After an off year of bicycling with Team 242 (I was going to Iceland), I am back for the full ride. This year the ride will stay in Wisconsin and we'll be stopping at supper clubs along the way. *(asterisk)
Four years ago I contemplated dumping Facebook. And then, soon after, I dumped it. Happier days.
For the last few weeks I've contemplated dumping iMessage from my iPod (and besides, the iPod was only supposed to store some music and more importantly exist as my electronic bird book with bird calls). So I've decided to shut it off for the rest of the summer. Here's why (at least in part):
It reduces people (frustratingly complex in their humanness) to exactly what I'm doing right now: type. No context of true sentiment. No facial expressions to go along with it (I feel emoticons, other than a steaming smiling one of poop, are without merit). Or slaps on the back. Or hugs. Or bubbles. Or quality time spent. iMessages are not sent to the people who are around me. They are not sent to this present moment. They are sent to people elsewhere in their own moments. And if wavelengths aren't the same, and back slaps, hugs, bubbles (trains?), quality time... well heck, lost in translation. The people around me are real; the people on my iPod are real, but they're elsewhere. Not with.
[And if you have any idea of how I operate, you most certainly know that I'm full in on the whole Buddhist, live in the moment, transcendental sh*t. All we have is: now. Siddhartha and the river. Why look downstream? Or upstream? Just be. Anyway, enough of that sarcasm and dirty laundry, back to current feelings.]
I just sent a group email to Team 242 regarding tomorrow night's supper club *(asterisk). I received an automated reply informing me that Ann Davies is out of the office and won't be able to reply to my email until July 21 (or later). I had a moment of aw shucks because my email was timely and will lose importance and meaning by July 21. (Yes, everything has to be immediate.) And then I realized, Ann is staying in the room just there (I am pointing to a bedroom that is up and behind me as I type). Ann is riding the whole week (yeehaw!). I don't need to send an email or feel disappointed that she's not going to receive my email, I can just pedal alongside her and, gasp, talk.
I have been blessed (or if you will: I have fallen into good luck) with amazing who reminds me: Look at all of the beauty in your life and all that surrounds you.
So let me look:
Tonight I fell into good luck at the Team 242 send off cook out as I spent five hours with friends (including three current Beloiter friends) reminiscing on our time at Beloit and hearing stories of their now.
And in all of this good, I was also reminded of how I disliked Beloit (greatly) during my first year there. I was focused on the moments so many others were having (mostly drunken moments that I did not understand). Not moments of my own. DBrowne helped change that. He actually (and literally) helped me discover what was hidden behind (or under) everything that surrounded us. Steam tunnels. Breaker boxes. Telephone connections. Storage closets used exclusively for not used toilet paper. And even some things that were in plain sight the whole time. Frisbee golf. Flags. Friends. Happiness.
And that happiness didn't start until I was able to throw away the moments that weren't mine.
I require real.
So yes, goodbye iMessage.
Tomorrow we ride.
-----------
*(asterisk)
We were informed today that our very first supper club on our Supper Club Ride, the Tee Pee Supper Club in Tomah, Wisconsin, is defunct. Shut down earlier this week. Taxes, sewer bills, etc. were not paid and a recent $70 liquor license renewal check bounced.
I hope we can find a suitable replacement.
(Wisconsin is not a Whataburger state. Lucky us.)
-----------
Track 11: The Mountain Goats - Have To Explode. The stage is set. Someone's going to do something someone else will regret. I speak in smoke signals and you answer in code. The fuse will have to run out sometime. Something here will eventually have to explode.
No comments:
Post a Comment