Five is around the age where birthdays were the most important. You were old enough to realize what was going on and young enough that they were the event of the year. It was your special day, and you got cake. Hey, maybe even a party dress.
I’m taking some time right now to visit the burgeoning land of Starbucks and read over an email Jill sent me. (Jill was my youth pastor in high school, presently my good friend, and the person officiating (Tweet!) the ceremony.) It’s called “Service of Christian Marriage With Options” and lists choices for traditional declarations of intent, relinquishments, vows, and exchanges of rings. In true five-year-old-birthday-party fashion, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to the hats and kazoos of the reception than to the important parts.
I’ve been thinking about what you can honestly promise someone in a situation like this. Promise too little and you absolutely depress the pants off people. Promise too much and I’ll be retching on the altar (or in my seat if it’s you getting married).
Kevyn Stokes, reputable source and fellow Westovarian, told me that Whitworth professor Rob Clark said the following about marriage:
You can’t promise that you’re going to like ‘em. You can’t control that. You can only promise things that are in your control, and the only thing you can control is that you’ll be there.
“I’m not usually that impressed by him, but I was like, ‘Way to go, Rob.’” Kevyn said in reflection.
I promise I won’t make you go to the dentist’s by yourself, and I will commiserate when you get speeding tickets. I’ll be present with you whether I like it or not.
Each of the options in Jill’s email mentions love. There’s that problem of love. Annie said to me one day in a fit of epiphany, “I don’t even really know what love is.” Pop-Christian culture wants to simplify love—love is a choice—which stinks of a homosexuality rebuttal to me. Hallmark wants to make some bucks off it. Regular pop culture wants to mystify romantic love and elevate it to the status of destiny and life purpose. And biology traces it to our hormones and our sense of smell.
And I can’t help thinking getting married will feel like turning five. I’ll wake up on my birthday being five-years old, but I’ll feel a lot like I did when I was four years old. Not any different, actually. I won’t feel married (kabloomers). I won’t be any less selfish or any more loving than I am now. I won’t be any better at sharing my living space or being helpful. And I’ll still be just as pointlessly competitive. But I hope by the time I turn six years old or twenty years old, I’ll have figured out how to be five.
7.24.2010
The Big West by Bicycle
Well she's chuggin down the track, chuggaluggin down the track. -Jalan Crossland
I went on the fourteenth anniversary ride of the Tour De Wyoming last week. They've never covered the same area twice on this tour, meaning that 13 areas were more appealing than our route. We covered southwest Wyoming, southeast Idaho, and northeast Utah. We rode 350 strong into towns as big as Kemmerer (home of the first JC Penney, the locals won't hesitate to tell you) with 2600 people and as small as Garden City, 400, and Cokeville, 500, to stay the night. They sell Pepsi products in Cokeville, incidentally.
Bike tours, as far as I know, create an interesting social atmosphere not unlike church camp for adults. Some people sleep in tents and some in the gyms of the schools we camp at. The average age was about 50. I couldn't tell most people apart. They were primarily skinny, gray-haired, and wearing helmets, sunglasses, and brightly-colored spandex. At one rest stop I fumbled my Gatorade all over some lady, and I'm not sure if I saw her again or not.
One day we had such a bad crosswind that my mom complained about snot coming out of her left nostril and hitting her right eye.
Muscularily the 370 miles were taxing, but the worst part about riding that far was the "saddle sores" a.k.a. how much that damn bike seat hurt your crotch. (I also had troubles getting my leg over the top of my bike frame. I grabbed my foot in order to help it over for a couple of days.)
One of my compatriots (to be remained annonymous in order to restore some of her privacy) had such bad saddle sores that she could only ride the first three days. The last three she rode the sag wagon. To sag: v. to ride in a car, to be compared to an old woman's breasts. In our small bike community, news like this gets around. It's difficult to find things to talk about in the dinner line. Some staples were the Tour de France, the ride just completed, the ride coming up tomorrow, and saddle sores. These lovely well-meaning strangers would ask my compatriot how her crotch was doing. One man gave her some balm for chaffing and some other balm for bruising. "Is it like an open wound?" He asked her, "because if it is you probably shouldn't use the bruise balm."
She told us later that it was probably the only time that when a stranger broatched the subject of her nether regions, he would not only not get slapped, but would be thanked profusely. She's an introvert, and I think the whole experience was a bit much.
And I actually found myself sad on that last day. No more waking up at 5 a.m. in the dark to pack up the tent and stand in breakfasts lines (these towns had no notion of the meaning of haste) to ride 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 miles in the middle of nowhere. No more looking at road kill, skunks mostly, or cruising down empty hills. No more looking up (ouch, my neck!) to see the bobbing silhouettes of my fellow cyclists somewhere down the road. No more being caked with aspalht dust or burned by the sun.
