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March 24, 2011
I'll Sleep When I Die
So, I'm sitting at the airport in SFO. I didn't think that the sun would ever make an appearance this week. It rained all day and then the boss...she says at 3:00 it's really going to start raining harder and I'm thinking..."seriously?" Like, who needs this?
So I'm sick as a dog. Didn't go in yesterday or this morning. And then I have to give this big presentation before an audience today. Only about 20 people bothered to show up. But I'm giving this big presentation and my boss says "why aren't you wearing any shoes?"
And I'm like "Because my feet are soaking wet?"
Last night, I go to the dry cleaners to pick up my shirts. On my motorcycle. In the rain. And I'm thinking, it's got to get better than this. Has to.
So, today after my presentation, I went to Sports Authority and then to REI. I picked up some rain gear called DriDucks. Basically, pants and a jacket you can wear over your regular clothes and jacket. The thought being that, if I'm going to stay in San Francisco any longer, I'm going to have to face the fact that San Francisco is, essentially, the lost city of Atlantis. It's not technically under water, but my feet wouldn't know any different.
So, I broke down and bought some rain gear so that at least my clothes won't be soaking wet when I drive into work. Now, I still need to get a waterproof backpack, camera bag, and some boots out here. But at least I have some rain gear now.
Every time I see them, I feel like I should say something about the Agapanthansus. Something is not quite right, and I'm not sure why. In San Diego, they all came up out of the ground at the same time (April), they all bloomed at the same time. But here, something very different is going on. Something very odd. They appear to have bloomed already at some point previous, and suffered from some environmental impact. Drought. Heat. A deep freeze. I can't say. This happened before I got here. But the Agapanthasus appear to be in all sorts of various stages of bloom. So, it's not really what I was expecting, really.
Driving around San Francisco is just so insane you can't know. The worse for me, I think, is when a car honks their horn. I really don't like that part. You don't know who they're honking at. SHould I speed up? Slow down. How could you know what it means? What to do?
And this is not some trivial matter. This is your life, hanging in the balance. Am I seconds from being crushed beneath the frame of a city truck? This is a fear I carry with me, like a mouse in my pocket. I carry it with me and nurture it as I drive through these wicked streets. A certain amount of fear is healthy. It keeps you on your toes.
And now there is this. This. This creeping fear of a swift, but painful death beneath the axles of some unseen vehicles.
The problem with pushing the envelope, as Jack Hawkins once observed, is that eventually you're going to get a nasty paper cut.
The Fear Takes Control
I went out one night this week after work and made a balls-out run up to Point Reyes. Across the Golden Gate Bridge, north on the 101 Redwood Highway to Sir Francis Drake Highway through San Rafael, Fairfax, twisting through the redwood forests of the Samuel P. Taylor state park. Always, the trees look so magnificent, but now that you're sort of trying not to run into them, they seem even more imposing than before.
So, then, this. Me, racing the sunset, threading the needle, racing between the trees. This is madness. This Le Mans type race course surging through the forests. No other vehicles. Just me and the trees, seconds from death. Drifting through the woods like in a lunatic's dream.
And it's cold. So cold you can't know and I can't say. Sure, I have warm gear in Colorado, but this is San Francisco, not Madison. Not Pittsburgh. But Lord God it's cold here and I'm burning daylight, driving through my memories. Fitting the pieces neatly back into the puzzle. Every turn is remembered. Every house. Every turn. All of it comes back to me now and finally, Inverness and the Tomales Bay. Really, this was my goal tonight. I can't say why. Only that an old sunken boat in the bay stuck in my memory like a burr to my cuffs and I want to see if it's still hear. To water and fertilize and massage that memory in my brain. So I'm just running up the edge of the Tomales Bay, shivering. You can't know how cold this is now. Every bit as cold as I was back in October when we raced around Lake Michigan like fools.
And I'm nearly out of gas. I'm hoping there will be a gas station at Inverness, but there isn't. And I don't find the boat. That was years ago and I see some other sunken boats, but probably not the same one and only the camera I have is this horrible 17-85 lens. My least favorite lens. The Landscape lens. So I drive down into this little sand beach where a small creek runs into the bay. Some people stop and observe me, but I drive very slowly and I've found that the tree-huggers are not as bad as I'd imagined. I figured they'd beat me with rubber trucheons, but I find that if I just go very slowly, no one ever complains, no matter where I go.
And this time, I do drive right down to the bay and snap a few shots.
But now, I where am I? This is the end of my little dream. The thread ends here. It's freezing cold. Very dark. Nearly out of gas. And I'm an hour north of San Francisco. I may not survive the ride back. And I think about Jennifer. How sad would that be. For her, all packed to go to Honolulu. Sitting on go. And then, the phone call comes in. There's been an accident. Or, alternately...we haven't hear from your dad. We're not sure where he is. You're not going to Hawaii.
So, this occurs to me. Why do I put myself out here like this? What is the need. What is the goal. Why this non-stop lunacy, swinging for the fences, burning bridges, whirlwind of an existence. This is where I am. This is exactly how I felt when I got down to La Paz in Baja California Del Sur.
I don't talk about that. I don't tell people how I felt then. But it was not a good feeling. I was a thousand miles out in the desert in San Diego without a plan. Only a phone call to Peter DeLeo brought things back into focus for me.
But this is where I am now. After you take a huge risk, often you want to take something off the table. This is very normal. Very common I think. And now, here I am, standing on the shores of Tomales Bay in the dark, shivering, wondering if Jennifer will ever get to see Hawaii again.
I head back, shivering and stop at the first decent looking restaurant bar I come to. It happens to be in the town of Olema and I pop in to warm up my bones. Just a few minutes. But the bar tender isn't a nice fellow. He's harping on the people beside me because they're not ordering properly and I can't sit here for this. For him to grind his axe against these subtle tourists.
So I flee into the night, counting the miles as I go. I'm shivering. Not uncontrollably, but very cold. Hands numb. Shaking. And waiting for the bike to run out of gas. When you know it's about to run out, you can feel it long before it happens. Every hesitation. Ever misfire. You can feel it miles before it happens, you just have to know what to listen to. The bike dies and I it switch over to reserve while it's still rolling.
This is going to be close. It's cold and I'm low on gas and my headlight shines up in the trees. Coon huntn' headlights we used to call them in MS. If I had any sense, or time, I'd adjust the headlight so it shines somewhere near the right level. But that is not now. Too cold. Must keep pushing forward.
Somehow, I make it to Fairfax on fumes and I fill up and want to go inside the gas station to warm up, but the doors are open and it's not heated so I just get on the US 101 Redwood HIghway and head south toward the city.
It rains on me before I make it to the Golden Gate Bridge.
Posted by Rob Kiser on March 24, 2011 at 8:22 PM
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