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There’s lots of those friendly people
They’re showing me ways to go
And I never want to lose their inspiration

Time for a cool change
I know that it’s time for a cool change
Now that my life is so pre-arranged
I know that it’s time for a cool change

(From “Cool Change” by the Little River Band)

I won’t be writing posts or answering emails for the next week or so. The Yellow VFR and I will be spending some quality time in the mountains, leaning hard to the left or right on some two-laned backroad, focused intently on what’s around the bend, looking to recapture some of the sanity that’s been slowly seeping away as I’ve lived my monotonous, necessary pattern of life.

The caution light on my sanity gauge came on months ago, and I’ve been running on fumes now for much longer than I should. (Some would say I’m bone dry.) But I’m convinced that there are latent stores of it floating in the air on those roads through the hollows and over the ridges, just as there are on the turn rows of cotton fields on cool October nights, out in the woods on still winter mornings, or sailing on the cool and bright clear water.

There are so many “modern” people living only for the next distraction, the next material gain or social connection, spinning faster and faster, people who fear that if they turn off the cell phone, the computer, the iPod and the TV and sit still for just five minutes, the entire universe may disappear. They miss the secret that it’s in those five minutes of quiet focus, of un-distraction, that life’s music can be heard, and its rhythm brings the peace which overcomes the anxieties we work so hard to distract ourselves from.

I’ll have my journal (the analog kind, a spiral notebook and pen) and at least one of my cameras with me on the trip, but only to write or click when convenient- little markers to jog my memory in the future, or at least to document that I really was there. I learned long ago that you can ride, or you can take pictures. I prefer to ride.

The essence of these rides lies in what can’t be captured on film or paper: the exhilaration of being singularly focused on the present moment for hours on end as the valleys and the cliffs and the trees and the critters whiz by; the physical fatigue and weariness of 14 hours of nonstop physical exertion and the blessed sleep afterwards which no pill could match; the chilling mornings and suffocating afternoons, the sweat and the sunburn, the thousands of different aromas on the wind which change with every passing mile, and the never-ending awe at the amazing views you see coming at you at an angle as you round each new curve.

The magic actually lies in the fact that what’s most important is what can’t be captured. You can’t bottle it up and take it home. You have to experience it in the moment. That je ne sais quois. Like the experience of seeing the Grand Canyon compared to only having seen a picture. It’s what Roger Waters described as that fleeting glimpse, that when you turn to look, it’s gone. Or as Miles Davis said about great music- “Don’t play the notes, play what’s between the notes.”

So bear with me till the next measure. For now, I’ll be between the notes.