remembering something new (have i used this title?)

a friend recently asked what this means to me. this was my reply, today.

Q: "Remember something new" - where does this come from and what does this mean to you? I like the idea of it."           

it came as a way to describe the feeling that i was recalling something, specific or broad, and that the memory felt specifically new/unique or different from the original. 

it is a refreshing feeling of things that i once knew to be true, or memories i hold onto, that i now understand in refined or deconstructed ways. those new ways can often be a mix of what i knew and what  learned. sometimes they are a mix of what i knew and what i think i knew. on other occasions they are a combination all to themselves. illusive. 

friendly queries

to your query: "*Does having someone read what you write influence or impact the value you derive from it? 

this seems a fantastic question to ask of value, particularly because i sometimes sense a value in things through the way other people know those things. i think the true answer for me is mixed and supplanted in some ways. as it relates to the question from your original email, value seems like a term used to lift up the edge of what makes things feel good and worth doing in life. 

with that intent/definition i sense a meaningful amount of value in both shared and hidden/kept works i have written. 

if i drew a venn diagram of my "felt sense" of writing, split between two bubbles "shared" and "kept" works, the overlapping bit would be a warm color (likely tawny) representing what it means to me to purely write (regardless of audience). 

the "shared" bubble would be more orange, hot with tinged anxiety and excitement. i enjoy writing for and with other people, and it provides a different feeling of release and therapy that i get from writing only for myself. the joy i find in writing for an audience of one, or anyone, also greatly depends on the audience. i prefer to write for/to people i love. it's lucky i love a lot of people. more than i know. 

the "kept" bubble in this (only currently-dichotomous) venn would be the colors of a deciduous forest from across a small valley. some of the photosynthesizing hues left behind, many new stages of dying and repurposing-light happening in a spectrum from gold to mud. 

writing for myself is like standing in the forest alone. standing far enough from anything human that the only frightening thing to see would likely be a person. or a reflection. 

when i am my audience i get to be in the forest, and even smell it sometimes. this is how i make sense of the things i can not find answers for, and the ache that keeps me asking questions. i think some folks can find a similar sense through spirituality. 

skipping on a railing

i am on a ship that is moving faster than i can see. 

running along the hand railing, i know i will eventually have to jump off the back of the boat when it comes. 

i don't know how large or long the ship is, or if the railing reaches all the way to the rear. 

i do not want off the boat and never have. i have taken this fact for granted. i have been a poor shipmate for certain. 

don't know if i can still swim, do not have a life jacket, have no idea where land might be, no concept of the predators that wait to feed as i float, and no means of building my own boat. 

today all that i know is the feeling that the boat has sped up, considerably.  

i can not converse with the captain to drop anchor, as there are others who have places to go. 

 

endur-bro is color coded

cycling, like many sports, is heavily weighed down by silly marketing and sham-tech intended to cajole consumers in the the newest/fastest/lightest/largest thing that will simultaneously brush their teeth while doing their taxes.

my mind first turns to the current craze around "gravel bikes". i am not the first to say it, but i grew up riding gravel roads because that's what we had, on mountain bikes -- same justification. the cycling industry, particularly un the u.s.a., has done an amazing job of making riders think that their cyclocross, road, or mountain bikes are not appropriate for local grand fondos or gravel grinders (aka road group rides). with an impressive wave of the capitalist wand there is now another branch of the industry packing garages across tan suburban divisions in every state. blek!

now to the point. ENDURO! at the outset i saw this genre as another attempt to sell bikes to people who have to much money, while creating a more chill way to race those bikes.
basically DH racing, without the necessity of a chairlift: roll along chatting with friends until you race your ass of on the descents.
it seemed like good old mountain biking, but people were/are paying a LOAD of money for it.
then i tried to think through the positive bits of enduro's new popularity, and came up with several. here they is, in no particular order.

• bikes are becoming more fun to ride, with slacker head tubes for fun descending, and shiploads of R&D going into making rear suspension work well on climbs, under breaking, for light and heavy riders, as well as on rock plunging DH tracks. 
• xc bikes are also moving in the more fun "trail direction" and are making mountain biking more accessible for folks who want to learn to ride. yes you can ride/race many of the same trails on a rigid single speed, and you will likely learn some skills that you would not on a squishy bike, but not everyone wants to do everything the hardest way possible. why not make bikes that are fun for everyone, and the only buriers are guts, skills, time, comfort, humility, and a willingness of other wonderful to teach new ways to ride things. 
• trails can be built with more technical features because bikes are more capable of handling the terrain. we don't have to smooth out every bump if our bikes and skills can both grow to deal with larger challenges. 
• the aesthetic side of dirt bikes and gear are moving away from lycra and eating disorders and moving toward comfort and protection. though there are folks who will trash talk their friends who show up with the wrong flannel pattern for a fall trail ride, many riders i have run into are stoked to ride in clothes that they might wear off the bike and feel good about their bodies therein. also, anyone who knows me would know that i am stoked to color match my digs and wear colors that mostly look like bubblegum ice-cream form the 1980's. All kinda rainbow! 
• i feel that there are a lot of other salient positive elements that the enduro genre has added to trail riding, and these are the few that initially came to mind when i asked myself "what does enduro have to offer?".         

desert thoughts on envy: biblically

i hope this message finds you feeling more so the the way you want
to than the last message may have. -me

working toward trust is not a thing i can see steps or an end to. possibly trust is a process, and not an end or goal. 
i recently emptied the trust kitty of my most supportive and loving friend, and i am learning how to fill it back up. 
i think there are ways, other than trust, that we create connection with people, but that does not negate the importance of this feeling that i know someone is sharing honesty honestly. 

envy and or jealousy are like death in some ways. 
they are inevitable, and spending energy on them allows them to add fear to my life. feeding jealousy with details and dwelling feels like a good way to let shitty feelings win. sitting with jealousy, alone in a windowed room, gives power to a feeling that neither serves me nor has anything to teach. in 35 years of thinking and feeling i have only learned to despise jealousy, and to sit painfully with it as i hope it will fade.   

the idea that someone could not experience jealousy is not real to me, though i am not herein attempting to negate another's feelings. rather than denying jealousy, i prefer to starve it of my energy or time whenever possible. 

the native narrative of feeding the wolves within us feels useful for this. i want to let the envious or jealous lupo die off any time it come around.  

June 6th

spring: 

i am still dealing with the car key i lost in the woods, 
trying to prep other people's stuff for a trip, 
lost my wallet/money/ID yesterday, 
had a conversation with a coparent about parental rights that felt horrifying, 
got some really hard news from Johannes about the farm, 
and spilled a big plate of sour scalding milk on two of my best friends' skin