And I dream of a trailer in Bolser, Wyoming with tires on the roof, dear. And you by my side. And we can pitch horse shoes and stray cats on Sunday. Yeah, we can have hot wings and bourbon for breakfast. Ah, we can watch Flinstones and draw unemployment. Yes, I dream of Bosler when I close my eyes.
I went on the fourteenth anniversary ride of the Tour De Wyoming last week. They've never covered the same area twice on this tour, meaning that 13 areas were more appealing than our route. We covered southwest Wyoming, southeast Idaho, and northeast Utah. We rode 350 strong into towns as big as Kemmerer (home of the first JC Penney, the locals won't hesitate to tell you) with 2600 people and as small as Garden City, 400, and Cokeville, 500, to stay the night. They sell Pepsi products in Cokeville, incidentally.
Bike tours, as far as I know, create an interesting social atmosphere not unlike church camp for adults. Some people sleep in tents and some in the gyms of the schools we camp at. The average age was about 50. I couldn't tell most people apart. They were primarily skinny, gray-haired, and wearing helmets, sunglasses, and brightly-colored spandex. At one rest stop I fumbled my Gatorade all over some lady, and I'm not sure if I saw her again or not.
One day we had such a bad crosswind that my mom complained about snot coming out of her left nostril and hitting her right eye.
Muscularily the 370 miles were taxing, but the worst part about riding that far was the "saddle sores" a.k.a. how much that damn bike seat hurt your crotch. (I also had troubles getting my leg over the top of my bike frame. I grabbed my foot in order to help it over for a couple of days.)
One of my compatriots (to be remained annonymous in order to restore some of her privacy) had such bad saddle sores that she could only ride the first three days. The last three she rode the sag wagon. To sag: v. to ride in a car, to be compared to an old woman's breasts. In our small bike community, news like this gets around. It's difficult to find things to talk about in the dinner line. Some staples were the Tour de France, the ride just completed, the ride coming up tomorrow, and saddle sores. These lovely well-meaning strangers would ask my compatriot how her crotch was doing. One man gave her some balm for chaffing and some other balm for bruising. "Is it like an open wound?" He asked her, "because if it is you probably shouldn't use the bruise balm."
She told us later that it was probably the only time that when a stranger broatched the subject of her nether regions, he would not only not get slapped, but would be thanked profusely. She's an introvert, and I think the whole experience was a bit much.
And I actually found myself sad on that last day. No more waking up at 5 a.m. in the dark to pack up the tent and stand in breakfasts lines (these towns had no notion of the meaning of haste) to ride 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 miles in the middle of nowhere. No more looking at road kill, skunks mostly, or cruising down empty hills. No more looking up (ouch, my neck!) to see the bobbing silhouettes of my fellow cyclists somewhere down the road. No more being caked with aspalht dust or burned by the sun.
And I dream of a trailer in Bolser, Wyoming with tires on the roof, dear. And you by my side. And we can pitch horse shoes and stray cats on Sunday. Yeah, we can have hot wings and bourbon for breakfast. Ah, we can watch Flinstones and draw unemployment. Yes, I dream of Bosler when I close my eyes.
7.17.2010
Wish Me Luck
I’m leaving today for a week-long bike trip across Wyoming. I’m afraid the only thing I’ll be thinking this next week is that my butt hurts. Pedal, butt hurts, pedal, butt hurts. The whole thing sounded like a lot more fun a couple months ago when the plan was to be in GREAT SHAPE.
On the way to Fort Collins yesterday (where I’m calling from), Mom and Terry told stories from previous cycling trips. In Iowa, they had to shower in the state fair sheep barn. There were no sheep in it at the time. Terry said it was a huge building, bigger than a gymnasium, and had black trash bags hung across the middle to separate the men from the women. You walked in and there was this crowd of naked women with intense bike tan lines. There were PVC pipes hanging down with little holes in them providing the water. And then a woman with a ghost-buster pack came through spraying for mosquitoes. “It looked like Auschwitz,” Terry said.
They also talked about tornado-grade storms, Vaseline use, and getting lost. They told me that they’d put down the tent each morning if my cousin, Becky, and I ran to get in the coffee truck line each morning.
At least there’s coffee.
On the way to Fort Collins yesterday (where I’m calling from), Mom and Terry told stories from previous cycling trips. In Iowa, they had to shower in the state fair sheep barn. There were no sheep in it at the time. Terry said it was a huge building, bigger than a gymnasium, and had black trash bags hung across the middle to separate the men from the women. You walked in and there was this crowd of naked women with intense bike tan lines. There were PVC pipes hanging down with little holes in them providing the water. And then a woman with a ghost-buster pack came through spraying for mosquitoes. “It looked like Auschwitz,” Terry said.
They also talked about tornado-grade storms, Vaseline use, and getting lost. They told me that they’d put down the tent each morning if my cousin, Becky, and I ran to get in the coffee truck line each morning.
At least there’s coffee.
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