Neanderpundit

except when you don’t need to.

Thought I might sleep in today, as for the first time in ages, I have nothing to do today. Oh, I need to service the honda, oil and transmission fluid change, see what’s wrong wiht the fan in the bedroom, mow if it dries up enough, but for the most part, it’s a lazy day. So why am I up at six? It’s a mystery. You couldn’t pry me out of bed at six on a weekday (though I have to pry myself) but on weekends I’m up and attem early as shit. Guess it’s because I don’t want to waste any of my OWN time in bed. Certainly, on a weekday, the desire to stay snuggled up next to the wife is strong.

Dad died nearly twenty years ago.

I miss him most days like today, when I wish I had someone with his wisdom to counsel me.

I would give teeth to talk to him on the phone. I would give a year of my life to spend a day with him right now.

Pick up the goddamned phone. Get in your car. Do it now.

I learned a lot in the MSF class, and I keep learning more as I ride, little short trips here and there, couple times around the block, into the next neighborhood, whatever.

What I didn’t learn, what nobody could prepare me for, was the music. No, my bike doesn’t have a stereo, and no, I don’t have an ipod in my helmet- I’m talking about the music of the road, the tune each road plays as your tires run over it- as if your tires were the playback heads on a tape machine and the road were miles and miles of recording tape, the music transmitted to your bones through your seat and through your wrists. You only get to feel it, at first, at fits and starts, between moments of being concerned about what you’re doing. Later, as you come to relax, you feel the music of the road, each road playing a different song through your hips, making you want to hear more of that music, play the song of every road. Makes you want to hit the handlaid tarmacadam roads of the southland, still laid in by chain gangs in some places, to see if they have a sorrowful tune; makes you want to drive the streets of old Delaware to see if you can feel the history in the seat of your pants.

Nobody told me about that music. I feel as if I’ve been waiting all my life to hear it.