Finding Balance (Again) on the Road

The picture of Jacob Marley’s ghost in Dicken's A Christmas Carol dragging along a ponderous collection of chains and metal boxes always flashes in my head when a week has been abnormally intense. Riding early Saturday morning I could almost hear the clanging and crashing of metal on the highway as the ride steadily stripped away everything that was unimportant until I found myself standing along a quiet, empty road listening to the birds and knowing again what is important and what is noise.

The specific details don’t matter. Everyone gathers their own chains and weights. I’m grateful for the perspective that a ride can deliver. Yesterday morning was a fine day to ride despite the huge temperature change from 45F when I departed to 77F when I pulled back into the driveway. Forced to choose a preference I lean towards the colder air. This part of Pennsylvania has an exceptional collection of roads suitable for two-wheeled exploration. While many find thrills in a rapid consumption of miles with lots of wearing down of the sides of the tires I tend to find thrills in what I see. Stopped along the road near Spruce Creek I took a few moments to look in the water for trout. Only a few miles upstream is the exclusive Spruce Creek Rod and Gun Club, a fishing site called by some the best trout fishing in the eastern United States.

While I generally don’t push the Vespa hard on the road there are lots of places that it’s hard to resist especially considering how little traffic there is on the road. Deer are always a hazard but on this day I only saw a few wild turkeys.

I don’t even know the name of this creek. A Pennsylvania Stream Map created by Professor Howard Higbee years ago still is the definitive resource for identification. Higbee was a professor and soil scientist and worked with our office to produce the original map. It is still for sale by the College of Ag Sciences for $19.95. Click HERE for more information.

No road is too small to explore. This one, Turnpike Road, was more like a long driveway than a road. I followed it along for miles until it turned to gravel and passed through a farm and into an Ag Security Area where I decided to turn around. The road did continue on over a hill and may have eventually run on to another paved road but I just wasn’t in the trespassing mood.

Find the Vespa. As the temperature hit 77F I decided it was time to head home and fix the lawn mower. Riding – lawn mover. I know, not everyone’s first choice but for me the right one. I got that puppy running and cutting grass with near perfect mental and emotional balance. *grin*

And today I’ll being wielding a shovel and rake with something approaching rapture. All thanks to a ride on the Vespa.

3 Prints Project: April 15, 2009

I'm behind schedule -- shooting, printing and posting.  Last week I shifted gears and borrow a 35mm Panorama Adapter for my Mamiya 7 and began shooting these long horizontal negatives.  There is something cinematic about the format that appeals to me.  Or maybe I just needed a break.  There hasn't been time to print or even shoot another roll of film.  My interest hasn't waned but projects coming due at work and the garden calling at home will probably interfere with the project for a couple weeks.

Maybe.  Who knows what tomorrow brings.  I do know that I have to buy more film.

A State of Mind

On the way home from work I was doing a bit of musing as I wandered around a farm field with my camera and was thinking about how I often come to be in places like this.

Dan Bateman, author of Musings of an Intrepid Commuter, recently wrote about the state of mind that riding can put you in – one decidedly different than that sitting behind the wheel of an automobile. I revisited the two paragraphs below a number of times. What Dan wrote soundly struck a chord and neatly sums up the magic of riding for me.

There's something about riding a motorcycle that puts us into a different state of mind than cagers. Sometimes that's bad. We're more likely to find ways to get into trouble, you know! On the other hand, or maybe just the other side of the same hand, I find myself so much more open to the world around me. I see more, feel more, and thus experience more, than when in a car. I find myself so much more willing to wander off the beaten path. The age old question. What's down there? Let's go find out. I'm not so likely to bother with it in a car or my truck. On a bike, in vivid contrast, I'm ready for adventure at a moment's notice.

I think most people who ride experience the same thing. Using a bike for regular transportation amplifies the effect. I spend a lot of time on a bike. So I also spend a lot of time in an open and inquisitive state of mind. It's become a regular trait of mine. Riding is a Zen-like journey. There's so much personal growth that comes as a result of, but not directly tied to, riding. Thus my journey Monday evening.

Musings of an Intrepid Commuter, April 9, 2009

Riding strips away a lot of the noise that builds through the day and can open the door to adventure. I’m not talking about the big, heroic rides across continents, but rather movement through a regular day, through the daily rituals of life. When I push the Vespa back onto its center stand it is almost always to look around. At nothing and everything. I feel the same way I did when I was a kid and everything seemed new and treasure is everywhere. I’m fortunate that I can ride regularly and enter this state of mind.

Dan talks about how a motorcycle makes him more willing to wander off the beaten path. I have to agree. I seldom wheel my Ford Ranger off the beaten path. The enclosed comfort in a modern vehicle makes those turns ponderous and difficult. Or more often just unimportant. I don’t often feel like a kid in my truck. I know it can be done because I used to prowl the Central Pennsylvania landscape in a truck with my view camera in tow. I would move slowly, just as I do on the scooter, and travel down every unmarked path searching for photographic treasure. But it was never easy and I always had to push past the slothful comfort of padded seats and stereophonic music. The Vespa appears in these pictures without any need to push.

