There have been three times in my life when things took an unexpected but fantastic turn, propelling me to places and events I had not before considered as possible for me. They have always been accompanied by some kind of injury to me, at least at the beginning.
Each time it happens I’m reminded of the opening of James and the Giant Peach, where the old man gives James a paper bag.
“Take a look, my dear,” he said, opening the bag and tilting it toward James. Inside it, James could see a mass of tiny green things that looked like little stones or crystals, each one about the size of a grain of rice. They were extraordinarily beautiful, and there was a strange brightness about them, a sort of luminous quality that made them glow and sparkle in the most wonderful way.
Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach (1961)
In the story, it turns out that these tiny green things are not only boiled crocodile tongues, they are alive, moving, and full of magic. James, of course, trips and spills all of the tiny dried crocodile tongues onto the ground (at the base of the peach tree), thinking he has ruined his one chance at happiness. But as we all know, that spill only marks the beginning of his crazy, unreal, wonderful journey.
The most recent time (the 3rd time) this kind of thing happened to me was in 2007. The injury I was suffering was not physical but emotional. I was leaving my wife of nine years and going through a nasty divorce, moving out of the house I was still 100% paying for and into a little apartment in West Salem. I was going through the motions of life but my mind was always elsewhere, in the past, trying to figure out where exactly things went wrong with my marriage. I had completely forgotten about applying for, and indeed interviewing for, a job with my employer that was unlike any other job I’d ever heard of. And many weeks later, out of the blue, I found that suddenly I was being offered the job. That was the beginning of a 14-year journey that included some of the dizziest heights and piratical perils I had ever been aware of in my professional career. It was a wild ride I could write volumes about.
My whole point in writing about this is that I believe I’m standing at the threshold of Bag-of-Crocodile-Tongues Incident #4. My injury has been mental, and a little emotional (although the emotional parts happened decades ago; I’m only reliving them now). Recovery has given me the opportunities to tap into parts of me I’d been wishing were there, not realizing they were there unseen. Specifically, my writing, my riding, my faith, and my music are each having a renaissance that I previously didn’t have the energy for (hard drinking is hard work). Once again, I’m not a hitchhiker in life but a race car driver.
Mentally, emotionally, and physically (and even, I suspect, spiritually) I’m healing. Years of adventure still await me, and I’m finally getting ready for it.
Bike Newbie 