Christmas Stories

Once again, Christmas has come and gone. For the 56th time, the annual madness is history.

Everybody that knows me at all knows that the holiday season is always a hard time. From where I sit, it seems to be when you're expecting and expected to be overwhelmingly happy yet hardly anybody is. It's all about who spends the most, who gets the most, who has the best lights, who gets the goods first, what's the hot gift this year and on and on. Or it's about a 'war on Christmas' and how everybody is insulted or offended in one way or another by someone else's celebration or lack thereof or even how they wish you well. How God hates this or that about it or that this group or another isn't acceptable or something equally idiotic. Too many hateful people fill it with their evil and so now war and Christmas are in the same sentence and nobody notices. The world beats the life out of it and turns it into something full of pain and so it mostly makes me sad. It seems like it always has.

In some ways though, it was both better and worse this year. Better because the kids were here, I didn't have to worry about getting called to work and we didn't have to race off to anyone's house somewhere for the first time in forever. I also managed to get in a ride under a beautiful full moon and the weather was the warmest in history. Worse because it's probably the last time for some things.

Life in Wayward's world has changed a lot in the last year you could say and is changing still. Many of the mistakes I made along the way have come home to roost. Lots of decisions now call for a reckoning and some of it is going to be really, really hard. There's much that may have been for the last time already.

I know this is what I've heard referred to as 'vaguebooking' because it's usually put out as clickbait on Facebook designed solely to garner sympathy and make people ask if you're ok. That's mostly why it's here, not there. No drama involved, just the way it is. I won't go into the details until some other time when I can look back at it instead of looking around in it.

So for the time being, let's just say that it's been a long haul this year. The old guy has worked pretty hard tying up a bunch of loose ends that have been hanging for far too long. I've accumulated a lot of baggage over time and some of it is just getting too heavy to lug around anymore. Vague, I know. Hang in there. One of these years, it'll be quite a read.

For now, I have a few more things to unravel and it's gonna take some time. Someday, I hope I'll be able to write it all down and then eventually leave it in a drawer where it won't keep me awake at night any longer. One thing at a time...

Yeah, Christmas may look a lot different in another 12 months. It'll probably never be what it's 'supposed' to be for me but with any luck, there might be a time when I won't dread the weeks between Thanksgiving and January. And maybe the long dark nights of December won't be the darkest nights of the year.

San Bernardino

"As we await the facts from the chaos on the ground, I can only pray that America's leaders will do something — anything — that prevents more communities from knowing this sorrow." Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy

My friends who are still here...forget religion, forget politics, forget nationality, forget fear.

Can we all admit that maybe, just maybe something is seriously wrong? Instead of jumping on your chosen bandwagons and serving up the same old tired old arguments and blame, can someone...anyone come up with a way that's workable to stop the madness?

Can we please forget about arming or disarming everyone, banning, deporting, nuking, killing and all the other lunacy? How about we come up with something new? Do we have it in us to act like grownups, stop shouting and calling each other names just one time and actually solve a problem?

Because there is a problem...no matter what or who you believe, there's no denying we're killing ourselves. Yes, us. In record numbers of every color, every background and in every place we go from work to play, we're dying.

And we seem willing to accept it. We're getting used to it because it happens so much. Because nobody will give an inch of their sacred ground to make it better. It's all or nothing, us or them, no compromise, no discussion, no change. Blame someone and keep on keeping on.

Just bury our dead and grieve, wring our hands in fear, roar righteous indignation and do nothing to solve anything. Our leaders don't lead except in another funeral prayer that changes nothing and we post slacktivist junk that changes even less.

To be honest, I'm more frightened of what we're becoming than of anyone with a gun. We've given up who we are because we can't seem to be anything but little, tiny pieces of America. We forgot where we came from. And that's a sad thing.

For now, all I can do is keep blocking mindless hate from my wall and continue going out without fear of the people-who-are-not-like-me . I won't be sporting a gun out there but I really don't care if you do or don't either. I know that I'm far more likely to be killed on the road by some wonderful wife or husband on their way to work with a cell and a coffee in their hand anyway. But knowing that doesn't stop me from going and it doesn't make me hate everyone that drives. It doesn't make me afraid. I refuse to be afraid.

So rather than posting another idiotic meme or facts that you haven't checked or quotes that aren't real, think a minute...take a peek outside your itty-bitty America and try asking, "What can we realistically do that we all can do?" Think of 'E pluribus unum' for a while instead of prepping. Go out in the world with the rest of us and live in it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you cannot change the world from Facebook and I won't join your hate there or anywhere else. If any of it means anything to you; fear less; hate not at all; do more; do better.