Riding to work the next morning was a repeat of the previous evening. Another path, another opportunity to breathe in the world. They aren’t dramatic rides but they are opportunities to be present, something that is more difficult to achieve amidst the noise of daily living. 

I’ve been here before but each time I stop it’s the first time I’ve been here.

3 Prints Project: April 5, 2009

I have some catching up to do since I didn't post last week's images. I keep falling short on shooting, printing and posting. It is a challenge to balance everything and there are times I ask myself why I am doing this. Just when I think I'm nuts to invest the time and energy in the 3 Prints Project I seem to have an epiphany. It's too long to go into detail but I had another revelation. I see a path leading somewhere important so I will keep shooting.

My friend Gordon and I met at Saint's Cafe this morning to look at the week's work. Each time he hands me his contact sheets and prints I know I am in for a visual treat.

Gordon purchased a new (to him) Rolleiflex camera and had a test roll of film to show me. These waist-level cameras are amazing little machines once you get used to them. I left wanting one myself. For some years in the 1970s I used one of them a lot.

After some prodding Gordon has embarked on a series of "happy" pictures of his family. It sounds simple and easy but I know myself that I tend to be attracted to more emotionally intense images of people and for some reason reject the happy ones as cliche. Or something. I probably need to do this myself.

On to the pictures.

I continue to shoot near home. I have put aside any beliefs that I must seek out new or exotic locations. I find the familiar surroundings I travel through every day hold rich stories if I can pay attention. I walk past this willow tree almost every morning and it always seems a little different. I'll keep making pictures of it until I don't see something new. And then probably some more.

Our garden provides frequent subject matter -- during dog walks or morning explorations. As spring time progresses the place changes almost constantly.

I try and keep the Leica M6 handy for moments where the light changes for an instant like it did on this morning when sunlight streamed through a fog for a few moments.

More illuminated fog. The small rangefinder camera serves to make sketches and allows me to practice. A person wrote on a forum recently that compares what I am doing to a musician practicing scales. I am exercising my eye and my technique in preparation for a performance.

I like the metaphor.

This past week I have been shooting with the Mamiya 7 rangefinder camera. This shoots a larger negative and is a bit slower in operation. I've not warmed to the camera but there is an elegance to the prints made from the bigger negative.

I am fascinated by trees. I am another tree photographer. If I am diligent I can work up to rocks in streams.

Postcard: Stickless

Rain all day.  Decided while walking the dog that I wanted to ride.  Left early and meandered through town via Calder Alley.  The roads were unusually slick for some reason.  The circumstances didn't seem any different.  Maybe there is a lot more oil in town.

The weekend will bring damaging winds and slightly lower temperatures.  This is spring.

A View into a Gray World

Last Saturday morning I stepped outside into a gray world. Heavy clouds and remnants of a nighttime rain washed the color from the landscape leaving behind a quiet form of the world. This world requires less energy to embrace and is easier for me to process. It’s as if things have been distilled to their simplest forms and textures without all the noise and confusion that can appear in the color and shadows of postcard sunshine. The most ordinary places reveal their magic and a ride through familiar territory becomes new again. Moving along astride the Vespa in this world provides a special satisfaction.

On this morning my plan was a leisurely ride to breakfast in Bellefonte at the Café on the Park. A circuitous route would cover 20 miles and provide mostly empty roads and many opportunities to stop and look around. I’ve always felt riding was like flying. Not in a plane but if I could actually fly. The scooter exaggerates the effect because there is not much in front of your visual field to interfere with the fantasy like there is with a motorcycle. With earplugs stripping away most of the engine and wind noise it can be like a dream at times. A hyperfocus on the road that moves through an almost surreal landscape.

When I look at the Vespa through a wooded landscape I am reminded of how my wife Kim saw this first in her mind – what my riding would be like. How else could she have created my blog title, Scooter in the Sticks, without knowing?

If I have regrets on the road it is that I can’t keep riding. Pennsylvania has thousands of miles or rural roads that to me seem nothing short of spiritual pathways. For me. A place for slow and deliberate riding.

I’m often asked when I will get a motorcycle. I enjoy looking at motorcycles and find some of them enjoyable to ride. The Vespa GTS 250 strongly insists I make a choice. When I stopped beneath the underpass I was aware of the choice. Where did I want to live on the road? Did I want to slowly meander or eat up miles? The Vespa doesn’t preclude the high road but it does nudge me towards the slow one.

Just outside of Bellefonte I stopped to look at a cross at the corner of an old building. I assumed something bad happened here but could not imagine what. As I stood by the road with the camera the passing cyclists probably were wondering the same.

The Café on the Park. An unassuming place from the outside but unexpectedly elegant inside. These days I have to force myself to ride anywhere else when I am out for breakfast.

A pot of hot tea and my journal keep me occupied and involved in the ride. I have been participating in this kind of morning ritual (sans riding) since I was a teenager. One of the habits I haven’t had to give up.

Breakfast is always excellent. And I love getting fresh fruit. If I wasn’t so damn lazy I could have fresh fruit at home. But it seems overwhelming to slice things in the morning.

The ride home was different. I felt the pressure of the clock and the chores of the day. Riding onto Interstate 99 is a dramatic shift away from a slow ride. The Vespa can handle it. I can handle it. But I really wish I didn’t have to.