Isn't life interesting! On my first day in Flagstaff, I happen to meet the person who prepared my pork ribs: Larry Luna! And what a cook!
Check it out:
Oh, and by the way, in case you didn't know, I'm a vegetarian. A vegetarian who eats pork.
It was really good. But I couldn't finish it all. And I confess: "I'm a pork-atarian"
Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Cyn's Thoughts on the Shoulder
People want answers. They're not satisfied with just questions. But sometimes, answers aren't anticipated or constructed, they're arrived at---come upon.
As I sit here on yet another car-length stretch of shoulder on I-40, I can't help but to notice how uncomfortably sticky and dirty my hands are. How my rear is hot in its jeans, how my back aches...
I'm testing my patience. That's what's happening to me---the queen of patience having her patience tested. Like she has to prove something to sombody, probably herself---since she has to maintain the title!
Who'd have thought? I'm squeezed in my chair, legs pressed up against the steering wheel. Waiting.
Patiently.
But there's this disturbance in my thoughts. Something that wants me to do, rather than to wait.
(Here's a funny video I forgot I recorded while waiting for Luna in the Mojave desert! Ha!)
I tried calling my brother and my dad. Something to pass the time. Conveniently, neither of them were there to hear what patient waiting really sounds like... boredom.
I admit it. Today, I'm bored. Thank goodness for NPR! (And yet, one can only get so smart in one day.)
Much of my day is spent looking through the rear-view mirror to see a black speck in the distance.
What are we doing?
What are we headed into?
Why are we doing this again?
My ire swells a little when I realize how hot it is, what time it is, how much my butt aches.
And then I see the black speck.
Maybe he's hungrey. Or maybe he wants to quit---for today, at least. I could handle that. I'm bored.
As I sit here on yet another car-length stretch of shoulder on I-40, I can't help but to notice how uncomfortably sticky and dirty my hands are. How my rear is hot in its jeans, how my back aches...
I'm testing my patience. That's what's happening to me---the queen of patience having her patience tested. Like she has to prove something to sombody, probably herself---since she has to maintain the title!
Who'd have thought? I'm squeezed in my chair, legs pressed up against the steering wheel. Waiting.
Patiently.
But there's this disturbance in my thoughts. Something that wants me to do, rather than to wait.
(Here's a funny video I forgot I recorded while waiting for Luna in the Mojave desert! Ha!)
I tried calling my brother and my dad. Something to pass the time. Conveniently, neither of them were there to hear what patient waiting really sounds like... boredom.
I admit it. Today, I'm bored. Thank goodness for NPR! (And yet, one can only get so smart in one day.)
Much of my day is spent looking through the rear-view mirror to see a black speck in the distance.
What are we doing?
What are we headed into?
Why are we doing this again?
My ire swells a little when I realize how hot it is, what time it is, how much my butt aches.
And then I see the black speck.
Maybe he's hungrey. Or maybe he wants to quit---for today, at least. I could handle that. I'm bored.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Day 5 - On Struggle & Solitude
No journey is difficult. Is living difficult? Because if it is difficult, then the result is certain---which is go to the highest mountain and jump off. If you can't handle living, there are no drugs in the world that are going to cure you. If you're feeling depressed, then get undepressed.
Our struggles are not outside of us, they are in us. Our struggle with our spouses, jobs, kids, they are all within us. And it's not that you choose that you want to be one thing or the other--it's already been decided for you.
Pessimistic view, pessimistic thought, pessimistic outcome.
If you can't cheer yourself up, who will? If you don't love yourself, who will? If you don't understand yourself, who will?
Solitude on this cycling journey, being alone, being on a mountain, and moving forward, I don't see cars, trucks, anything. I realize how alone one is.
Alone is not lonely. Alone is just you with yourself.
When you learn--and it can only be for a moment--when you learn that you are vulnerable, that you are not in control, you will be able to see the images of you.
One of the things that I have seen are these trucks. Not one, but many trucks, pass by. I have two feet pedaling, and I realize that I am not in charge. If it ends for me there, it ends for me there.
And so, in whose hands am I? In those of the men and women who drive these trucks and cars? Because clearly I am not in control.
This is the solitude that I'm talking about.
