Morning Water and Vespa Scooter
I always look out windows. Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, there’s a hope of actually seeing the world. Sitting in the back seat of the car next to my granddaughter it was interesting to watch her young eyes peer out the window at the world. I wondered how different her world must look from one weighed down with a lifetime of experience and opinion.
Mornings find me in an oak rocker with a bowl of cereal, gazing at nothing in particular, looking out the window as the day takes shape. But the looking drives me like nothing else. When I’m tired and exhausted you won’t find me rising to answer a phone or take on another chore, but I’ll always take another look out the window.
Riding is like that. I’ll always ride one more mile — to see what’s out that road window ahead.
Scooter in the World
The Vespa, which takes on such a large presence in my mind when riding, is revealed as an insignificant speck in the world from another perch. This photograph reminds me of the difference between riding and photography. One is an active engagement through the world while the other feels more passive and voyeuristic. Suppose a photographer running through a war zone may feel differently.
View of the Road
On this morning ride I found myself standing again on a road wondering what I’m looking at. A gravel road? My Vespa scooter? Some unformed feeling of life vanishing before me? I can’t really say — then or now. But like Neo in the film The Matrix, it’s as if I’ve just been told that world I’m in is the “mental projection of your digital self.”
When I see other riders on the road I wonder sometimes what they’re thinking. If their thoughts take them down these twisty turns and flights of imagination. Or whether they’re free and just feeling the wind.
For me, I seem to always be looking out the window, hoping to see something new or different.
The Vespa sits a few feet away ready to transport me to work one more time. I wonder what I’ll see…
Doing maintenance, I have never done…for me…is like looking IN a window.
Discovering the workings of somone elses mind.
BUT Many times u dont like what u find…and u maybe learn to leave it for the expert….
BUT then you know.
Do cameras require maintenance? As a rider, Winters can get more boring after u retire.
Camera’s used to require maintenance. Not so much anymore. At least the digital ones I have.
Winter is my favorite riding time of year. I ride more in the winter than the summer. Maybe that will change when I retire. Really odd circumstance.
I like your comments about wondering what your young Granddaughter is thinking. I love watching Children as they analysis things. It also takes me back to similar times when I was a child. I have such clear memories of my childhood like I think you do Steve. I remember seeing Vespa scooters for rent in Grand Bend Ontario as a child on vacation with my parents. I remember daydreaming about how great a sensation it must be to ride something you don’t need to pedal. I get the same feeling when I daydream of riding now. It’s cool.
I have memories of childhood but they are as clear as I wish they were. I have to spend some time recalling them. I do remember feelings though. My boss asked yesterday if the approach of retirement felt like the feeling you get as a kid when summer vacation from school grows near.
That’s exactly how it feels for me. Summer vacation is just 12 working days away! And none of that end of summer blues that I have to go back to school!
Two weeks hence (June 30) you’ll be retired/unemployed. Scary thoght in some ways, However for you Steve gazing out the window contemplating your glass of water will become more commonplace for yo.u.Some of us have been doing so for years, others including yourself are about to start down the path.
The comment abut your grand daughter is especially telling; yes what will she experience during her lifetime?
And you Steve, what will you experience during your retirement years? More of the same or sometihing altogether different?
We are anticipating more of the same, perhaps. Unless the University offers you an advisory consultant position. One never knows.
If I think about one big change, a different paradigm, it’s that I stop trading my time for money. And along with that the enslavement to clock and calendar. I’m ready to explore a less structured way of life.
That said, as I think about activities in retirement — the clock and calendar seem to keep popping up in the plans…