religion at Two Wheels To There

A Mire, a Maunder, and Musings – 2011.10.09

Published on January 29, 2017 by Ry Austin 13 Comments

Escape Artist lay kill-switched in the sludge of Lambstone Valley Road while dumbfounded Surtch Pherther wondered how it had simply slipped away.

At a sudden hum down draw, he swiftly stooped to right the ride, and a small rattletrap pickup on accidental slicks squirmed around the bend. It was the balding, ragged dude that had lazy-waved from a slouch in his collapsed driver’s seat on the remoteness side of Threshold Pass.

“Hey, bud, need a hand?”

“Nawww,” Surtch’s voice strained at his bike’s heft, “but thanks, really.”

“So, d’ya know where it goes, if the slop gets worse?”

“I swapped here, went wide, the shoulder sucked my rear, and I fought the shit sideways… Or so it seemed.” He was glad for the full-face obscurity. “Yeah, up through the junipers to a saddle and then down steep ’n’ tight to Kinscore Pass—it’s bound to worsen before it gets any better.”

“Hmmm… Well,” smiling wryly, “I gotta give it a shot. Good luck, bud.”

“Hey, you too, man—you too.”

Fake-adjusting his gear, Surtch discreetly watched Escape Artist’s right mirror for ragged dude’s disappearance, unsteady and sluggish, before quickly remounting to slow-flee that scene of his latest embarrassment.

Aiming left from the right shoulder’s slant to drag him down, over-gassing ’til his ass wagged like a tease or a taunt, and with his feet as outriggers, he muck-touched off ’n’ on the miry mile back to Lambstone’s Y-junction with the gravelly Mochila Trail.

It had been a week of autumn everywhere—cold and damp in the City of Contradictions, snow atop the Westwitness Peaks, and in the remoteness, rain galore and a dusting on its heights—a carpe diem season in a life that Surtch Pherther had lately been striving to live so.

From a Lost Springs pit stop, south he shot on terra seemingly firming up, through a riverbed anciently dammed by lava and recently “haunted by desert fairies”, and then swayed a way into the Wapiti Hills on the floor from a prehistoric lake that happened thirty times in a million years and left soil so wistful for wetness that Surtch thought, I can go on slow and nowhere fast, or stick it swift in a soggy patch and get handlebar-hung or somersault-flung to a fate face-first into scrub and stone…

So, at the broad valley’s head, he pulled aside and shut off his ride, dropped the stand on some tuff and dismounted, grabbed water and snacks and a cheap cheroot, and struck off for some outcrops ’cause, when all else failed, there was always lone wandering, the best companion he’d ever had.

Many say such spaces house spirits of those gone before, and though these places had always enchanted Surtch, he felt he had no right to such thoughts. Not only was he naturally skeptical of claims of singular connection and exclusive communion, for they smacked of charlatanism and of power-lust by the cunning and of those in the know versus the damned if they never get it, but he believed that his legacy precluded his access.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin — “Hellooo down there, Escape Artist…”

He’d always been uneasy about it, that his race flooded the New World and expanded west and drove tribes from their ancestral domains—tribes that then were seen as savages but since as resourceful dwellers amid severe ‘scapes that offered little for bodies but maybe much for the famished soul.

And though he could only guess why his ancestors had crossed oceans, he knew why they’d trekked west: to flee persecution by their countrymen in this land of religious freedom, persecution for a belief that Surtch had twice or thrice tried—with a sincere heart, with real intent—but failed to embrace, a belief that failed to embrace him.

Many would allege that he hadn’t prayed hard enough or that his character was flawed, but after spending over half his life fitfully trying to cram in that puzzling piece of a confounding creed and racking his brain and wrenching his soul and lacking proof that he was being heard, whispering alone in the dark had become absurd to Surtch, and waiting for something transcendent to reach back, vain.

“My ancestors,” he said at the void, “devout great-granddad whose name I bear, what would you think of me, this non-kindred kin? Would you embrace me, or shun me? Would you be proud, or ashamed?” He ground out the spent cheroot. “No, none of us have to look very hard to feel we don’t belong where we are.”

When he came down from the mount, though the daily ground beneath his feet would remain as fluid as always and as everyone’s, that ancient lake-bed terra had meanwhile firmed up enough for a carefree, late-afternoon ride out of the remoteness—and… And the skin of his face shown.

Surtch couldn’t wear his ancestors’ beliefs—they wouldn’t have been fooled by the poor fit anyway. And he couldn’t bear burdens for his race—no one could for any. Sure, Manifest Destiny might have been rationalization for bad behavior, but in many ways the won West was a good thing.

