http://www.lifecycl.es

Big thanks to Jeremy at Gregg’s for making this happen!

The night beckons. . .It’s dark hands curl and twist, hooking a spindly pointer finger towards you, drawing you in. The blackness of the night hums a soft hymn, a soft and melodious hymn, better suited to a funeral than a wedding. The romanticized dream of solitude and introspection pull at you to the core, twisting around your skeleton, your being, filling your conscious mind with visions of  a candle in the dark, a beacon in the distance.

Of a rider in the night.

The uncertainty of it all beats upon your psyche, like tree branches on a window, flapping in the night wind. The sound reverberates throughout the attic of your mind, sending the body downstairs a constant remainder to remain awake and aware, waiting for something, anything to interfere with your course. Potholes loom large in the night, coming out of the darkness like iceburgs, eerie and silent, waiting to wreck havoc on your wheels and tires, to throw you onto the cold, icy ground. Corners and turns take on another personality, one of secrecy and deception, leading you to think that your speed is sufficient, if not conservative, enough to make the turn, before brutally informing you that it is too much. The world is lurking out there, beyond the beam and the glow of your bike light, waiting to intercept you, to entangle you in it’s mire.

And you go fourth. You venture out into the dark land of second guesses and short sight, into the realm of the night-dwellers, those who are at home in the dark, those who hide from the light. Those shadows that reside in the shadows, either in physical or imaginative form, waiting, watching, changing. In the night our mind manifests itself into the darkness around us, shaping our landscapes and our perception of them. The night around us mirrors that which is inside of us, that which exists within the cave of our minds, of our dreams, our hopes, our desires, our fears. Things in this black world are as we would dream them, hazy and unfocused to the eye, yet nonetheless well defined in feeling and in emotion. At night our physical eyes take the back seat to our internal sight, that of our imagination and soul, of our minds eye and our heart’s sway. The real, tangible world around us transforms into a virtual, projected world of our own devise. We create the night and in turn we fear it. And from that fear comes exaltation.

To be a traveler in a foreign land is to be set free of that which binds, of routines and familiarity, of normalized interactions and emotions. The night brings on a different set of rules, a refreshing escape from the rules that govern our everyday, lighted world. In this new light (so to speak), everything we experience and sense becomes renewed, intensified, unleashed upon our senses with a ravenous appetite. The bright contrast of the city lights upon the dark canvas of the night sears our eyes, burning memories in the skin of our brains, permanent marks that won’t soon be forgotten.

Memories of a journey.
Memories of time apart.
Memories of a world existing, but for a select few.

Some take solace in the knowledge that their siblings, their fellow creatures lie asleep in their beds, in their small partitions of personal space, dreams occupying their minds, reality touching their hearts and souls.  Some tread the waters with caution, like a deer meandering through a public park, at once comfortable among the trees and the grass, yet aware and timid, watching shadows and movement. Some revel in the cool night air, energized by it’s magic, made playful by it’s caress.

Some take to the street, their bodies perched upon a saddle, their feet spinning freely.
Some feel at home in the dark, make the world their own.

Some bring that feeling out of the night and into the light of day.

Something special happens at night, when you are astride a bicycle.
Something worth sharing and talking about.
Something akin to diving into a dark pool of water. . .

Perhaps those who ride bicycles already know of what I speak.
Perhaps those who find themselves passing the time at night, alone in their head, thinking
will know that which I am about to describe.
Perhaps the deer in the forest and the owls in the night understand it. . .

The night descends upon you, the darkness a blanket that smothers and ignites.
A glowing mass of embers, in the shape of city lights spring up, coaxed to life by the evening breeze. Their light twinkles in the fading twilight, giving the surrounding world an alien feel, dark and different. A world that you are not at home in. . . not entirely.

After a particularly long day at work, the ride home can be more relaxing than a hot shower, giving one the time to collect their thoughts, to mellow their mind.
With the outpouring of working individuals, all set on their own path to whatever location their night will find, the streets become a maze, the other players making up the obstacles to maneuver around and avoid. Twilight in the city can be a busy time, but darkness brings with it a whole different feel. . . on of an empty playing board, devoid of opposing pieces. The streets become your own channel of direction, opening up numerous possibilities of transport from your location to your destination. How odd that the theoretical map clears itself off for you, figuratively speaking, as the light closes off the physical, visceral map that our eyes are accustomed to throughout the daylight hours. The night transforms us from civil, cognitive beings to creatures. . . creatures of the night. Acting and reacting.

