![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/030423-LIT1_sanitized-e1678567064902.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSocotra House Note: The formal re-telling of Marlow’s Detour 1.0 was complete yesterday with a ride back home in Fairfax, VA on the Couty Parkway. The rigors of nearly 10,000 miles on two wheels, coast-to-coast is a prelude to an epic “Four Corners” ride around the corners of the continuous States. It was written in the sense of adventure as it occurred, which only now has an immediacy of a way of life at an apex. Fossil fuel-powered, it was an amalgamation of individual freedom. It was empowered by the American Road across a vast continent optimized for motion at individual discretion. Marlow wrote this morning to say that the following thoughts might be raw and impassioned by the immersion of the “then road” and the current perspective of our times. “Detour 2.0” may integrate them in different manner, but this current-time collection of thoughts focused by the headlights of the American Road are now protected by an “UNSANITIZED” label for which only independent contract personnel can be held accountable.<\/p>\n
– Vic<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Detour Version 1.0<\/strong> Based on the hunches of utter strangers, they surmised that we Men in Black were voyaging well into our country\u2019s hidden unknown side spaces seeing these places\u2019 phantoms and looming darknesses but not really too afraid of them. So, they approached us.<\/p>\n We became erstwhile pilgrimage route signposts for those who felt too ——<\/p>\n There is an extravagance which expresses itself on the road. So long as our roads were asphalt black and curvy, not endlessly guard railed, and empty and dry, we were rich.<\/p>\n Our tires never wanted air, our engines, save for the periods of my balky battery, had the good habit of starting each morning at the first turn of the ignition switch: a good habit to force these engines over the nine plus atmospheres of their compression.<\/p>\n Skittish looking due to the inability of their two wheels to support their standing upright on their own, motorcycles come with a touch of blood in them — they are better than all the four-legged riding animals on earth, because of their required logical extensions of our senses and faculties, and the hint, no — the provocation, to excess conferred by their unrelenting smooth power.<\/p>\n ——<\/p>\n Early on as we started out in April and late as this trip\u2019s final days in May in America\u2019s pivotal year 2001 approached, now and then like tiny arrows, insects hit our cheeks. At times a heavier body — a grasshopper or a locust perhaps — would crash into our cheeks, chin, or lips like a spent bullet, snapping our heads back. A glance at the speedometer: eighty-two. Our bikes were warmed up. We threw off the effects of the bug smash to briefly twist our throttles wide open, on the top of the rise in the road, swooping as if flying across the coming dip: our weighty machines launching themselves like projectiles sometimes landing with a small lurch.<\/p>\n Okay, Mother Nature, we got you. Right back atcha.<\/p>\n ——-<\/p>\n X-country road trip to somewhere . . .<\/p>\n We\u2019re on a one-way motorway Maybe soon we\u2019ll become a new day rising ——-<\/p>\n Is our trip done? As long as we have breath, dreaming and planning are underway for the next one.<\/p>\n ———<\/p>\n As Detour 1.0 came to its concluding segments, our faces showed no sadness. There was great age in them. We felt suddenly the distance we had travelled and the amount we had lived and experienced. We had a moment of cohesion, a moment of affection and union, which drew us together like small flame flickers against all the senseless nihilism of our approaching DC hometown.<\/p>\n Hometown of a nation?<\/p>\n DC is such a cruel city, but it is a lovely one; a savage city, yet it has such southern tenderness; a bitter, harsh, and violent Armageddon safe catacomb of stone and steel and tunneled rock, slashed savagely with unhealthy fluorescent blue light, and roaring, combat centers managing the fighting of constant ceaseless wars of men and of machinery. To the uninitiated innocent, it appears so sweetly and so delicately full of warmth, of passion, and of love, as it is full of political intrigue and hateful grasping at rock bottom.<\/p>\n We comfort ourselves by believing when bad things happen in DC that they are due to madness. It is very comforting to believe that leaders who do terrible things are, in fact, insane. That way, all we have to do is make sure we don’t put psychopaths in high places, and we’ve got the problem solved. Oopsies.