20 December 2001
I had about a three month spell of relative misery. The Yamasa countryside was lush and endless, but nothing was going my way. People would tolerate us once and disappear when we came again. The harder we worked, the less return we received. Doors were shut... I felt cut off. To add insult, I was going on about a month of sickness, hardly able to eat and maintain energy. I slogged through the days, empty and plagued. About a week before Christmas, I was transferred from the mountains to one of the most notoriously criminal neighborhoods in Santo Domingo's inner city.
After work, one of the first nights there, we went to see Don Pedro. We clanged the bolt on the barred outer door of his bright blue concrete house. A voice beckoned us in. Pedro shuffled to a seat near the door in the sparse living room, and we sat down nearby. Don Pedro was perhaps six and a half feet tall, nearing ninety years old. He wore black slacks, a crisp white shirt and house sandals. Cataract silver glazed his eyes, echoing his white hair, contrasting with the deep, earthen brown of his skin. His voice resonated in a gentle, gravel bass. He rocked his upper body in the rhythm of a blind man, drumming his wide hands on his gaunt thighs.
"Bardo," he said, learning my name. "The Poor Bardo... there's a song, the Poor Bardo." I had heard of this song when I arrived on the island. No one could ever tell me much about it. He wavered back and forth a few more times. "It goes something like this..."
.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Monday, November 24, 2008
Homeward
30 October 2008
West of Bryan, you enter Lee County and the Hill Country of central Texas. The area has a rich German, Czech and Wendish tradition. My great, great grandparents were of the latter, immigrating here from what is now southeastern Germany. My grandparents lived here, and this place feels like home.
I first stopped for some kolaches, sweet bread filled with fruit. My grandmother made a poppy seed kolache, unrivaled and unreplicable. Just past West Yegua Creek, in Lincoln, is the land they tended when I was a young child. My first memories are in this place. They include a rusty gate, a barbecue pit, a peanut field, a series of barns, a nail on the top of a tin chicken coop, flying cow patties, creaky stairs, feisty geese, the creek, an olive tree, many oaks, cousins and family. Much of the place is still as it was, though in greater disrepair, and I wandered the fields by the dry creek as sunlight filtered through an oak arcade.
Just to the south is Giddings, where my grandparents moved as they grew older. I stopped at the City Meat Market for some barbecue. Texas barbecue is charred in deep, brick pits. The heat and smoke is convected in from a fire built outside the pit. The walls are covered in soot. The meat is smoked long and tender, and served on butcher paper that quickly saturates in grease. Tastes of childhood. My grandparents lived here until I left Texas after high school, and my memories are clearer, including dominoes with my grandfather and great uncle, working with him on the house, tending the garden, pickling and preserving and baking in my grandmother's warm kitchen.
I rode back roads through Serbin and Northrup, Wendish settlements, full of oaks draped with Spanish moss and rolling ranchland. It was night when I climbed the unlit road to the Lost Pines. The next day I strolled the back road that connects Buescher and Bastrop, where I came out on the final highway into Austin.
Apparently your body knows when you have almost finished. For almost the entire ride, I felt invincible. Sure, tired at moments, but never impaired. I never needed to fight malady to accomplish a goal. The knowledge of impending arrival must release the mind from its guardianship over the body. I was now free to be exhausted. Add to that several flat tires, questionable food and water choices, and treacherous highway interchanges. My leisurely and triumphant ride home became a hellish fight to muster the energy needed to find haven.
However, arrival overcomes the preceding difficulty. Austin rolls along steep hills. I climbed one more, coasted into my sister's driveway, yodeled for my niece and nephews, and submerged exhausted in the grass under the oak's speckled shade.
.
West of Bryan, you enter Lee County and the Hill Country of central Texas. The area has a rich German, Czech and Wendish tradition. My great, great grandparents were of the latter, immigrating here from what is now southeastern Germany. My grandparents lived here, and this place feels like home.
I first stopped for some kolaches, sweet bread filled with fruit. My grandmother made a poppy seed kolache, unrivaled and unreplicable. Just past West Yegua Creek, in Lincoln, is the land they tended when I was a young child. My first memories are in this place. They include a rusty gate, a barbecue pit, a peanut field, a series of barns, a nail on the top of a tin chicken coop, flying cow patties, creaky stairs, feisty geese, the creek, an olive tree, many oaks, cousins and family. Much of the place is still as it was, though in greater disrepair, and I wandered the fields by the dry creek as sunlight filtered through an oak arcade.
