Pressure Valve

            My mind is racing this week. I don’t know what to write about, my mind is filled with a deluge of thoughts and ideas. So much so that I’ve thrown myself into my work just to drown out the din of insanity that dwells there. To say that some of the stuff I’ve produced during this assault on my gray matter is mediocre would be an insult. Hell, I’ve performed some miracles with small motors, welding and modern remote electronics. Not to mention my unfamiliar sunny disposition at the restaurant I work part time.

            But all those distractions, work and of course the occasional phone call to some folks I find myself calling “friend” has done little to help me when I’m alone or in bed chasing down a dream only to find myself staring at a slowly rotating ceiling fan or worse, the minutes creeping at a snail’s pace towards dawn. Sometimes my mind is a curse and sometimes it is a blessing. Right now it is the former rather than the latter.

            Disturbing thoughts of what’s happened in Florida, regardless of the side you are on, is mind numbing. The knuckleheads antics in Washington almost pale in comparison to the knuckleheaded actions and comments I hear from the people I walk past daily or even see on the news. Should I worry about all the filth on the internet and how easily it invades each of our lives and the life of my progeny? What about all the crud that is being produced on the left coast and the crap they try and pass off as music? How about the insane heat that seems to have our country deadlocked in deathly stillness and the thick humidity that gives one swamp ass in less than five minutes of standing outside? Is it global warming, climate change, or is it just another of the endless cycles our blue and green planet seems to be in?

            I have no answer. I can’t go down any of the rabbit hole questions that deal with things larger than my own family. My family… wow, there is a double edged sword with no hilt. If you’re a parent or even if you’re in a committed relationship you know of the issues and stressers of which I imply. Bills, health issues, food, happiness, varying opinions and daily strife of an ever changing world seem to add more than salt and pepper to the stew pot of life we all seemed to be trapped in. Our own feelings, frustrations and joys seem to add more than just seasoning to our personal existence. It seems to me, all these “flavors” seem to spill over into the lives of everyone we come into contact with. Whether the seasoning is a friendly “hello” or in some cases a gruff “fuck-off”, our spice spills into the stew pot and make those around us react at a chemical level accordingly.

            I know what I need, I need wind, mind numbing air blasting in my ears so loud that it drowns out the din of the voices of worry and strife in my head. I need the road. It seems to call to me and yet, here I sit, late in the evening, on my porch sucking on a cigar on my front porch and wishing for an end of the morrow. Because I know that with the end of my next work day I may, if I’m lucky, be able to put endless miles beneath my leather shod feet and let the Scorcher tires of Bernadette eat as much asphalt as she can handle.

            And, while I know this is only a brief suspension of reality, me, the open road and the miles that I can distance myself from life, it is the only thing right now I can look forward too. A refreshing reprieve from an otherwise responsible life, a life that if you and I are not careful, will quickly disappear because we are so busy trying to pay the mortgage, the phone bill, the electric bill, the gas bill, the endless parade of unknown people holding a hand out just so one can live a peaceful existence. Like the mafia of old. You knew they were right around the corner but you never could put a face to. That is what life is to me this week. A nameless, faceless Mafioso who has invaded every aspect of life and if you don’t pay the protection money, shit gets fucked up.

            Which is why I need my escape. I can’t think straight for all the crap that has fallen through my microscopic mental filters. Coherency be damned. We all need a break from the endless myriad of crap that fills our mail boxes, our email, our televisions, computers and not so smart phones.

            I have a plan… I don’t know if it is wise for me to share it with you  but I think I shall. This is how I see it… For in truth, it has already happened and it shall continue to happen in my life until the day I grow feeble minded and my arthritic hands or “BOB” stops me.

            It’s night time, I’m fighting my own ID for a break from reality in the hopes of dreams laden with water lapping against a ship. I wake up, walk to the pier, hop on my bike and start her up. The thrum of the engine is more pleasing to me than any high I’ve ever had and the sound emanating from her pipes is more joyous than all the angels singing in heaven. I steer her down the pier and onto a back road full of twists and turns. The night air greets me like a long lost lover and her welcoming tendrils of cool air fill my body with energy and joy.

            I see the open road in my single headlight and I feel the stress of life get whisked away from me like the sweat that had coated my body only moments before. Night birds, crickets, cicadas and all other nocturnal life here the thunder of my approach and quickly find business as far away from the oncoming storm of freedom, I sense this change in the wildlife and a slow, close mouthed grin spreads across my face. I can’t help but feel the primal freedom of our cave dwelling ancestors or, if that is too far of a stretch for you, I feel like a cowboy from the wild days of our country when we didn’t have so many laws and restrictions.

            A time when a man only had his wits and his weapon to conquer his own life. When a man could go about life and his business without the interference of the more gentler life we lead now. More primal. Where if you didn’t kill an animal with your bare hands, you’d go hungry.

            That seems to be where I am now, my life, hell, all of our lives are so complex that when we are shown the ease of a simpler life, we gravitate towards it like moths to a flame. A place where people don’t take offense to a person’s tone of voice, or the cut of their clothes, or even a person’s belief system on this planet. A time where a person could live peacefully in the endeavor of just trying to be happy and not have a metric-fuck-ton of worries. Can we please get back to that? Or has that bell been rung and the waves of sound emanating from it invaded every cell of our being?

            I’ll be forty-six in couple of weeks and I can’t help but wonder, what if mass communication and the consumer mentality never had been invented? Would we be happy? Would more people understand that judging someone gives others the right to judge you? Would be the people we have always dreamed and hoped we would be?

            I don’t know, I can’t answer for others, all I know is that in less than twenty-four hours I will take to the road for a much needed ride. A ride where I will try to outrun my life all the while knowing it will be there waiting for me when I pull back up into my drive-way. When I do, though, this time I will be more relaxed and the pressures of life will seem as if they are but a minor pittance I pay just to have the opportunity to enjoy the ever vanishing freedoms we seem to take for granted.

            Try and have a great week.