On a bicycle, the world is your playground at night. The streets are more empty, the sidewalks clear (so long as you avoid neighborhoods with avid nightlife’s to be had), granting you more freedom in the way of route choices.

The night beckons. . .

The saddle calls
the sun beckons, with it’s blanket of warmth
and bright calm

Donning the Lycra,  I spread my toes
testing the feathers of my wings before I take flight
Into the wind.

But why pool, too?

For whatever reason, I avoided pool for a long time. To be honest, I didn’t really know the rules, nor had anyone ever shown me the proper way to stand and shoot, so naturally I was intimidated. I have a distinct memory of telling my good friend, Robert, a definite “no” to playing pool one night at the Creekside in Ashland. I’m not entirely sure why I was never interested enough to learn how to shoot and play, but I’m sure it might have had something to do with riding bicycles too much to make the time. Eventually, moving to a new city and making new friends proved to be beginning to my fascination with the game of pool.

The first time that I shot pool in Seattle was while I was still working at Gregg’s Greenlake. It was a fall evening and the bike sales floor was slow. . . slow enough that Jacob and I were able to leave work early and he suggested that we wander up to the Little Red Hen to shoot some pool. While my initial reaction was to say “no thanks”, I found myself accepting and asking him to teach me the rules and give me some pointers on how to shoot. After that night, I quickly learned that both Jacob and Lance were rather fond of pool and I decided to take it up as well. Over two years later, I still shoot pool on a regular basis and more so, it has become a fixture in my life much like bicycles have.

Something about the game of pool keeps luring me back, keeps invading my thoughts when I am not actively playing it. I’ve spent some time thinking about what makes this particular game so alluring, but have not (as of yet) been able to draw any concrete conclusions.  That being said, here are a few of my thoughts:

On the setting

One of the factors, without a doubt, is the setting and the ambiance that it produces. A solitary light fixture hangs above the table, giving it an art gallery exhibit-esque feeling, highlighting the table as the centerpiece of the floor. As an item the beckons your attention. It is a piece that, if you are familiar enough with it and it’s creations, commands respect, for it is not only a work of art itself, but the scene that arises around it is also something to admire. I will touch more on that later. The light creates an island of warmth, in the sea of dim lighting and glowing TV screens, an island that both serves as a spotlight-lit stage, as well as a table on which to perform experiments and equations in physics and geometry. Angles and ideal velocities dance across the table, caressing your senses and guiding your hand. The dull reflection of the light off the balls is mesmerizing.

On the mental game

Riding a bicycle is first and foremost a physical (body-centric) activity, where the legs become akin to the pistons of an engine and fire over and over. The body comes first and the mind is free to wander, second. Pool seems to be the opposite: one must control their mind and concentration and then communicate that to the body. The game of pool is a mental (mind-centric) one. Although I like to think that pool is similar to martial arts and bicycle riding, in that visualization plays a key role in success, it actually takes things one step further. Pool requires the ability to visualize the success of a shot, but then the success of the next shot and the next shot, so that your mental game is always ahead of what is unfolding on the table. Where cycling commands the attention of my body, pool allows me to explore the limitations of my mind. Both activities require practice and training, but they provide opposite and complimentary experiences.

On coming together

By far, my favorite part of playing pool is the fact that it brings people together. Thing happen around the table. Friendships are made. Laughs are shared. Lessons taught and learned. It’s a beautiful thing. . . In this age of smartphones and laptops, Twitter and Foursquare, iPods and walkmans, it’s refreshing to interact with other people in a social environment and to participate in a group activity that breaks down barriers and promotes conversation. Sometimes when I shoot pool, I find myself staring off into space while waiting to take my turn, pondering the nights and the friendships that the tables get to solicit and observe. Similar to a sporting arena or a theatre, pool tables contain an air of melancholic nostalgia, an air that is charged with the energy of previous nights under the light.

One other thing

The audio ecstasy that the sounds of a pool game brings to the ears is addicting. It is a drug that is not that different from that of the sound of a bicycle race or a standing ovation, after a particularly well-performed play at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. . .

