The Beginnig of the Story

The now familiar shushhhh of air rushing past my helmet as I fly through the Panamanian countryside on a dirty KLR 650 has been replaced by another white noise, the drone of a pristine Boeing 737-800 jet engine mixed with the shushhh of the airplanes ventilation system. The air is sterile, like a hospital, a smell that is all too familiar, that I will never cease to recognize. It’s as if my nasal memory is being cleansed of the toxic fumes of tired diesel buses and the acrid eye and throat searing smoke produced by campesinos burning trash and plastic on the periphery of the highway.

Back in the days that I was instructing backcountry trips in the mountains I often liked to put a bit of closure on the trip by asking the students to share the stories that they will tell as the experiences fades into memory. In ten days, ten weeks, ten years, in the end, what is the story you would tell? When the short term to long term memory download is complete, what is it that will stick? It is quite convenient to believe that when the present fades into the past all we are left with is a few good short stories that may have some nuggets of meaning or learning that we can share with our grandchildren. When the trip is over, when the kids are all grown up, when friends have come and gone, when you have seen the birth of a new love and the death of an old one; is it remotely possible to create a story that can even begin to explain how the core of your soul has been touched? Even with a Shakespearean vocabulary are there enough words to describe the subtle differences in a single emerging tear filled with the joy of love or the sadness of loss. Surely there must be a difference in this solitary droplet, but it won’t be seen under the most powerful microscope, or analyzed through any known scientific analysis. The difference is only perceivable in the lines between the lines, the words between the words; it is in the white space on the page or in the tiny sacred moments of silence between the spoken words of the verbal story. In these unnoticed places the essence of that tear exists, not as some ephemeral cognitive concept, but as a genuine tangible experience. Although unseen, the joy or the pain of that tear is physically felt within. The space between is what cuts us, heals us, makes us laugh, makes us cry; it is where we are touched and where we touch others. Our eyes read the words and our ears hear the story, but it is within our hearts that we hear the wisdom in the silence, feel the tear on our soul’s cheek, and see the beauty in the space between.

I have told a lot of stories in the past two and a half months. I’ve left out what I consider the boring details; in fact I have probably left out most of the details... Sorry to disappoint if you were interested in oil changes, wheelies, rear end collisions, and a serious bout with diarrhea; these are the conversations I’ll share over a beer and good east coast pizza. What I have told is a small piece of my story, a glimpse into one man’s inner dialogue and search for greater understanding of self. It’s a story of adventure, isolation, learning, and discovery that began long before December 29th when I rode into a NW snow storm and will continue far into the future. If I told of the food I ate, the number of links in my chain, or the quantity of fuel burned, I would be telling a tale that was just about me; instead I like to believe that I have discovered a little bit about us, I like to think that the story has been ours… I look into the eyes of my friends, coworkers, family members, and I see some of this story within you. If you can see and hear the space between then you know that I am not a lone rider into the sunset; you are there with me on the same journey. The journey I see in your eyes is a mirror for me to reflect on the struggles and triumphs within me. I have discovered that I can no longer be silent. I have a story to tell. It is my story and I think some of it is your story. It is about joy, and pain, triumph and loss, direction and indirection, pride and shame, a sense of purpose, what it means to be a man, an undying love for my brothers, and a never-ending search for discovery. What I have come to realize is that I am no longer the only character in the story…and it is in that place beyond the words that we are on a similar path.

Thank you my friends

Jay

Em and Jays Wild Adventures!

Hola everyone!
Jay and I are sitting in Costa Rica on our last night after a week of exploring the countryside. Most of you probably don't even know I am here...as of a a little over a week ago I didn't know that I would be here either. But an unexpected turn of events and here I am reunited with my beautiful husband after 10 weeks!

I flew out of Seattle last Saturday night and arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica on Sunday afternoon. Jay and I left on Monday morning for a little place in the rainforest up in los montanas. We celebrated being back together in our own little cabana surrounded by wild jungle. In the morning we were served breakfast in an outdoor restaurant where we could watch the toucans and other colorful birds eat bananas and papayas. Unfortunately the rainforst is...rainy and we spent much of the time cuddling in our cabana (maybe not so unfortunate after all :) We did get one morning of sun and walked about 12 miles through the countryside and hillsides.

After our third day of rain and an unfortunate bout of food poisoning that kept Emily in the bathroom for most of the night and day, we decided to leave early and head to Orosi, a small village known for its beautiful parks and coffee plantations. Here we met Franz ( a very very friendly German) and his wife Janie (who crashed her own plane while piloting at age 19). Obviously a very interesting couple. We stayed at their bed and breakfast on the very top of a mountain overlooking coffee and banana plantations along a beautiful ravine with a river at the bottom. We had our own cabana with hammock and fireplace and although it rained, we still found much to do! On Thursday we hiked into a beautiful rainforest park to a majestic river and waterfall.

Tonight we will have our last dinner before parting ways...Jay will head south towards Panama via motorbike and I will head north to Seattle via air. We love and miss you all!

Love, Emily and Jay

I am sitting alone, back in Granada, thinking about the next step. I have gotten to the point of wondering, as I have before, why I have come. What was it that I expected to find in these travels? I have traveled 7000 miles to discover that all of the important things in my life are usually within the first five feet; something I always knew, but so often fail to recognize. Every journey, every adventure, has a destination, known or unknown. I have always known that the end of this journey was not a physical place on this earth; instead it would be a feeling or a hard learned lesson. I came here not to find the end of the earth, but to find the end of me. To crack open the internal safe to which I lost the key a long time ago.