Change the Name?

If a home really isn't much of a home, should the name be different? Since I'm back and kicking around here some, maybe I should think of something new to reflect all that's happened. Yeah...I'll chew on that a while. 

So much is so very strange these days. I live mostly alone now and once again. It's horribly lonely here in what has finally become my house (but that's another story). I have some time again but time is usually a bad thing because I tend to think too much when I have it. Seems like it's better when I'm too busy to think. Just do and do until the day is gone.

Out of coffee. Get up from laptop and get coffee.

Better now.

I'm reminded of other days when I lived in an itty-bitty tiny little one room house that was made from an old chicken coop. I eventually shared it but for the first couple years, I was alone there. I wrote a lot in a spiral notebook on those long nights by myself. I read that once in a while just to see how little everything changed.

I wrote that I was surrounded by people yet lonely. I was admired but hated at the same time. Living what I've come to call the 'Facebook life' while being miserable. It all looks great on the outside but when the door closes on the world, everything crashes down. Some things never change, you just get older.

So I think I'll write some more even though the old red notebook now lives in my dresser drawer. I may write here or I may write in green felt-tip in a black book that I acquired along the way (and that's really another story).

Some stuff may or may not ever make it into an electronic version until I'm no longer at risk from my employer. We'll see.

And I'll think of maybe a change in the name to the Wayward Home. I'm still awfully wayward but home doesn't mean so much anymore.

Back From the Dead...In So Many Ways

Where oh where have I been? I've been everywhere and nowhere. I've seen and done things I never would have thought possible. Been to places I never knew existed. Gone into darkness  and yet...here I am.

I'm thinking of re-opening the Home but perhaps a name change is in order. You see, I really don't have a home anymore. At least nothing like the home I had so far back then when I started writing hereabouts. So very much has changed.

I've peeked through a curtain and seen something nobody should see before their time. I've learned a lot about Fate; who really is The Hunter after all. I've looked long into that abyss and the abyss has stared back. And I've come to know so much about loss and pain and fear and sadness and yet...here I am.

There is so much I have to tell. So much I need to say. Dante knew when he wrote:

"Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost."

How can I tell it all? How can I go back to where I left off and just pick it up? I really can't I guess but I have so very much to tell.

Should I make this public again and let the story fall where it may? How much would the world care if I did or did not? How much would I care? So many questions and yet...here I am.

As the saying goes: "No matter where you go - there you are" and so I am. With so very far to travel and so very many wide rivers to cross.

Two in Passing

Forgive me for stealing this from my Facebook page.  Is it possible to plagiarize yourself?  

"A tale of two riders from a few days ago: Rider Number One came up behind me at around mile 21 on a slick carbon roadie with a cockpit like a jet and slowed a little so I could fall in beside him. We talked bikes, weather, destinations and rides a while then he went on ahead when my cell chirped and I had to swing off. Nice to meet someone as cold and far from home as me. Pleasant.

Rider Number Two pulled slowly past me into the wind at about mile 40...fully decked out in Specialized, with all the correct cold weather gear but nary a nod of the balaclava or a lift of the stylishly gloved finger to acknowledge a how ya doin'. Um...sorry...I know you're focused and determined and incredibly fast and you probably look and smell better than I do too but would it kill you to glance sideways and snort to one of the unwashed masses riding aluminum? I've got 40 in and I might be slow, but I'm out here too. Snob.

Moral of the story: Remind me to always be Mr. Rider Number One no matter what. We're all in it together."


I wrote that while I was still pretty steamed after watching guy #2 fade into the distance ahead.  Not because he was leaving me in his wake, that happens all the time so I'm used to it.  It was just that casual disregard of something as basic as a hello.  For some reason, that bugged the hell out of me.  If I could have caught him, he might have told me he was having a crummy day or something was going badly in his world or he was lost in thought trying to figure out a warp drive and that would be ok.  There's things going on with all of us below the surface and that's a fact.  But it doesn't let you out of being human.

Then again, he probably has a bunch of friends who think he's a great guy...a true hardman that rides in rotten weather and lives Rule #5.  Maybe he worked the last 10 days straight and finally got a chance to get out.  What if he just had a fight with his wife and went for a ride to clear the smoke?  Or maybe he just had his music cranking under the layers or maybe he's actually deaf like one of the guys on my team or he was intent on his Strava or maybe he hated the wind as much as I did but whatever he was, he certainly wasn't blind.  He saw another rider and for whatever reason, chose to look right past and by so doing, made the day seem a little colder and the wind a little meaner.  He may or may not know what happened in that few seconds or even care but it struck me as a moment lost and gone.