Just to the south is Giddings, where my grandparents moved as they grew older. I stopped at the City Meat Market for some barbecue. Texas barbecue is charred in deep, brick pits. The heat and smoke is convected in from a fire built outside the pit. The walls are covered in soot. The meat is smoked long and tender, and served on butcher paper that quickly saturates in grease. Tastes of childhood. My grandparents lived here until I left Texas after high school, and my memories are clearer, including dominoes with my grandfather and great uncle, working with him on the house, tending the garden, pickling and preserving and baking in my grandmother's warm kitchen.
I rode back roads through Serbin and Northrup, Wendish settlements, full of oaks draped with Spanish moss and rolling ranchland. It was night when I climbed the unlit road to the Lost Pines. The next day I strolled the back road that connects Buescher and Bastrop, where I came out on the final highway into Austin.
Apparently your body knows when you have almost finished. For almost the entire ride, I felt invincible. Sure, tired at moments, but never impaired. I never needed to fight malady to accomplish a goal. The knowledge of impending arrival must release the mind from its guardianship over the body. I was now free to be exhausted. Add to that several flat tires, questionable food and water choices, and treacherous highway interchanges. My leisurely and triumphant ride home became a hellish fight to muster the energy needed to find haven.
However, arrival overcomes the preceding difficulty. Austin rolls along steep hills. I climbed one more, coasted into my sister's driveway, yodeled for my niece and nephews, and submerged exhausted in the grass under the oak's speckled shade.
.
The Possum Whisperer
28 October 2008
Coming into Bryan, Texas, my sister arranged for me to stay with her friend's family south of town. I called Kathy, who after assuring that I wasn't an axe murderer, and giving me strict instructions on how to kill her if I were, generously offered her home.
I arrived. We chatted. She gave me some fantastic spinach cornbread. She'd ask for details on the trip. "You're nuts," she would say.
She showed me a little doll-sized baby bottle. "Guess what animal this is for." I hazarded ridiculous guesses.
"A parakeet?"
"What kind of answer is that? Karli! This guy thinks it's for a parakeet!"
"An iguana?"
"Now he thinks it's for an iguana!" she announced to her family tauntingly.
"Um, a mouse?" This answer was apparently more acceptable, though still incorrect. My three guesses expired. It was for a squirrel, one of a long line of rodents and other animals that Kathy has rehabilitated. The squirrel was named Tina, because Hurricane Ike knocked her out of her tree. Kathy also had a possum. When you see them in full light, possums are much cuter, though still in a skeletal sort of way. She tried to get me to take him.
"Imagine how awesome you would look riding into Austin with a possum on your shoulder." I admit, this would have been very cool. "You'd be the best uncle ever if you showed up to your niece and nephews with a possum." Also very true, but maybe not the best brother. She let the possum roam around a little. He was very gentle and shy. I would definitely take him once I had my own place. She brought out Tina as well. This she-squirrel was feisty. She would stand on her hind legs and box with Kathy's husband, then scamper wildly.
Kathy asked me more about the ride. I'd give her some details, and she would declare my insanity. "How many miles? You are nuts." The squirrel ran up her shoulder, onto her head, rustled through her hair, and down the other side. "You'd sleep in city parks?! You're crazy," she said definitively. The squirrel jumped from her knee onto my back, climbed down my leg and thought about running up into my shorts, before leaping back to Kathy and burrowing inside her shirt.
"You are a loony," she would say.
.
Coming into Bryan, Texas, my sister arranged for me to stay with her friend's family south of town. I called Kathy, who after assuring that I wasn't an axe murderer, and giving me strict instructions on how to kill her if I were, generously offered her home.
I arrived. We chatted. She gave me some fantastic spinach cornbread. She'd ask for details on the trip. "You're nuts," she would say.
She showed me a little doll-sized baby bottle. "Guess what animal this is for." I hazarded ridiculous guesses.
"A parakeet?"
"What kind of answer is that? Karli! This guy thinks it's for a parakeet!"
"An iguana?"
"Now he thinks it's for an iguana!" she announced to her family tauntingly.
"Um, a mouse?" This answer was apparently more acceptable, though still incorrect. My three guesses expired. It was for a squirrel, one of a long line of rodents and other animals that Kathy has rehabilitated. The squirrel was named Tina, because Hurricane Ike knocked her out of her tree. Kathy also had a possum. When you see them in full light, possums are much cuter, though still in a skeletal sort of way. She tried to get me to take him.
"Imagine how awesome you would look riding into Austin with a possum on your shoulder." I admit, this would have been very cool. "You'd be the best uncle ever if you showed up to your niece and nephews with a possum." Also very true, but maybe not the best brother. She let the possum roam around a little. He was very gentle and shy. I would definitely take him once I had my own place. She brought out Tina as well. This she-squirrel was feisty. She would stand on her hind legs and box with Kathy's husband, then scamper wildly.
