On Loss and Recovery

It has been more than a week since my last blog post. Life has a way of carrying us along and time passes quickly. Visits from my remaining family from afar, the death of loved ones of friends I have made on the road, and the persistent case of writer’s block that has dogged the past few weeks of my journey.

The loss of a loved one was on my mind this morning as I drank my coffee on the now very familiar stoop of my cabin here in Florida at the “Hotel California”. I had a sense of time passing me by and of my own mortality. This is, no doubt, a by-product of giving what comfort I could into situations where the raw emotions of the moment and the ensuing numbness, leave little room for any real comfort or solace. Perhaps it is a sense of being the impractical King Canute trying to hold back the tides of time and of trying to contain life’s random acts into a neatly wrapped package to suit my orderly self.

Words and a chord change in the music I am listening to will act as the trigger I need to find the elusive threads of the creative process. As I write today the Going Home video by my old song writing favorite Jackson Browne, is rolling on the player.  The opening song is the great song I’m Alive

Standing here by the highway side
Watching these trucks blow by
Inches from my face
Yeah thinking 'bout the time I've wasted
And the pleasure we once tasted
Looking up and down this road
I've been here before
Can't be here no more

Thinking about wasted time, it really isn’t wasted really.  It is all part of the bigger Learning but in our parsimonious regard for our own precious time, we can quickly turn that learning into some diminished value through resentment.  Getting past that resentment though is the important message that it hurts like hell and we “Can't be here no more”.  And so, I find myself looking down the road.  At the dealers while my new Road Glide Ultra got its 1,000-mile service I blocked out the 5 routes for my major rides this year.  It could mean about 40,000 miles on the road this year if I complete all the routes as planned.

Later in the DVD is the poignant, multi-layered meanings of the dark lyric “Sleeps Dark and Silent Gate”.

Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder
Where my life will lead me
Waiting to pass under Sleep's dark and silent gate

I found my love too late
Running around day after day
Looking for the time to play
While my old friends slipped away

Never should have had to try so hard
To make a love work out, I guess
I don't know what love has got to do with happiness
But the times when we were happy
Were the times we never tried

Sitting down by the highway
Looking down the road
Waiting for a ride
I don't know where I've been
Wishing I could fly away
Don't know where I'm going
Wishing I could hide
Oh God this is some shape I'm in
When the only thing that makes me cry
Is the kindness in my baby's eye

Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder
Where the years have gone

The lyric seems to fit today’s reflections on my transient reality and the experience of being in love and seeing that slip away, or the connection with my inner artist and its elusive comings and goings as I work through the re-discovery of the long dormant writing skills and the associated angst that I feel when confronted with a blank Word screen in the morning.

Thankfully, the words did flow with just a few hiccups along the way and some bit of focus to keep the sometimes-vague threads joined into what I hope is an at-least-semi-coherent writing on loss and recovery.

The recent loss of a 9 year relationship, the subtle trail of a new love lost in the turmoil of two lives in the wrong place or wrong time, the shaky first steps back to an active life as an artist, writer of verse, painter of paintings and photographer have taken me through the valley of loss.  All the while, my ear is cocked to the clock of life clicking time towards the penultimate moment of life’s fleeting departure. So much to do and time is passing.

The recovery for me is inherent in the physical journey on the road and the emotional journey of living in the moment and living is as large as possible and to really feel my emotional connection to the events and chance meetings that make this journey I am on so rich. And, to see the experience translate into words, art, and music through which, others can share in the experiences.

Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate

And from the new book of verse (I really do need to find a title)

The wheels keep on turning

Down the roadways of my mind

Past the images of loves won and lost

And the wreckage of my missed opportunities

The call of an empty road

Where the pavement disappears

In the hills and rolls of the distance

To new places, the new faces that become memories

As I journey on to my sunset

Farther down the road through fields

Of new dreams and possibilities of a life

Made full in the richness of love’s realization