The click of the cue connecting with the cue ball. The pause between the ball disappearing from sight and the thud of it hitting the bottom of the pocket. The hollow rolling sound of the balls rolling down through the table, a tell tale noise that you have been shooting well. The energizing sound of a clean, powerful break. It’s amazing! After enough nights spent around a pool table, one begins to understand the language of the table and it’s followers, a language that is spoken in many a bar or pub across the world.

Pool has captured my attention and mind space in a way that nothing else has in a long time. I appreciate the variance it brings to my weekly routine: shooting pool on Sunday is always the same, but the games that are shot are always different. Kind of like a bike ride. . . heading out the door is always more or less the same, but the journey that unfolds after that is always new and exciting. . . after all, how could it not be?

One that was quite needed. After a long weekend of riding my road bike, I decided that I was in need of a break (or at least my legs were).

I took the bus to work.

This was a Thursday, actually, and while I had been on the bike a few times that week already, I decided that Thursday was a good day to take a break. Thursday also happens to be the Volunteer Repair Party at Bike Works, and since our Volunteer Coordinator is out for the month, I am (one of the) people in charge of running the VRP. Around 9:30 the last volunteer departed from Bike Works and I spent the next 15 minutes (or so) tidying up the place and going through emails (those things sure do pile up). I finally found my way out of the place around 9:50, with the next #7 bus slated to arrive at 9:56.

9:56 came and went with no #7, which was discouraging, since the #48 (which ultimately takes me home to Greenlake) departs every 15 minutes and that meant that I would miss the 10:00 bus. As it happened, the #7 arrived at around 10:01 and got me to the Mt. Baker Transfer Station at precisely 10:14, one minute before the 10:15 48 was leaving. PERFECT!

As I plopped down into the seat aboard the 48, I found myself considering the reasons why I had missed the 10:00 48 and instead caught the 10:15. It sure did happen seamlessly, and there was no waiting involved. Was this a metaphor for life?

Who knows.

To me, it was. Rather than rushing to catch the 9:56 #7 and stressing (hoping) about whether or not I would make the 10:00 #48, I found myself finding peace with the fact that I was going to miss the 10:00 bus, and accepting whatever bus transfer befell me. As it turned out, I had no waiting time between the #7 and the #48 (which usually can be anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes) and I found my self within a state where I was not stressed out about bus times and schedules.

So how does this transfer to everyday life? Well. . . it doesn’t transfer perfectly, but it’s a great reminder that sometimes we may think that we are behind schedule, when we are in fact perfectly on time. And, in fact, we are better off being a few minutes late than we are stressing out about being a minute early.

Life sometimes gets in the way.

I hope that people are enjoying the beautiful weather that has been intermittently gracing Seattle. Or wherever you happen to find yourselves. . .

I’ve been trying to get out in the saddle as much as possible. Bought a Felt from my roomie and have been enjoying riding a light and stiff bike for a change. I’ve been rolling on steel since moving up here over two years ago! Hard to believe. . .

Umm. . .

What else. . .

Work is crazy busy.

Life is beautiful, though :)

The old man walks the path. . .

The sun has already set in the West, it’s last wisps of light dancing with the silhouette of the mountain range in the distance.

It is a clear night.

Clear and cold.

A night for introspection and memories. . .

The night descended upon him as he walked, tendrils of darkness winding their way down from the sky like fingers from the nighttime heavens above. Thoughts and dreams swirled above him, filling the entire expanse of land and sky with images of what had once been.

And of what may be to come.

The man’s thoughts centered on one in particular, a memory from a life that seemed so long ago that it was almost a dream to him now. He was living in the city at the time, riding his bicycle whenever the opportunity presented itself. It had been a clear and cold night, like the one that was now surrounding him, and riding his bicycle was precisely what he had been doing.

Cruising along a sparsely lit road, one that was free of the loud and heavy automobile traffic that was present just a few blocks to the East, he found himself savoring the delectable night, sucking down it’s movements and it’s energy. More and more lately, he had found himself appreciating the sleek, and yet durable, look of his current ride. The wide, large-volume tires rolled over the potholes and cracks with a plushness that he had never known, biting small teeth of traction into each corner and turn. Drawing blood. The leather saddle had seen many miles and was well broken-in and smooth. The bar-end shifters feeling just right in his hands. Each ride on it was like coming to know a dear friend deeper and better, until, at last, each encounter is like a finely rehearsed dance. Two entities moving together, in a slow and almost choreographed waltz through the dancefloor of time, their pace moving to the beat of their hearts. One flesh, one steel.

