#Wheels and Waves

Two thousand two-hundred and sixty-four miles on a motorcycle, in two weeks... Five countries in fourteen days. Across the sea on boats, across rivers on ferries, through forests, over mountains, and on occasion, sat atop my bike …at 7,000ft.

And now home.

And now what?

Now I’m back. Now the music has stopped and I’ve gotten-off the ride. I’m trying to process it all. Trying to make sense of it. Trying to make sense of any of it.

“Tell me what you did... Tell me what you saw when you were away…” you might say. But perhaps what is more telling, and what may yet be the keener observation  would be to tell you what happened when I got back.

Every time I return, I arrive at a spot that’s different from the place that I left. It’s as if I have returned to my home, but to one from an alternate universe …not one where Tyranosaurs still roam the earth, nor one where Killer-Robots have returned from the future to murder us all - but an alternate timeline where everything is only slightly different. A timeline where things appear duller and more dreary: food is bland, wallpaper less splendid, and the neighbours are fatter (and even less interesting) than they were before. In work, I find myself surrounded by people who are slow and lifeless. Their eyes move like carp in stagnant water.

In John Wyndham’s book ‘Day of the Tryffids’ the hero awakens from an eye-operation, peels-off his bandages, and finds that everyone, except for him, is now blind; stumbling down corridors and onwards through life.

I know how he felt.

I’m currently sat in The Barbican; a concrete monument built by the haughty Architect Class, for the type of people that they’d never have round for dinner. I’m looking at the people who frequent this place: clever, erudite individuals, who are utterly devoid of life. They’re the sort of folks who‘ve read all about it, but never once done it.

Am I getting old? …or am I slowly drifting away from the country that I live in? …In few week’s time, my average age will be 25. I should feel old. I should have aches. I should have pains. I should have a bathroom cabinet, full of creams with strange names. Any yet, I‘ve never felt younger, nor more alive. What have I done to get to this place? …and how can I do more?

I’m drifting away from people, from places, from situations, and dull spaces.

A good friend invited me to Glastonbury the other day, and I declined. It’s a music festival, full of twenty-somethings, who take mild drugs and can’t dance. He asked me why I’d never been, and (perhaps mistakenly) I told him the truth: “…because it’s full of squares”. He looked at me, perplexed, and then the confusion on his brow turned to worry. Perhaps he’d realised that the festival-goers were seeking some ‘pre-emptive release’ from the pathway ahead; a route that would lead them to baldness, love-handles, and a successful career in dentistry.

Why should I care about any of this? Perhaps that’s the one final trick that I’ve yet to pull-off. Perhaps that’s the trick that we all need to finish with, right from the start?  …to not give a damn about The World …to not try to control The World …and to not be controlled by it neither.

I think I’m getting there.

Somewhere in-between his third croissant and the outskirts of Bordeaux, one of my biker mates suggested that we go surfing when we arrived at Biarritz. I replied ‘no’ and so, when we got to Biarritz,  the two of us went surfing. That was some sea. The most heavenly sea that anyone could ever have painted. I stood chest-deep at Cote Des Basques and paddled-out on my board. With my back to the beach, I gazed out onto The Mistress of my Heart. Saltwater in my eyes. Saltwater up my nose. Saltwater in my ears. The sound of waves crashing against the shore, matched only by the stillness of my mind.

It’s great to feel at-home, when you’re out of your depth…

- Pal Blanko