I think by now you have built a wonderful community of like-minded and interesting minds, this will be awesome to follow and watch - plus, I think most of us will by now be excited to finally hear more about Carson and your fig trees! Can't wait to see what's still to come!
Where ever your headed...I will be glad to follow. Looking forward to new content and direction with the same enthusiasm I have for the words already written. Good stuff and explanation as always. Your Ducati story took me back to an Illinois State route a Harley Davidson and a youthful need to know. That question was answered and now I know. I too sold that machine.
I'm stoked this resonated, and even more so for the support. A Harley at full tilt is a truly epic thing. I had a Blackline and its rumble on a dense forest road at high RPMs still makes me feel like a god—and grateful that I sold it and moved on. Walking is just fine now!
You guys are funny. My BMW K1200R sits in the corner of my gym. It loves to cruise at 120, Idaho provides lots of roads that accommodate that drug. These days I only drive it short distances to let it know I still love it and remind me of my former, now faded glory.
I admire your “new” direction but I don’t think it is completely new. It was just hiding a bit behind others words. It is more difficult and “dangerous” in a way because it gets closer to one’s soul. I still cannot make myself to put them down completely to paper. I feel that your “groupies” have similar thoughts and internal conversations. I love the “Ducati” stories that provide us with turning points. Mine was on a Basso bicycle with a Columbia steel frame. Yes, a bike, going full speed, down a steep hill, in triathlon without breaking. The steel was vibrating my bones and I had to hold on till the road eased off. Breaking was not an option. And realization point came. Take it or leave it. No more relying on something or on someone else. Understanding the words we all heard or read …be true to your self…
Let's go Barry, this is profoundly perceptive, and you are correct. It gets a little closer, a little more personal. I had to laugh at the word "groupies", thank you for throwing that in there. I believe it was Michael Easter who posted recently about the catastrophic number of males who die each year on road bicycles. I had no idea how dangerous it is. That is certainly a path to Charon.
Always a pleasure to read your posts, I’m looking forward to this new direction. I have no doubt your writing will continue to be insightful and thought provoking whether you’re speaking on pre-state cultures or fig blossoms. Thanks for letting us tag along on that journey. The Ducati story was very relatable, I also sold my sport bike many years ago when I came to the realization that no amount of fast would ever be fast enough. I still miss it but I’m grateful to be sucking air and walking around on two legs.
Thank you Darrin. It is sometimes even more interesting to combine the pre-state with the fig blossoms, the myth with reality. I hope the sense of speed in the coming writing will be a different sort than the sport bike, one that makes sucking air and walking around all the greater.
What a comparison, to know the feeling, to be awash in the question as it is answered. To have a degree of fear that snaps one back to the moment, but with a refined awareness.
Writing is a journey. It has twists and turns and ups and downs. There exists an ache to round a bend for a change, maybe of the scenery. A pebble will send you skidding, often in a new insightful direction.
I look forward to learning more from your keen insight.
"A pebble will send you skidding, often in a new insightful direction." This is it entirely, and why I love words. Beautifully said. It is a drug that simply heightens reality and being. An adventure. Thank you Stacy!
I’ve found real insight in your writing, even though our lives look very different on the surface. You’ve written about danger and the edge of things, but what I’ve received is something deeper—an invitation to live fully in the present, as if it truly matters. A memento mori, in the sense of being awake to the moment we are given. I look forward to learning more. A note of resonance I see between us is the importance of alert senses--the art of noticing.
Yes, Sheila, I am here for this. I love your point about surface levels and the substrate. We all come from the stock, and it is this core I am truly trying to dial in on. What better way than by noticing? The most acute and existentially significant acts possible?
130 on a Ducati? Big deal. I've done 100 in a Corvair! What was I thinking!
But seriously, real life, unless you're a race car driver, involves few incidences that involve risking your life. We are fortunate in this day that our lives are rarely at risk. Now that we are virtually assured of life, we need to focus on making life worthwhile.
Haha rock on. 130 on Pennsylvania roads, which are voted the worst in the nation I believe, is unfortunately pretty hardcore (i.e. stupid). I am on board with focus on making life worthwhile. It is a fight indeed, and a great one.
Great stories. I look forward to the future with you. As a kid, at some point I wanted to be a race car driver. Some years later during my Army years in Germany, I bought a Porsche 911 Targa. Driving that for an hour or more around 125 mph on the Autobahn was both thrilling and exhausting. I look back at 80 with great memories. It stayed in Germany when I returned home
Thank you Tom. The memory of the Porsche and the Autobahn is priceless. I have never had the pleasure of either of these two experiences. It is worth cherishing.
Your thoughts and essays brought me to important crossroads and there I picked the next path. Deeply grateful for you giving witness to the cosmos wheeling like galaxies within you and all about you.
