It was wet, and the road flat. A very long ride behind me, and as much or more yet to go. But the people in the cities made so many angels cry. Heaven dumped it all on this stretch of land. Not good to ride a bike in the wet and little visibility.
I took cover at a one-pump gas station in the middle of a grace-forsaken stretch of badland, waiting for the rain to stop. Because, as daddy Joe used to say, “Ride the Hog in the bog, nurse the itch between your big toes.”
Daddy Joe was the poet in the motorbike club, the family who raised me after Sally died. I never had the itch between my big toes, and by the sounds of it, I don’t want it. Sweet memories, my family. A blessed little girl I was, truly. I had more daddies than any kid in town. Been front and back on big bikes since I could walk. Can fix anything with two wheels. It’s a good living.
The old timer at the gas station took his coke bottle back. “Now you be careful out there, missy,” he says as he looked in my face to see if I’m taking him seriously.
“You betcha, sir,” I nodded, and smiled reassuringly back at him as I rigged up to leave.
I set out again through the grace-forsaken badland. It was muggy. Heading for New Mexico with hopes for new beginnings.
An hour in, I hit another cloud burst. Stopping roadside for a pee, waiting for the torrent to pass. Well, that’s when the lightning hit my Blockhead, 6-feet away, right in front of me on my haunches.
When I came to there was no rain, no Block, only roadside gravel, my leathers around my ankles, my jaw hurt, body aching. On my side, struggling to get my pants up, I noticed a man’s boots close by. The boots faced away from me. He spoke. “Say if you need a hand to get up, lady.”
My body ached from toenails to crown and my balance wonky. Couldn’t prop myself up. I was not in good shape. “Please,” is what I tried to say, but I don’t know what came out.
He smelled of tobacco and man, just like all my daddies. Picked me up like a doll and lay me down on the tailgate of his Chevy, and pulled my pants up and undid the chaps. I could get the zipper.
In a while, I sat up and took in a roadside scene, a place, I had never seen in my life. And the old man, long grey beard, brown skin, must be in his seventies, I had never seen in my life.
I recall I had a bike. I don’t see it. Frantic sets in; I ask, “Mm, mm,” but my mouth was so dry, lips like leather, jaw stiff, and my tongue hurt like a bitch, a taste of iron, must be blood.
His old voice says, “Your Block. Called the boys; took it to the farm. Will fix it for you. We should get to a hospital; you don’t look so good.”
The “H” word did the trick. Sally died because of the hospital. And both doctors I had ever seen in my life wanted to put me in a foster home. Now, twenty years later, still don’t trust anyone from there.
Adrenaline made me get off that tailgate and stand on my own feet. “Cigarette please,” I indicated more than say, but my speech was getting better.
“Name’s Kris, short for Krishna,” he says while setting out the makings to roll me one. He licked the paper, lit it with an old brass zippo, leaned over and put the cigarette in my mouth. That was what my body needed!
“Walk around the truck,” he says, showing with his thick farmer’s finger a circle.
My knees were still too wobbly for that. But I knew what he was up to. If I couldn’t, he would take me to hospital. I sized up the route. Loading up a few deep puffs of real-girl medicine in my lungs; notwithstanding my underwear all twisted, I walked like a ramp model.
Upon my return to the tailgate, uncle Kris had two cups of lukewarm coffee from his flask. “Drink both,” says he. Like all the good men in my life, “few words are better words,” their philosophy.
“And your name, miss?” he asks with words and upping his bushy eyebrows, watching me closely. He wanted me to speak and test my wherewithal. I get that.
I started to tell him my name, then… I didn’t know my name. My mind spun. What the hell. I know I have a bike, a Block. Bessie. I remember childhood people, but no name. Nothing after school. It was blank in there where my name and my town and…what else? And this place…? Where is it?
“Kris, I don’t know who I am,” I says with panic in my voice and eyes. “Where do I come from? I dont know where am I going? Why am I here? And what is my path? Is it this way or that way? Where do I belong? … What is my purpose? … What do I do to exist? I know nothing,” I stammer, my mind staring into the abyss. And I got scared.
That was when a wooze came on, I fell forwards onto uncle Krishna’s chest. His smell and his old-man hard body, a source of comfort, of raw and authentic goodness. He put a powerful hand on my hair and gently stroked a lullaby; and I heard the spirit of Krishna answer the questions deep inside me, as my brain-mind took a much needed leave of absence.
From deep within his chest, upon which I lay my head, from the spirit in his heart, I heard the low-toned booming voice answer my questions, “In the hallowed halls of life’s great mysteries, the most profound questions as you asked, lie draped in shadow, rarely summoned into the light of inquiry.
So simple yet so profound, your questions. Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? What is my purpose? What is the meaning of all this? And what is my path? When at last these questions are given voice, an eerie silence descends, for few indeed possess the wisdom to tender an answer.
Prepare yourself, dear friend, who has traveled upon a journey through the misty veil of spiritual traditions, each grasping at straws of truth, yet none firmly rooted in the bedrock of philosophical certitude. But now, within an hour of mystic flowing, you shall encounter a wisdom so rarified, so potent, that it shall cleave asunder the haze of confusion, and ignite within you a spark of divine understanding.
This nectar of insight is not for the faint of heart nor the frivolous mind. It is the province of old souls, those intrepid wayfarers upon the Path who have entrusted the helm of their being to the able stewardship of their higher selves, their spirit selves.
Steel yourself for an odyssey of transformation, as the coming words reshape the contours of your mind, stir the depths of your soul, and attune the frequency of your spirit to the eternal vibrations of truth. The hour is nigh to unravel the awe-inspiring energy network of existence, to apprehend your place within the cosmic drama, and to fathom the sublime purpose that animates your every breath.
Seize this moment. Shed the chrysalis of your former self. Emerge, radiant and renewed, into the light of understanding. And should you find yourself, at journey’s end, marveling at the vistas of wisdom that have unfurled before you, we bid you, tarry a while longer and sojourn with us, we have much light to cast on all too many who live seeking.