Besides, from his experience, in his life, it boiled down to the only scripture that had ever made sense to Surtch—to love thy neighbor as thyself. After all: Go back a ways and we’re all from elsewhere. Go back all the way and we’re all from the same place.

Relations & Reflections, Motorbiking & Mudbugs – 2011.08.20

Published on June 1, 2015 by Ry Austin 4 Comments

Because motorcycling makes me feel like a kid again. It’s a predictable answer to an inevitable type of question, a type that riders rarely ask: They know that the experience, as skittish as a wild creature, eludes definition and that words often fail. To ride might be the only road to an answer: If the experience doesn’t take, an answer won’t be given. If it does take, a new rider will be born to pursue a passion that enlivens living–one possessed striving to possess the possessor.

It had been over five years since Surtch Pherther was–himself–born again, baptized by throttle into the Vespa sect of that divinely inspired Two Wheelers tradition, and much remained to be revealed to him—technically, socially, geographically, soulfully. Indeed, because motorcycling makes me feel like a kid again would have to do—for now…

“We’re going crawdaddin’,” hollered Surtch’s brother. “Who wants in?” The lunch-lazy camp stirred then squirmed then surged to life with kids of all ages wriggling into swimsuits and slipping into flip-flops, grabbing buckets and nets, and shouting “Shotgun!” and crying foul as they dashed toward the cars.

“I’ll meet ya there,” yelled Surtch, and he geared up, saddle up, and throttled off.

He hugged the few curves on the paved road from camp (they squeezed him back, right in the adrenaline) and then caved to the lure of an unlocked DOT gravel pit, low-banking its scattered mounds and slow-going its small slopes of shifty cobble in a continuing bid for practice makes better.

Perfect riding skills, especially off road, seemed an impossibility to Surtch, and frankly, immeasurable—like judging artistic merit.

From the gravel pit, he followed a faded two-track down to the pebbly beach and rode through the shallows half up to the hubs toward where his people were waist deep—splashing, laughing, crayfish net-catching—and closing in on buckets full. The scene flashed him back to a younger self’s first memory of wild water and a snippet of something he once-upon-a-time scribbled about it:

…I was four or so when my parents first took me and my siblings to wade in a desert river. We were headed home from camping when we stopped to try to squeeze out any lingering essence. The sun was setting, and damp river-bottom coldness was beginning to rise, which is typical for the desert—it can be blistering at noon, but frigid at midnight. I tiptoed through thin willows, purple-flowered tamarisk sprouts, and beds of coarse snake grass. The alkali sand, crusty and white, broke and sloughed beneath my little footsteps, exposing organic under-soil to which even the sparse salt grass clung fiercely. And all the while the Johnsie River just rippled, whispering its endless tale:

“I am a desert river and was dreamy in my youth. I only wanted to enliven difficult land, but of that I was deprived, doomed by the ages to dredge deeper and deeper until I flowed too far below any surface I could serve. I’m just a desert river—old and lonely—a thoroughfare for the evening breeze which to every spider delivers a fly. Look high, on the cottonwoods that dot my bank, higher than your reach. It’s where I wear my dry drift scarves and my deepest desire keep–to flood. Oh, just to flash once more. It’s when I’m at my peak.”…

Back at camp—nets tossed aside, buckets of creepy craw-dudes placed in the shade, flip-flops swapped for shoes, and swimsuits for dry duds—everyone had begun to slip into sun-stupor when…

“We’re off to hit a geocache,” hollered Surtch’s brother. “Who’s coming along?” And once again, as though on cue, the camp stirred then squirmed then surged to life with kids shouting “Shotgun!” and crying foul as they dashed toward the cars.

“Okay, man. You lead,” yelled Surtch, and a few minutes later, a few miles down from camp, they rolled to a stop on the hillside shoulder of a wide curve in the reservoir road. The kids goofed in the nearby brush while Surtch’s brother briefly consulted the GPS before pointing to a rocky outcrop on a low spur.

Up the gentle slope, through winding paths defined by giant, pungent sagebrush and impenetrable wild rose, along vague trails left by critters small and large, and safely past a stunning wasps’ nest sculpture, Surtch and his brother led the children. At last they scrambled the final bit onto the spur and then strolled out to its small point overlooking San Cosme Reservoir.

The kids spied the cache, traded trinkets, marked the booklet, and for a while everyone gazed upon the glimmering water below. Surtch repressed an urge to ask them for their thoughts, a query that seldom delivers anyway, and never in the moment: Most folks reserve the real stuff; impressions require digestion; and words—those imperfect tools for imperfect beings—often fail.