250 kmh on my Honda VFR (155 MPH). I slowed way down and continued. I went into a long sweeper and was way over. Thinking ‘I am crawling, why does it feel as if I am pushing the limits of my bike on this corner. 180. Huh. Slowed down to a speed that felt like I could get off and jog as fast. Still at 100 mph.
Speed is awesome and dangerously easy to overdo.
I used to know a group of hooligan riders that would weekly do a high speed run through the region. They invited me to join. I was 65 at the time. I saw them one weekend at one of their usual stops. So I stopped on my Honda. We chatted. I said ‘Hey where’s your buddy on the yellow F4’. Everyone looked down. Dead.
The previous weekend on their hooligan ride he had gone off the road, slid for 70 or 80 feet. Stopped by his body hitting a tree. All good. He seemed fine. Everyone stopped, came back. He was a bit shook up. He asked about his bike. Also, all good. Just a 100 foot slide carrying on past his tree. They all agreed to sit for a while and chill before heading home. He keeled over and died. When he had hit the tree, chest first, the impact had ripped his aorta off his heart. He was fine until a minute or two had passed. He said ‘whoa, feeling off’. And then slumped dead.
How I rode as long as I did, 58 years, and didn’t seriously hurt myself I have no idea. My eyes went on me. I had to stop and man, do I miss it.
That is hard... it is not the right way to punch out, and yet so difficult to pull away and exert the rational mind over the passionate mind. That is truly impressive for 58, and were it not for your eyes, you would still be getting after it.
58 years of riding. I rode until 73. I rode hard too. I have gone around corners scraping my knees. I fell as a kid a few times. 16 or 17 years old. But hadn’t for 50+ years.
I think by now you have built a wonderful community of like-minded and interesting minds, this will be awesome to follow and watch - plus, I think most of us will by now be excited to finally hear more about Carson and your fig trees! Can't wait to see what's still to come!
I couldn't be more fortunate, Kai, thank you. And same with Carson—I think he likes being the headline as much as I like making him the headline!
What Kai said! :)
Where ever your headed...I will be glad to follow. Looking forward to new content and direction with the same enthusiasm I have for the words already written. Good stuff and explanation as always. Your Ducati story took me back to an Illinois State route a Harley Davidson and a youthful need to know. That question was answered and now I know. I too sold that machine.
I'm stoked this resonated, and even more so for the support. A Harley at full tilt is a truly epic thing. I had a Blackline and its rumble on a dense forest road at high RPMs still makes me feel like a god—and grateful that I sold it and moved on. Walking is just fine now!
You guys are funny. My BMW K1200R sits in the corner of my gym. It loves to cruise at 120, Idaho provides lots of roads that accommodate that drug. These days I only drive it short distances to let it know I still love it and remind me of my former, now faded glory.
I cannot imagine you doing anything less than 120, Marshall. You are forever young.
“There is no ‘arrival.’ There is thus no need to slow down,” perhaps my favorite words I’ve read here so far.
Rock on—thank you. It is a speed I have come nowhere near dialing in, and don't think I ever will.
I admire your “new” direction but I don’t think it is completely new. It was just hiding a bit behind others words. It is more difficult and “dangerous” in a way because it gets closer to one’s soul. I still cannot make myself to put them down completely to paper. I feel that your “groupies” have similar thoughts and internal conversations. I love the “Ducati” stories that provide us with turning points. Mine was on a Basso bicycle with a Columbia steel frame. Yes, a bike, going full speed, down a steep hill, in triathlon without breaking. The steel was vibrating my bones and I had to hold on till the road eased off. Breaking was not an option. And realization point came. Take it or leave it. No more relying on something or on someone else. Understanding the words we all heard or read …be true to your self…
Let's go Barry, this is profoundly perceptive, and you are correct. It gets a little closer, a little more personal. I had to laugh at the word "groupies", thank you for throwing that in there. I believe it was Michael Easter who posted recently about the catastrophic number of males who die each year on road bicycles. I had no idea how dangerous it is. That is certainly a path to Charon.
Always a pleasure to read your posts, I’m looking forward to this new direction. I have no doubt your writing will continue to be insightful and thought provoking whether you’re speaking on pre-state cultures or fig blossoms. Thanks for letting us tag along on that journey. The Ducati story was very relatable, I also sold my sport bike many years ago when I came to the realization that no amount of fast would ever be fast enough. I still miss it but I’m grateful to be sucking air and walking around on two legs.
Thank you Darrin. It is sometimes even more interesting to combine the pre-state with the fig blossoms, the myth with reality. I hope the sense of speed in the coming writing will be a different sort than the sport bike, one that makes sucking air and walking around all the greater.
What a comparison, to know the feeling, to be awash in the question as it is answered. To have a degree of fear that snaps one back to the moment, but with a refined awareness.