Tonight he was really enjoying it.

As the street lights faded from view and the grade tilted downward in front of him, he smoothly bent his arms at the elbow, bringing his torso lower over the toptube of the bike, his pointer and middle fingers moving instinctively to their spots on the brake levers. The thrill of the descent never failed to find him, bringing with it the ecstatic feel of  the wind on his skin and in his hair, making the ends of his long dark hair flap in the wind around his ears. His eyes automatically scanning down the road ahead of him or looking around the corner as he was coming around it, his gaze almost like a leash, leading the rest of his body and bike. As each undulation in the road came, his body anticipated it, moving in perfect sync, first this way, then that.

PPSSSSSHHHHHHHWWWWW

Air was coming out of his front tire, growing louder, then quieter, then louder, over and over as his wheel continued rolling.
“Darn!”, he said to the nighttime around him.
Pushing up off the drops and smoothly transferring his hands to the hoods, he pulled on the brakes, slowing just quick enough to not lose control or stop too suddenly. As the bike came to a stop, he lifted his head and looked around. . .

Trees.
And darkness.

Not a single light was in sight, even though the city and it’s bright night life was just a half a mile away, if that.
This fact was normally why he loved taking this route. . .

Still gazing around, he reached down with his right hand, compressing the tire to test the pressure that remained inside. The sound of the metal rim hitting the asphalt was sharp and loud in the night.

“Interesting,” he said.
“Well how about this,” he thought to himself as he switched off his headlight, “a perfect opportunity to try my idea out!”. With the light extinguished, the crushing weight of the darkness and the quiet came crashing home. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and inhaled the night. . . it was a breath so deep that it felt as though the air itself had reached inside his skull to his mind. It’s caress was relaxing. . .

He opened his eyes and went from darkness to seeing darkness. . .

He was as good as blind with his light off.

This made him smile. . .

Turning to the rear of his bike, he opened the top of his pannier and reached inside for new tube, pulling his mini-pump out with it.

Each move was deliberate, the process that was unfolding mirroring the one that he was meditating on in his mind’s eye.
Each new movement flowing from the one before it with grace and precision.
He gave the cap to the tube a spin just hard enough to take the cap off completely and fly into his hand, his fingers already closing in to loosen the tip of the valve. As it rotated in his fingers, the tube was already moving up towards his mouth, the valve finding his lips and the air that came from his lungs just as it touched.

The old man chuckled at this as he remembered it. He didn’t know why he had become fixated on that specific practice. . . As far as he remember, he had picked it up at the first or second bicycle shop that he ever worked at. It sure seemed quicker than taking the time to put on the pump and give it a few strokes. It also made him feel connected to the road racers of old, his imagination picturing the likes of Coppi and Bartali, or Simpson and Anquetil doing the same thing on the side of a road in the French Alps, or in Italy. His lips missed the rough feel of the threads from the stem on them, the faint taste of metal. It has been so long since he pedaled a bike. . .

He blew deep from his lungs, filling the rubber tube with just the right amount of air in a single breath. Tossing the tube onto the hood on the drive-side of his handlebars, he bent down and grasped the quick-release lever. Muscles trained from years of the same motion engaged and he easily undid the lever and transitioned into spinning it around his index finger, holding the other end of the skewer with his right hand. Sensing that it was un-screwed enough, he let go with both hands, his left going to the top of the wheel and grabbing the tire and rim, his other reaching up to the handle bar and pulling up in a single motion. The front wheel slid out of the dropouts and came to rest at his side as he sat the bike down on the fork tips. Gently. With the wheel in hand he reached into the pocket of his wool jersey, pulling out a single steel tire lever. The rough feel of the road pressed into his knee, through his knickers, as he knelt and began to work the tire lever under the bead and around the rim. With one side off, he reached inside the tire, grabbing the punctured tube at the valve stem and pulling it out. He tossed this onto the other hood, the one closer to him. He knew as it found it’s target that the bike would sway just a little with the force of the throw, but not enough to topple it. Turning back to the wheel, he sat it gently on the ground, using his left hand to push down on the rim, while pulling first up, then down on the tire with his right. The tire slid off of the rim, the soft rubber of it’s belly slowing down it’s flight from the metal sidewall.