Oh, to be able to channel my child self, thought Surtch, to know his untainted impressions. Then maybe I’d know if I’ve grown, know if this bizarre, existential experience has been worthwhile so far.

Evening—calm, cooling, barely cloudy—was upon them upon their return to camp, so they lit a fire and soon they had a blaze. Amid the banter typical for fireside dining, Surtch politely declined his brother’s offer of boiled, um, freshwater lobster (a flattering name indeed) in favor of applesauce, beef jerky left over from lunch, and instant red pesto pasta. As night took hold, the children one by one yawned their ways to their sleeping bags and the adults followed suit until just the two brothers remained at the campfire.

“I was surprised when you showed up on Escape Artist,” said Surtch’s brother, with a knowing smile. “I had expected you to ride in on a new machine—something orange and sporty maybe?…” Surtch just chuckled.

In silence thereafter they watched the final flames die, the mound of orange coals cool and shift, the last few sparks rise and twist, and–curling smoothly around sky-pillar pines–the smoke waft like sacred incense in a grand, roofless cathedral.

To Surtch, this was the only religion that had ever made sense.

Seeking a Suitable Truth – 2011.07.24

Published on February 28, 2015 by Ry Austin 3 Comments

From the old countries, exotic to each other, to a land foreign to all but its sons and daughters… From Home, to a place to pass innumerable nights… From the bustling east–by rail, wagon, horse, and their own blistered feet–to the spirit-testing and body-breaking west they came.

From their proud, stern fatherlands they stepped with heads held high and legs atremble. From their dear, sweet motherlands they weaned themselves, and there and here folks wept. For fortune they forged toward the new frontier, as to the new world their forefathers had fled oppression. Or so the textbooks tell.

Are anyone’s reasons ever really two-dimensional? Should anyone’s reasons ever be oversimplified? As we are complexly human, so were they, and multifaceted beings must be allowed to have multifaceted motivations. Many might have come for solitude, challenges, fame, for adventure. For that which drives us now must have driven many then.

They came, settled, labored, dreamed. They moved, stayed, and sought elusive wealth. They worked hard and took pride in the work they did. They lived, loved, dispersed. Oh, how they struggled. And they perished, often tragically. It seems they sought so much—maybe unwittingly.

Oh, the subtleties and secrets of our seekings…

En route from Saxton, back to the City of Contradictions, Surtch Pherther stopped for a breather at middle-of-nowhere-in-the-remoteness Outpost Inn. Under the fuel canopy, he switched off Escape Artist on the slowly shifting sand of a shallow drift. At the foot of the nearest gas pump, a huddle of small tumbleweeds seemed to cower, maybe stricken with fears of flame and of being crushed.

Into the noise void left by the shut off bike, a scene-typical sound rushed without turbulence, like hot oil: that strange, high sizzle that often accompanies sweltering wastes. An insect chorus? Faint crying of expanding sand and stones? Maybe a several-source small symphony. Or just the ringing in Surtch’s ears.

He grabbed a cold drink and slumped onto the bench of a weathered picnic table in the shade of a juniper. The day, barely past noon, was already over 100 Fahrenheit, and shade in such heat can serve only the psyche, never the body.

Yet Surtch had cut his teeth on desolate terrain—in its extremes his personality was minted. He’d tried to dissect the enchantment, but it defied; tried to understand his attraction, but he defied. Perhaps that was why he persisted—for understanding.

Religious friends and family had often said that some things simply weren’t meant to be understood. Over and over and over again, Surtch had tried to subscribe to religion, but the publication always seemed to get lost in the mail. Maybe they were right about this… If it would risk his enchantment to understand, he knew he’d rather remain a fool.

Nearby, next to their unbelievably overloaded bikes, three cyclists read and rested. Reticent though they were, Surtch succeeded in gathering that they were far—from their origin, from their destination, hell, from a city of any consequence. Yet maybe not from a suitable truth, for stitched in Hebrew on one bike’s panniers was Proverbs 9:6 “Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding.”

Common motivations, even the drive for adventure, might fade, the unessential of them even becoming unfashionable. But the desire for a suitable truth?… That could be one of humankind’s common denominators and the base to which all other motivations must be anchored.

A suitable truth: which isn’t necessarily a tailored truth or a religion to conform to one’s “sinful” ways, but a truth that penetrates the filters of one’s experience—a truth that makes sense. For an unsuitable truth, however eager one might be for its absorption, will never take.