Coming Home
by Jo
Burt
Back in the front room
after a week when I'd been soaked, baked, frozen, frightened, exilerated, woken
sleepless, made to giggle like a simpleton, destroyed, pushed to within an inch
of tears and got strong again to pedal across an entire mountain-range. Home
now and having to do the mundane things, go to the shops, get food, wash clothes,
answer correspondence, work, feed the cat. Feels boring. More than boring -
not even necessary. There's a beautiful selfishness and a wonderful simplicity
to getting a body and bike from one place to the other. Nothing to worry about
but muttering to the top of the next hill, surviving the descent, going strong
on the bits in-between, and making sure you get enough fuel inside to keep going.
The single-minded endurance of the day and the recovery of sleep. Nothing else
mattered, no bills, no work, no sheeple, no waiting in a queue, no mundane,
just the now, just the goal. Nothing to do with the tickle of the adrenalin
rush or the junkie-fix of experience, more the feeling that
the day had a purpose, the need to get somewhere. Wonderful in a floaty life
to actually do something, not wander along without motive, the feeling of actually
completing. Just got back and want to be off again, plan the next big thing,
no matter where, just somewhere arbitary that has to be reached, some false
direction. But the cat giving me a "Welcome home Dad" cuddle was nice.
© Jo Burt
Outcast,
issue 8