“Never forget to check the inside of the tire”, he thought as he ran his fingers around the inside of the rubber, feeling every square millimeter for a sharp protrusion of sorts. “I wonder if this is sort of what it’s like to weed a rice field with your feet, under the water. . .”. He briefly let his mind wander, to try and imagine what it would feel like to be standing in a rice field, feet bare, the sun beating down on the skin of his back.

Warmth, sweet smells. . . The glare of the light, reflecting off the water of the field.

Snapping back to the task at hand in front of him, he finished his tactile inspection and returned the tire to the rim. “I wonder if I can align the label with the valve hole in the dark. . .”

With one side of the tire back in the well of the rim, he reached for the new tube hanging on the drive side of his handlebars. Finding the valve stem, he slid it through the valve hole and began tucking the tube into the cavity of the tire. Both hands went in opposite directions around the rim, meeting dead-center at the halfway point. Moving them back to the top, he began to pull the bead of the tire up and over the side of the rim with his thumbs, giving the whole tire a small twist each time to ensure that both sides were seated. He stood as he completed this last task and picked up the mini-pump from where it was sitting next to him. “I sure hope I don’t rip off the valve stem while I pump. . .”, he thought while fitting the head of the pump onto the stem of the tube.

“Haven’t done that in awhile, though,” he said out loud with a soft chuckle, “Reckon that means that I should be extra careful this time!”

Laughter drifted among the trees and the night.

“Sure do make myself laugh.”

“Yeah and you have conversations with myself.”

“I know! Can you believe the hilarity?”

“You do this because you find it comedic?”

“Well sure. Why else?”

“That is a good question. . .”

“The humor of it all strikes a chord with me, I suppose.”

“Why that it does!”

“See? I told you.”

*Editor’s note: Having a conversation with oneself is actually a good way to pass the time while you are pumping up a high-pressure road tire with an air pump that couldn’t be much bigger than a tampon.

(Sometime later)

“Wow! Good thing I’m not Lance Armstrong right now.”

“And why, pray tell, is that?”

“Because then my last name would be an oxymoron!”

“Uhh. . . really? Wow, that was bad.”

“Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha (etc.)”"

“Wow. Good thing this tire is pumped up enough. . .”

He puts the pump into his jersey pocket and bounces the wheel on the road, checking the pressure and secretly hoping that it would not be seated properly and blow out. Fortunately (sort of) it holds, so he lifts up the front end of his bicycle and pops the wheel up into the dropouts. Setting the bike back down on the front end, he checks to make sure that the wheels is fully seated. Satisfied with this, he bends over and spins the QR lever around his pointer finger, moving to flip it and lock it in place as it stops against the metal, his right hand delivering the small amount of extra tightening needed to clap the hub securely. Righting himself, he reattaches the brake cable and gives both brakes a test squeeze, rocking the bike fore and aft to feel for play in any of the parts in the front of the bike. He feels the firm and yet supple give of the steel forks, the almost tacky traction of his front tire.

“Well. That was a good idea!”

Breathing in a deep breath of cold, dark night air, he lifted his face to the sky and closed his eyes. The breath escaped as a soft sigh as he turned on his light and clicked three times to land on the “blinking” setting.

Slowly he opened his eyelids, seeing blackness, with a faint glow of light coming from the bottom of his vision. Lowering his head, the light crept it’s way up through his gaze, pushing out the darkness and displacing it with a flashing, white glow.

*Blink*

The road stretching out ahead of him, winding away and off into the darkness that surrounds it.

*Blink*

The trunks of trees that line the road on the uphill side, the middle sections of trees lining the other.

*Blink*

His gloved hands resting on the cork bartape wrapped around his handlebars, awaiting command from his mind to reach for the hoods and take control.

*Blink*

The breath in his chest, still full of the night’s air. And magic.

*Blink*

*Blink*

*Blink*

Ages come and go, people are born and pass on. Cities are built and eventually decay and crumble. To a sentient being, “trapped” within the arrow of time, there are many beginnings and endings, perceived within the scope of one’s life. At times it can be hard to remember that one’s own beginning and ending, one’s period of time is but one tiny thread in the pattern that is matter and movement. We all acknowledge the beginning of our experience in this life, just as we all anticipate the finalization of it. Collectively, our human experience accounts for a fraction of a portion of the whole, yet to each individual it is the world. . .