<\/p>\n We who toiled there or lived on its outskirts have seen it naked, with its guards down. We know, not just sense, how the current hollow pyramid of its false social structure was erected and sustained upon a base of its citizen\u2019s sacrificial blood and sweat and agony. Its privilege and their truth could never lie down together. We know how its brokers get through their days — holding up solid gold coins close enough to their eyes so as to blot out the truth-revealing sun itself. This coinage also blocks the effects of stronger, deeper tides and currents running throughout America. Their glamorous beltway lives course the dark depths we the sun loving people would mistakenly like to sound.<\/p>\n DC, hometown of a nation? The nation\u2019s antithesis, for sure. You can\u2019t go back to your real home, and DC is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. When we think it and its work are sick, they tell us \u201cit’s all in your minds.\u201d<\/p>\n It is without cynicism, that we road riders after a day or two of our voyages\u2019 ends stand upon some metaphorical hill above DC, not saying \u201cThe town is near\u201d but turn our eyes towards distant rolling hills that might lead us anew to a homeward bound path.<\/p>\n Yes, it\u2019s an angelic desire of dark romanticism \u2013 an unlimited ————— And in response to my 1950s inner child in the car\u2019s back seat, \u201cNo, if we\u2019re lucky, we are never there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps this is America\u2019s strange paradox — that we are fixed and certain only when we are in movement. At any rate, that is how it seemed to us riders who were never fully assured of purpose when we were headed somewhere on two wheels. We never had the sense of home so much as when we felt that we were going there. It was only when we got there that a restless homelessness might begin once again.<\/p>\n ————–<\/p>\n Ending thought:<\/p>\n Road Revelation #3 (#2 was in Day 4): The unchanging weather of man\u2019s life is not love but loneliness. Love is its rare and precious flower. Sometimes it is a riotously colored flower bed that gives us limitless life and joy, that breaches the dark walls of all our loneliness and restores us to life and companionship. But sometimes our only love is just some cut flowers atop our caskets.<\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2023 From My Aisle Seat Socotra House Note: The formal re-telling of Marlow’s Detour 1.0 was complete yesterday with a ride back home in Fairfax, VA on the Couty Parkway. The rigors of nearly 10,000 miles on two wheels, coast-to-coast is a prelude to an epic “Four Corners” ride around the corners of the continuous States. It was written in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-island-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25688"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25696,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25688\/revisions\/25696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nRandom Postscripts<\/strong>
\n(brain bug-smashings)<\/strong>
\n04 March 2023<\/p>\n
\nmuch of their dreary mortality clinging to them, having wanted desperately to live and still did. At times there was impossible anguish and regret for all the things they had not done, of all the drudge they had to do. Our presence and brief sharings made them feel a window might have been opened for them on life they had not considered before. To this day we hope to God they got a chance at these journeyings to become not so much deeper and wiser but simpler and peaceful when seeing all our country\u2019s strangeness and the glory and the power of its life, places, and people.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/030423-LIT2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nWe\u2019re just riding and riding away
\nThen follow a route back home
\nWe\u2019re road lamps shining
\nNot a wild lights blinding bright
\nMostly flickering off and on
\nYaaaaah . . . .
\nTimes like these we started to live
\nTimes like these that give and give
\nTimes like these we started to live
\nWe craved times like these over and over<\/p>\n
\nA brand new sky
\nTo hang the stars upon the night
\nNo longer are we chopped and divided
\nAbout staying or running away
\nAnd leave all these times behind?
\nNaaaaah . . . .
\nTimes like these we started to live again
\nTimes like these that give and give again
\nTimes like these we started to live again
\nWe craved times like these time and time again<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/030423-LIT3-e1678567112956.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\ndrunkenness drawing us into the polar and blue sapphire world of an oceanic earth\u2019s ancient mariners.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/030423-LIT4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nwww.vicsocotra.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"