My compass finally broke; little did I realize that it was broken all along. And now, lost in the midst of a strange land on a starry night, I have come to realize that I must learn the art of celestial navigation to find my way home. This trip is not about following a heading to an undiscovered place, it is about learning a new way to navigate, a new language to express the my inner workings, an ability to seek guidance from the shining stars all around me.

I raise my sextant to the night sky and I see in the distance a bright shining star, the end of this journey. She is that marker of my home, the brightest light in my life, a lighthouse that saves lost ships from the wrath of an inner sea.

This journey does not end in some distant lonely land. It will end, as it was always meant to, in the same place it began; looking into tearfilled eyes uttering the words "I love you". And instead of "good bye" I will hold your gaze and say "I'm sorry for being so lost for so long..."

I am home.

For me, there is awkwardness in writing. It is the stuff of soul exposure, such a delicately uncomfortable medium for self expression. In the moments that I write I find myself fully involved yet truly disliking the experience. It is as if I am fearful of what I may make real before my own eyes. Perhaps my mind is not ready for the truths of my soul or my mind fears what will happen if the thoughts, doubts, or dreams materialize in this physical reality on a piece of electronic papyrus. Even in moments of seemingly genuine self expression there is cautious editing in my words. There is fear of what I might later find myself reading. There is fear that my inner truths are not for the eyes and ears of others, that I will bring them pain, or heartache, or even feelings of disgust. My secret internal dialogue remains hidden among the codified paragraphs that I jot down in a lame attempt for others to share my experiences. Writing is a nightmarish battle of conflict, a balancing act of exposure and prudish concealment of the inner workings of the mind. I dream of my words as magic, but so often fear that they are fraught with half truths or at least half hearted meanings. Or worse yet, they are empty and devoid of life and meaning. But how does one fully engage in the conversation of the mind and soul without true expression of joy and pain, doubt and courage. I fear that I have not the strength to tear open my heart and write a manuscript in blood and tears. Is self expression selfish expression when it does not take into account the feelings of the audience? I wish my words could be a magical portal into a divine human experience, filled with deep levels of soulful understanding, and unmatched, never before experienced honesty. Instead I find myself struggling to create something that is written in a universally benign language, the Miller Light of writing. My voice is internal dialogue with the volume turned down low so even I need to strain an ear to hear the message. The struggle continues and all the while I hate to write.

The skin on my elbows is worn thin, raw and red, tender to the touch, from living a different pace, a life other than my own. A sure indicator that the time has come, and it has, to move in a different direction; to strike out, embrace the aloneness, and dive into that dark place of self reflection.

Andy will soon be a story, a little tale I tell about a small piece of my life; as it goes with most things. All but the vivid details will seep back into the collective knowledge of the earth and become tip of the tongue details that seem to escape you in the middle of a story. What was that place? What were their names? The defining moments in life become those that you remember. In the moment they are just a knee scrape, a heartbreak, a fleeting moment of exuberant expression, and it is with the passage of time that they become defined as something more, a permanent part of the colorful canvas we paint to understand ourselves. It’s a picture we look at to define our vision, a starving artist’s meager attempt to explain all of the ups and downs of the journey through life. A patchwork of loosely connected details smeared together to form a uniquely abstract self portrait.

As I sit and stare at the canvas I wonder what will be painted next. I look at all that has already been completed; all of the reds and blacks with long streaks of blue, and I feel that it could take a lifetime to study the previous work of my life. Staring blurry eyed at the great expanse of color It is difficult to believe that all of the brush strokes were by my hand. The sharp mad angles, the weird intersections of colors creating unnamable shades, the thin hidden lines delicately executed to be hidden details, beautiful sweeping arcs of wild vivid colors intermixed and alongside blacks and muddy earth tones. Thirty five years in the making and it seems that it could take that long again to reexamine and understand the details. All this while the brush keeps moving, held firmly by my invisible arm, recording the finest details of my existence, the moments I cherish and those I wish to forget. Many years of life pass before you look within and see the brush wielded by your own hand. When comes that realization that you are the artist even when you are not picking the colors?

By the time the canvas becomes visible to the naked eye it seems overwhelming to examine each meaning filled detail. Instead it must be viewed from afar, perhaps a distant mountaintop, with eyes made into keen thin slits distorting the image into blurred clarity. In that moment the dark ugly sharp zigzags soften to blend with sweeping arcs of light to form such an image of unique magnificence. In that moment the human portrait is realized, a dramatic image of individualized human existence is born.

Sometimes we believe that we are the only ones who can see that invisible hand and the papyrus upon which its life’s work is recorded. But works of such great intensity cannot be hidden away and locked in an attic with a key that is forever misplaced. Those intense reds, deep, dark as the darkest night blacks, and Caribbean blues, burn through the physical and mental canvas of the human condition. My skin is a sculptural representation of the thin black lines. My eyes, the lens through which the fluctuating brush strokes of joy and sadness can be viewed. The wrinkles in my face, a reflection of the yellow sunlit blotches dotting the image and the teeth gritting from intense moments of tortuous self doubt or disgust. Each inch of my physical body mirrors the opposite colors of emotion, simultaneously illuminating the dark and the light.

I'm back from Little Corn Island. It was beautiful but a lot more expensive and booked that Andy or I had expected, so we ended up spending a lot of dough to share a bed in a beautiful cabin overlooking the turquoise waters of the Caribbean.

Corn Islands

Andy and I are headed out to the Corn Islands in the Caribbean until the 25th. I don't think there will be any internet, so I'll be back in touch after I return.

Love

Jay

Running down Cerro Negro

Here are some pics running down the volcano before our scorching hike back to the bike. Tomorrow 2/16 I am headed for Granada for a couple days, then on to Isla de Ometepe, followed by a some possible surfing near San Juan del Sur.
Thanks for looking my friends.
Love Jay

Cerro Negro