Writing is a journey. It has twists and turns and ups and downs. There exists an ache to round a bend for a change, maybe of the scenery. A pebble will send you skidding, often in a new insightful direction.
I look forward to learning more from your keen insight.
"A pebble will send you skidding, often in a new insightful direction." This is it entirely, and why I love words. Beautifully said. It is a drug that simply heightens reality and being. An adventure. Thank you Stacy!
I’ve found real insight in your writing, even though our lives look very different on the surface. You’ve written about danger and the edge of things, but what I’ve received is something deeper—an invitation to live fully in the present, as if it truly matters. A memento mori, in the sense of being awake to the moment we are given. I look forward to learning more. A note of resonance I see between us is the importance of alert senses--the art of noticing.
Yes, Sheila, I am here for this. I love your point about surface levels and the substrate. We all come from the stock, and it is this core I am truly trying to dial in on. What better way than by noticing? The most acute and existentially significant acts possible?
130 on a Ducati? Big deal. I've done 100 in a Corvair! What was I thinking!
But seriously, real life, unless you're a race car driver, involves few incidences that involve risking your life. We are fortunate in this day that our lives are rarely at risk. Now that we are virtually assured of life, we need to focus on making life worthwhile.
Haha rock on. 130 on Pennsylvania roads, which are voted the worst in the nation I believe, is unfortunately pretty hardcore (i.e. stupid). I am on board with focus on making life worthwhile. It is a fight indeed, and a great one.
Presumably no curves were involved!
Pushed to 115 in a 67 Cougar. That taught me to never even think of buying a bike!
This is wisdom. That also must have been fun, though.
The search for meaning, in hopes that we may prevent an unending, hopeless existence, separated from God.
That death-directed destiny that creeps in when we feel self important and pitiful.
Your journey is become our journey. It is important.
~Asperges
Thank you for sprinkling a bit of holy water here. I appreciate you.
Great stories. I look forward to the future with you. As a kid, at some point I wanted to be a race car driver. Some years later during my Army years in Germany, I bought a Porsche 911 Targa. Driving that for an hour or more around 125 mph on the Autobahn was both thrilling and exhausting. I look back at 80 with great memories. It stayed in Germany when I returned home
Thank you Tom. The memory of the Porsche and the Autobahn is priceless. I have never had the pleasure of either of these two experiences. It is worth cherishing.
I'll get left behind with you, bro.
We'll be all alone together.
With you all the way Sam. Of course you had me from Ducati. ☺️
Haha rock on, Dee. I saw you had a couple bikes in one of your mutt photos. It's been a good ride thus far.
I am absolutely here for this. And anytime you want to come back on, there is much to discuss. :)
Thank you. You're still the best interviewer I've yet to talk to. You have a gift.
Your thoughts and essays brought me to important crossroads and there I picked the next path. Deeply grateful for you giving witness to the cosmos wheeling like galaxies within you and all about you.
I am profoundly grateful to hear it, Anthony. Truly.
What then?
I can hear him growling it from 1,900 years ago. It never ceases to unfuck the mind.
250 kmh on my Honda VFR (155 MPH). I slowed way down and continued. I went into a long sweeper and was way over. Thinking ‘I am crawling, why does it feel as if I am pushing the limits of my bike on this corner. 180. Huh. Slowed down to a speed that felt like I could get off and jog as fast. Still at 100 mph.
Speed is awesome and dangerously easy to overdo.
I used to know a group of hooligan riders that would weekly do a high speed run through the region. They invited me to join. I was 65 at the time. I saw them one weekend at one of their usual stops. So I stopped on my Honda. We chatted. I said ‘Hey where’s your buddy on the yellow F4’. Everyone looked down. Dead.
The previous weekend on their hooligan ride he had gone off the road, slid for 70 or 80 feet. Stopped by his body hitting a tree. All good. He seemed fine. Everyone stopped, came back. He was a bit shook up. He asked about his bike. Also, all good. Just a 100 foot slide carrying on past his tree. They all agreed to sit for a while and chill before heading home. He keeled over and died. When he had hit the tree, chest first, the impact had ripped his aorta off his heart. He was fine until a minute or two had passed. He said ‘whoa, feeling off’. And then slumped dead.
How I rode as long as I did, 58 years, and didn’t seriously hurt myself I have no idea. My eyes went on me. I had to stop and man, do I miss it.
That is hard... it is not the right way to punch out, and yet so difficult to pull away and exert the rational mind over the passionate mind. That is truly impressive for 58, and were it not for your eyes, you would still be getting after it.
58 years of riding. I rode until 73. I rode hard too. I have gone around corners scraping my knees. I fell as a kid a few times. 16 or 17 years old. But hadn’t for 50+ years.