Exploring life on a Vespa, Royal Enfield Himalayan, Honda Trail 125, and a Kawasaki W650
I noticed 100 years had passed since Mr. Dickey died in the Argonne Forest in World War One. The museum displays memorials to individuals, companies and divisions from the Civil War through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Walking here now, as the leaves begin to change and the world slowly decays, the familiar sense of autumn melancholy that visits me every year, was suddenly apparent.
All of it is just sad. The feelings haven’t stopped. Neither have the wars.
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In the morning I sit in a wooden rocking chair, dog at my feet and write in a journal. Outside, students arrive at the school across the street, cars make their way to work, and the occasional dog walker rouses Junior to attention. My mind wanders from the words scribbled on journal pages to the people I see and back to the wandering world in my head.
I’ve carved a space to in our breezeway where I can read, meditate and write. Often it’s difficult, mind and body strain and pull toward mindless action. Mindless in the sense that I seldom realize what I’m doing or why I’m doing it unless I slow down a bit. Not unlike my experience on the road with the Vespa. Traveling too fast I miss a lot.
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Summer has melted away and I’m left wondering where it went. Judging from my faint presence here, I’ve done or accomplished nothing. I’ve learned to mistrust my judgements of myself. When pressured to make an accounting, often in response to that question while writing in my journal, I’ll see the discrepancy between what I tell myself and what actually transpired. Seems I have a refined talent to forget actions and adventures, large and small.
Still, there has been some odd disinterest of late in writing here on Scooter in the Sticks despite continued riding and generating photos and experiences. I can only attribute the phenomenon to the natural ebb and flow of my life.
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After 24 days, my Scooter in the Sticks exhibition has drawn to a close. Everything has been packed away and taken home. I don’t know if another opportunity to show them will present itself. All that’s left now is to deliver a half-dozen prints to buyers who were kind enough to leave them until the show closed.
And to all of you who visited the gallery, near and far, thank you so much for making the trip to State College. It was a joy to talk with so many people.
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Thoughts and Feelings of SummerThe crickets and katydids are deafening as I attempt to write. Even through the drone of tinnitus, a hearing affliction that robs me of some of the high frequency details of life. Night sounds whisper of the flush of summer, the fullness of living things just before they begin their decline. A decline toward the end, to autumn and on into winter. Or just the dog days of summer.
Riding, I feel the changes in my bones, as if genetically programmed, an evolutionary alarm to prepare for the coming cold weather. Strange as the temperature in the morning as I wander toward breakfast pushes past 80 degrees and humidity barely alleviated by the rush of air across my chest as the Vespa moves along the road. The old church in Linden Hall, Pennsylvania, stands silent in the thick air. Something is changing.
Old Apples and Summer DreamsAcross the road at the Rock Hill School is an old, abandoned apple tree heavy with disfigured fruit, victim of insects and weather. Exactly the sort of fruit that sustained childhood adventures as we perched in trees, pocket knives slicing and carving away the bad parts to provide sweet and sour flesh. Last acts of summer before the onset of fall and the return to school.Continue Reading