You can't live remembering everything, or putting things into practice. It's just not the way life is lived. The moment it enters your mind, it's already recorded. Why do you want to live life practicing something you already know? Why not live what you don't know? Or what's unknown? Let yourself go, live, be free of fear.
And move closer to yourself--to knowing me, the ego.
Our struggles are not outside of us, they are in us. Our struggle with our spouses, jobs, kids, they are all within us. And it's not that you choose that you want to be one thing or the other--it's already been decided for you.
Pessimistic view, pessimistic thought, pessimistic outcome.
If you can't cheer yourself up, who will? If you don't love yourself, who will? If you don't understand yourself, who will?
Solitude on this cycling journey, being alone, being on a mountain, and moving forward, I don't see cars, trucks, anything. I realize how alone one is.
Alone is not lonely. Alone is just you with yourself.
When you learn--and it can only be for a moment--when you learn that you are vulnerable, that you are not in control, you will be able to see the images of you.
One of the things that I have seen are these trucks. Not one, but many trucks, pass by. I have two feet pedaling, and I realize that I am not in charge. If it ends for me there, it ends for me there.
And so, in whose hands am I? In those of the men and women who drive these trucks and cars? Because clearly I am not in control.
This is the solitude that I'm talking about.
You can't live remembering everything, or putting things into practice. It's just not the way life is lived. The moment it enters your mind, it's already recorded. Why do you want to live life practicing something you already know? Why not live what you don't know? Or what's unknown? Let yourself go, live, be free of fear.
And move closer to yourself--to knowing me, the ego.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Day 4 - Cyn's Thoughts, Waiting on I-40 to Flagstaff
It feels like we've been doing this cross-country journey for weeks now, but it's only been four days.
Indeed, hitting the road has taken an entirely different tone than I originally thought it would. I had page-turning thoughts of Kerouac and Hesse, but instead, there's less anticipation for the future and more of ... just settling into the present moment. (It sounds obvious as an observation to me now, as I write it, but it just wasn't so obvious to me in anticipation of this trip.)
In one of the videos I posted to this blog, I muse that I'm "cool" for a crazy cross-country cyclist like my sweetheart, because I'm like a traveling rest stop.
In our car, I drive the highway for five or 10 miles, and then I wait.
Our white Ford Escape is fully stocked with such foods as bananas, salt, bread, crackers, spaghetti with Nutella, roasted bell peppers and tomato salsa (the latter two made possible by our Gilroy friends.)
This white "bus", as we lovingly call it, also contains bandaids, butt butter and body lotion for all of those emergency body care needs.
So, I'm needed. And it's surprising how much comfort that thought gives me in this big expansive world that we live in.
Perhaps that was the miracle I was supposed to find. (I suspect that even if I do find the miracle, it will somehow elude me as that defining bell rings. But in this moment now, it's kind of nice for me to find some purpose--any purpose--for the right here, right now.)
Ironically, I'm finding my raison d'etre by sitting, in the car, on the shoulder of the highway, in the heat, along a winding ribbon of asphalt.
Indeed, hitting the road has taken an entirely different tone than I originally thought it would. I had page-turning thoughts of Kerouac and Hesse, but instead, there's less anticipation for the future and more of ... just settling into the present moment. (It sounds obvious as an observation to me now, as I write it, but it just wasn't so obvious to me in anticipation of this trip.)
In one of the videos I posted to this blog, I muse that I'm "cool" for a crazy cross-country cyclist like my sweetheart, because I'm like a traveling rest stop.
In our car, I drive the highway for five or 10 miles, and then I wait.
Our white Ford Escape is fully stocked with such foods as bananas, salt, bread, crackers, spaghetti with Nutella, roasted bell peppers and tomato salsa (the latter two made possible by our Gilroy friends.)
This white "bus", as we lovingly call it, also contains bandaids, butt butter and body lotion for all of those emergency body care needs.
So, I'm needed. And it's surprising how much comfort that thought gives me in this big expansive world that we live in.
Perhaps that was the miracle I was supposed to find. (I suspect that even if I do find the miracle, it will somehow elude me as that defining bell rings. But in this moment now, it's kind of nice for me to find some purpose--any purpose--for the right here, right now.)
Ironically, I'm finding my raison d'etre by sitting, in the car, on the shoulder of the highway, in the heat, along a winding ribbon of asphalt.
In short, not "doing" very much at all, but waiting.
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