Kathy asked me more about the ride. I'd give her some details, and she would declare my insanity. "How many miles? You are nuts." The squirrel ran up her shoulder, onto her head, rustled through her hair, and down the other side. "You'd sleep in city parks?! You're crazy," she said definitively. The squirrel jumped from her knee onto my back, climbed down my leg and thought about running up into my shorts, before leaping back to Kathy and burrowing inside her shirt.
"You are a loony," she would say.
.
The Long Haul
27 October 2008
The Buffalo River winds around limestone bluffs and caves and ancient homesteads, and a blue haze lingers over its wooded banks. The first run of the Ozarks climbs steeply between the Buffalo and the Arkansas rivers. Essentially a plateau, its corrugated ridges stretch toward the horizon in a smoky violet green. They rise again between the Arkansas and the Ouachita. I passed through Hot Springs, a town where Victorian roots, criminally organized infrastructure and hipster accents collide mercilessly.
During the climb into the Ozarks, and especially on the descent, my mindset shifted. I had been content to wander, I was now intent on home. For the next week and a half, I simply rode. Sleeping briefly in city parks and roadside hideaways. Rising, riding, rendering, resting and rising. Neither rushing nor lingering. Observing intently, but not meticulously. Pearly dawns. Migrating shadows, long westward, underfoot, stretching east, dissolving in the burnt orange falling sun. Following dusky road lines and constellations to the next wayside camp.
.
The Buffalo River winds around limestone bluffs and caves and ancient homesteads, and a blue haze lingers over its wooded banks. The first run of the Ozarks climbs steeply between the Buffalo and the Arkansas rivers. Essentially a plateau, its corrugated ridges stretch toward the horizon in a smoky violet green. They rise again between the Arkansas and the Ouachita. I passed through Hot Springs, a town where Victorian roots, criminally organized infrastructure and hipster accents collide mercilessly.
During the climb into the Ozarks, and especially on the descent, my mindset shifted. I had been content to wander, I was now intent on home. For the next week and a half, I simply rode. Sleeping briefly in city parks and roadside hideaways. Rising, riding, rendering, resting and rising. Neither rushing nor lingering. Observing intently, but not meticulously. Pearly dawns. Migrating shadows, long westward, underfoot, stretching east, dissolving in the burnt orange falling sun. Following dusky road lines and constellations to the next wayside camp.
.
Monday, November 10, 2008
The continued learning
-Don’t read Cormac McCarthy novels when you’re camped off the side of some obscure highway.
-Sausage and kolaches alone do not provide for an energizing or sustaining meal.
-When you reach a moment of euphoric and rhythmic riding, expect a flat. This may have something to do with the fact that you are gleefully looking up, basking in the wind and sun, and not at the road.
-Helmet-mounted bicycle rearview mirrors are a waste of money and may even create more hazard than they prevent.
More to come...
-Sausage and kolaches alone do not provide for an energizing or sustaining meal.
-When you reach a moment of euphoric and rhythmic riding, expect a flat. This may have something to do with the fact that you are gleefully looking up, basking in the wind and sun, and not at the road.
-Helmet-mounted bicycle rearview mirrors are a waste of money and may even create more hazard than they prevent.
More to come...
The Bardo’s Rules of the Road
-If two routes seem comparable in distance and safety, you pick based on how cool the town names are. For example, a route that passes through Lone Star and Daingerfield must be infinitely better than one that passes through Linden and Maud.
-Take local advice with a grain of salt. Locals often don’t know, especially in regards to steepness, distance or bike-friendliness of any given route. They also are often unaware of the existence or quality of local restaurants. Not always, but often.
More to come…
-Take local advice with a grain of salt. Locals often don’t know, especially in regards to steepness, distance or bike-friendliness of any given route. They also are often unaware of the existence or quality of local restaurants. Not always, but often.
More to come…
The True Hardcores
As you bike, you hear stories of other rides and riders. Like any endeavor, people are eager to share stories, both first and secondhand, of similar enterprises. An acquaintance of mine, Graham, during a long distance cycle, would put some brown rice in a tin with some water on the back of his bike in the morning. It would “cook” during the day and this is essentially all he would eat. A bike shop employee told me of a rider he knew who cycled in Montana in the winter. He would ride during the night and sleep in the midday sun in order to stay warm. He sustained himself on sprouts that he grew during the ride by hydrating a backpack full of soil and seed in any stream or pond he passed. Compared to these burly men, my ride was incredibly posh and ninnified. And, of course, they probably built their own bikes from spare parts scavenged from the roadside. If I remember correctly, for his long cycles, my friend Peter built his bike out of spider webs and spit and would make any spoke or cable repairs with woven strands of his own hair. I only aspire to such self-sufficiency.
.
.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)