Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Yesterday was a running day, but the arrival of a decisive moment was at hand, and my psychic energy was doing all it could to put off the run. As I loped along during the warm up I could feel my weakened athletic energy being replaced by the desire to walk and ponder. It was time to decide where to put down roots. While not terribly complex, there were a number of important points which had to be thoroughly observed, and not doing so, or just glancing at them superficially, could lead to a misguided choice. Not wanting to run long, I decided on intervals. I circled the grass soccer fields at the middle school, stopping after only 5 or 6 minutes. I felt I should do more, even though desire was lacking, so I jogged to the Amazon Park wood chip trail and was determined to run circuits around the 1000m loop. The first interval I stopped at 800m. I drank water and then began the 2nd one, this time stopping at 500m. So ended my woeful day of running.
I knew it was a weak effort, but the real work was now to begin. How does one go about making a decision which is known with certainty to be life altering? How many of these decisions does one make in a lifetime? As I walked the wood chip trail I thought of the big decisions in my life, and they were few, all of them clutched in the palm of my hand - dropping out of the computer science program at college and changing to history and philosophy; pursuing photography for 10 years starting at the age of 25; accepting my first "respectable job" at 35. As I thought of these 3 decisions I recalled that I had made each one while walking in solitude, allowing the thoughts to flow calmly, observing closely all known facts, and then... the heart speaks, the body fills with an electric energy, the choice seen clearly as colored sunlight resting on the petals of a flower. So I began walking the Rexius Trail, relieved to find it empty of people. The sun was bright and warm, I sauntered along, searching the facts, turning them this way and that. When the walk was complete I knew what I had to do - remain in Eugene, if possible, to begin a new life in this place which feels more like home than any place I have wandered through.
To remain in Eugene. I did not imagine, back in January, 2012, when I left everything to wander through SE Asia, that the free ride of my spirit would end here, in Eugene. There are still practical things to accomplish, the first one being to find a place to live. I am currently renting a room, but I have learned that living with one person (I am currently living with two) is as far as I can go before I start to feel closed in and unhappy, so most of my energy in the coming days will be spent on finding a place to call home. I can imagine how happy I will be to have a place of my own, living in Eugene, with unlimited time - no one to see, nowhere to be - is there anything better in life?
