I don't think it's any great secret that your universe prepares you to love certain of its charms and then sets you loose to find them.
Seems like this happens to most people, like Paul Theroux or Odysseus or Lebron James- just examples. Even in my own solipsistic summer funemployment haze, I know it's happening to me.
So this weekend's bike ride- from Salem to Monmouth, Oregon, the hills of rolling wheat and hay and pockets of dark trees and strange people- resonated with some cosmic harmony. Or it's that same big game of Memory: that place where you grow up, that place where you come home to, a couple of cards. Turn them over, make a pair and fold it away.
It would be easier to stick with one place and its constant pairings, to win every round. But then there's that craziness, that Hertzog shit, that European anti-ethos that sends you out to make it yours and pair some of your own weirdness to the world's.
The ride ended with the rolling hills between Helmick Park and Monmouth. This is where I first started riding a bike, ten years ago, peddling out to the banks of Little Luckiamute to sit and stare and think. I'd listen to the dreamy anti-capitalism and delusional religiosity of Sunny Day Real Estate songs:
Total anxiety/Pay for variety/No time to turn around your faith.
I would love to say that ten years later, these songs don't move me. I mean, I've been through some shit, and as it turns out, there probably is time to turn around your faith if you're not too busy listening to This American Life and riding bikes. And nobody loves total anxiety, but money is ok. Still, I love those songs and Monmouth and the Luckiamute river.
Where is all this headed? I'm moving to New York in a week and change. I'd like to think that I've grown up and done Important Things since the last times I've left Oregon, but I feel strangely the same. It's harder to leave now because I'm old enough to feel grateful. That's really all there is to do here- a little joy, a little sorrow, feeling grateful.
Man, it's funny how riding your bike gives you time to THINK - and even though I end up talking a lot about how much life can suck, when I am on the bike I only think of good things. And This American Life.
ResponderEliminarYou're coming to New York, finally. It's going to be fantastic. But just remember it doesn't need to be three years of Important Things - it's just three years of Life. Hopefully more because I want you to stay...
The best thing is that life is not at all about Important Things. It's about life. Man, I'm glad for that. And your rooftop. And for not having fallen off of it.
ResponderEliminar