The old man thinks about these things as he walks along the moss lined path. Beads of moisture cling to the soft carpet of moss, glittering with the muted light of the sun through the clouds like little pearls of brilliance. His short journey down this trail is simply another conglomeration of matter moving in space, colliding with other particles and bits of matter, obeying the universal “laws” that govern this physical universe for the time being. As he thinks this last thought he chuckles to himself. . . laws are such a human concept.

For whatever reason, we as a species feel the need to break our surroundings down into categories. We group them into a neatly ordered system, telling ourselves that this is how things really are. We convince ourselves that order really has come from chaos and that we have the capacity to identify this order, to name it. We nudge our friend, point, and say, “look! Here I have found order! I have named it and thus made it so. Enjoy it with me”. We all do this and we all reinforce each other’s view of reality.
“Why yes, you filed that group of particles under the ‘tree’ folder? Good. As did I.”
“Certainly it is fortunate, then, that you and I both possess similarly grouped particles that allow us to take in waves of light in the same manner, so that we are both able to perceive that particular grouping of particles as a ‘tree’, wouldn’t you say?”
“But of course.”
“And, if I may continue, is it not just as equally fortunate that we both have on our bodies (which, let us not forget, are also just groups of particles that happen to have bonded together in a way that allows us to control their movement to a degree, with another group of particles, our brain) two appendages that are arranged specifically to pick up sound waves, as they travel through the air bumping into particle after particle?”
“Absolutely!”
“And furthermore, isn’t it odd that people strap metal spikes to their feet and hands and find enjoyment in the scaling of frozen water?”
“Oh! Most definitely! Leave it to a human to think it is a good idea to go up a waterfall, a process that is dreadfully slow and tedious, only to be able to get to the top and look down and say to themselves (or their fellow climbers), ‘but look, I have scaled the frozen waterfall and now I can sit at the top and talk about how I have scaled the frozen waterfall’, before they climb back down.”
“Well said!”
“Thank you.”
“What do you think about the fact that we are really just brains floating in space, making up all these movements and sensations and perceiving them at the same time?”
“I think that you are mad if you believe that.”
“Define mad.”
“Define it by the colloquial meaning? Or my own.”
“Does it matter?”
“Colloquially, yes, personally, no.”
“I think that you, my friend, are the mad one.”
“Why thank you, I am flattered. Just don’t tell anyone else, because they all think that it means something other than I do.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”

And so on and so forth.

The old man looks up and checks his surroundings, making sure that no one had heard him having a conversation with himself, before realizing that he was alone, save for the trees. Had they been listening? Hard to say. . . They don’t look like it, currently, but then again, now they are just swaying with the wind.

Hmm. . .

It’s late in the afternoon, but you wouldn’t know it. The day’s light is the same as it was earlier this morning when the old man woke up. A low cloud hangs near the top of the trees, bathing everything in the forest in a dampness that seems to cling to the very air itself. The man’s face is glistening with the moisture as he walks along the trail. He is a part of the forest. . .

Down below him a small river winds it’s way through the trees, following the direction of the path that he is on. . . or maybe the path that he is on follows the river. Things like this don’t matter much to him. . .

The water flowing in the river is clear and it’s easy to see the smooth river rocks beneath. In the shallower sections, near the bank, where the water slows down for a bit and takes a break to lap up onto the pebbles of the shore, the river has a gentle blueish tint to it. As the depth increases, near the belly of the river, where the water flows strong and swift, it glows emerald. The old man has always liked this, although he’s not sure why. Perhaps it’s the shade of green that strikes his fancy, or perhaps it’s the clarity of the water, even here where it’s deep. Or maybe it’s because the patches of green speak to him of something other than the river, something older and deeper.

He stops along the trail to lean against a tree trunk, not minding the rough feel of the bark on his shoulder blade, gazing down towards the water, mesmerized by it’s hue. Where the river glows green it seems to almost throb with energy, with the heartbeat of the land, a remainder of the power and age of the natural world. To his eyes the emerald is the blood, the life of this world, and he is only lucky enough to catch a glimpse of it here and there where the river cuts deep enough to reveal it.

Eventually he continues on, as does the river.

He has been out here for a long time now. . . years. He doesn’t remember much of his previous life, but perhaps that is because he doesn’t think much about it.