagnation but perhaps the possibility of transcendence beyond time.
I think that’s why I want to keep traveling: so as to charge myself with experience – to diversify those flashes. I’ve come to enjoy a certain laugh when I’m doing something absolutely absurd. I can’t remember a specific instance right now, only the emotion of cracking myself up. The travel too will easily become stagnation if it becomes a settled emotion.
When the flash and the action match the desire and fantasy it seems as though the loop closes…
The Places In Between
Submitted by kejianme on Wed, 2006-11-29 11:33.
I've been reading this book about a Scotsman who walked across Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban and it has been a pretty interesting point of reflection while reading about your own journey. Leaving bustling cities behind, he treks through the country's remote mountainous interior in the winter, relying on the often reluctant hospitality of villagers along the way who are unsure of his intentions. As his walk comes to an end, the author's contemplation of ephemeral clarity seemed to fit with your latest blog post:
"Almost every morning, regrets and anxieties had run through my mind like a cheap tune--often repeated, revealing nothing. But as I kept moving, no thoughts came. Instead I had become aware of the landscape as I once had in the Indian Himalayas. Every element around me seemed sharper, the colors more intense. I stared, expecting the effect to fade, but the objects only continued in reality and presence. I was suddenly afraid, uncertain I could sustain this vision."
hey meegy baby
i love it