Then there's another thought; ain't it funny how the first guy doesn't get the press of the second out of me.  Maybe that's a commentary on something else all by itself.  I zeroed in on the unpleasant.  Have to chew on that one a while...

Anyway, I'd like to believe #2 wasn't being an inconsiderate creep just for the hell of it, only because I like to think of people that way, that benefit of the doubt thing...but yeah...I know...he could simply be a jerk and that's all it was.  An indifferent slight because he just didn't give a crap.  But I hope not.

After all, it seems like such a small investment to look across the gap between two people and see that someone is travelling beside you, even if it's only for that one moment in passing.

I Told You So

Yeah I did.  I guess maybe it's time.

I've spent months (maybe years) in kind of a daze.  Without going into any detail, let's just say things have been...vastly different.  Life as I knew it has pretty much gone off the cliff and now everything has changed.  But I'm not going there today.

Today I'm thinking of other things.  I'm thinking that the sun is out and the frost is melting off the grass.  At long last, I can finally see enough of the grass to tell the frost is melting off.  It's still too cold this early in the morning to drag my old joints out for a ride on the Trek but there's hope for noon or so.  With any luck, before the phone rings with the little voice from Crew Management on it wanting me to haul another train load of Canadian Stuff south, I can clip in for a short one.  There's still a ton of salt on the road and some of the potholes could swallow a Smart Car but if I don't start somewhere...well, I just won't start.  But I probably should at least finish this before I start something else...

It's been one hell of a winter.  I've burned most of a medium-sized forest trying to keep warm since roughly Thanksgiving Day.  The pipes froze a couple of times.  The pipes never freeze in this house...or so I thought.  The west wind started up at some point and turned into a shotgun blast straight out of the Ninth Circle that kept going for days on end.  It was one tough fight but after blowing the thermometer down into negative numbers so low even the dogs wouldn't go outside, that miserable wind finally worked its way through the wall and into the PVC.  This in spite of the boiler in the basement that glowed and sizzled constantly in defiance.  Don't even talk to me about the holidays.  I almost thought it would never end.

There wasn't even much snow most of the time, just cold.  I could live with snow.  You plow it, shovel it, bitch about it but it's pretty when the sun comes out.  A clean snow covers up the dead leaves, mud and unfinished projects.  It makes you squint out the window and blink away tears that might be from other things and think of sled rides and snowmen.

But the cold gets in your head and just sits there.  It's dark like the days and unrelenting as ice itself.  Even when you bury yourself in the covers, you know it's out there tapping on the siding, looking for a way in.  It snaps the rails just for spite and dares you to touch a grab iron with your bare hand.  It hates you.  It hates everything that lives or moves.  Its only ally is the northwest wind, that miserable hammer and nail that drives the cold right down to your soul where it can freeze the hope out of you.  It hates hope too because hope is a precious thing and bright...warm but hard to hold onto when the Clippers scream in.  The Bean-shìdh wind and Dante's ice gang up on you and try desperately to tear out what little hope you have left for spring days.  No...winter and I will never be friends.

But today is early April and the woodpile is getting a reprieve.  I've been out riding a little over the last few days when it gets warm enough for my fingers to work the shifters.  It feels pretty good to move again even though the Man With the Hammer hangs close on my six this time of year.  I think he's related to the cold and also hates me but at least I can fight him with only a sandwich and a water bottle.  I think he'll fall behind as I get my legs back and with any luck, he'll get on somebody else's wheel and leave me alone for the summer.  

Sooner or later, it'll rain enough to wash the last of the salt off the road too.  Like I said, I can't stand putting the only good road bike I've got out on it but I can't wait all year.  The DOT guys over-achieved spreading the stuff and every truck going by kicks up clouds of brine dust that coats everything.  Even my water bottle is a salt lick.  Riding shouldn't taste like an eight hour shift in a Morton plant unless it's sweat running out from under your shades.  Patience Wayward...patience.

Patience and hope.  So hard to find after such a long time and so many dark, cold weeks.  I'm left with days I can't think about and days I can't think at all.  Those are the long shadows of winter that always follow along.  Like my age, I can't ride hard enough or far enough to outrun them so I just ride.  

So for today and other days, I'll ride a little and perhaps write a little.  We'll see.  Maybe it really is time after all.

Something's Happening

I almost think I feel like writing...