A 27km New Zealand Bike Ride

Biking from Twizel, Mackenzie Country, New Zealand. The air is so crisp that you say your teeth are somewhat sensitive. Your fingers like little salami sticks pulled out of the freezer. The tips of the thumbs for some reason, more numb than the rest.

Cold, but damn we’re alive!

Keep your eyes on the track. Make sure you don’t end up in the tussock grasses. Look up over there at those snow-topped mountains, but not for too long otherwise you’ll end up with grazed knees! We dont want to get the first aid kit out of the bag now do we?

Keep smiling. The legs are throbbing after that incline you just peddled up. Nearly at Lake Pukaki now.

You haven’t seen the lake nor the Alps for more that ten years. How does it look? How does it compare with how you remembered it? You smile again, the genuine kind of smile. “Amazing, its overwhelming” are the words you use.

By golly, working hard and biking up here made it that much more rewarding!

 

 

 

Her Cashmere Coat

It stuck to her, to her form, in all the ways you wouldn’t expect a cashmere coat doing so. Following the lines that would not usually be followed. Along the shoulder blades and covering the collarbones, the top button fixing tight to her chin.

She looked at me impishly, with the chilled wind blowing through the strands of her fringe. With a posture slightly cowered forward as if she were cuddling a hot water bottle onto her belly while standing.

Turning and leaving footprints in the snow, she left little size seven boot marks.

That was the first memory I have of her, of the one that means the most.

My Queen

My queen sitting on her throne, head down, in a foreign place.

Life can’t be that hard being a queen.

Like all queens before her, stubborn and brave, she dreams

She rules from a distance, behind those ‘bangs’ which fall on her face as yellow drop-down curtains.

With fine lines under her bum, the fingerprints of her thighs. And baby toes so gooey, wriggling when touched.

Light is easy to find in her cloudy eyes.

She learns to see in herself what he sees.

Her festering wounds

She dipped her toes in the water, but ran away after realising it was cold.

Her gasps,

Another idealization of love, leaving her and disappearing,

Still blinded to her own festering wounds.

An art of zen

Becoming zen, more zenned out.

That illusion.

 

No find behind a door waiting to be unlocked.

No elusive shrine that you discover after staring at the ceiling long enough.

 

It’s not an answer.

It’s not a pathway.

It’s not a space.

Nor a trance.

 

It’s nothing but you.

 

The you that your heart beats for.

The you that scratches an itch.

The you that smiles in such a special way.

And the you that forgives you.

Careful What You Wish For

Easy now.
You can be fragile.
Lots of people break.
Shatter.
Pieces so small they never put them back together.
Fragmented souls.
Lost.
Peace is abound.
But so fickle to hold.
The far shore for which you sail.
The setting sun.
The dusk of your days.
Sunsets are beautiful.
But they are the end.
Ends have little certainty.
Except that they are not before a beginning.
Perhaps this is yours.
This moment.
This second.
I doubt it.
But every self-help book tells you that you must believe it is.
I hate self-help books.
Is believing enough.
Is knowing un-required.
Is knowing a luxury.
One that life cannot afford you.
Or can you not afford it.
Given the choice.
No one chooses certainty.
Except the man who lives in regret.
Choices ruin your life.
But you don’t have one without them.
Don’t break yourself over ensuring you always get one.

The secret moment

When blowing up a balloon, excitement running rampant.

“I can’t wait to play ping-pong with it” she says.

“I’m giving mine to my mother when she picks me up,” another second grader exclaims muttering.

Time goes by blowing, with breathlessness and dizziness defeated by strict perseverance.

Exerted, jaws aching.

Eyes pressurized, like that of the balloons ever expanding.

Both balloons pop.

Faces splashed with its own slobber.

Surprise reflexes immediately all encompassing.

On the verge of tears from freight.

They recollect and acknowledge the other.

They succumb to laughter.

And looking into each others eyes, knowing this is their secret to keep.

 

 

*I would like to acknowledge that the beautiful image is not my own.

The Divine War

And the angels fought, they fought for god.

They fought for the ideals and the pureness they saw within themselves.

They fought for the goodness they sought to water the world with.

Be the hero

The Oracle in The Matrix hands Neo a cookie after insinuating that a decision will be forced upon him. A situation will be imposed on him in which he will need to take action, to make a decision. A decision that will impact upon the outcome of this hero, the outcome of this hero’s world. A decision that extends so much further past the extent of the hero’s insecurities, vulnerabilities and misfortune. A decision that transcends the hero himself.

I sit watching birds fly around me. Contemplating what I’d use wings for if I had them.

Simply put, the hero sacrifices, the hero uses wings to fly towards his demons. Facing the mirror that reflects himself to himself, his purest of adversities and self-doubt. This hero attempts to save Morpheus, regardless of whether he understands and has learned all he could have about the limitless Matrix beforehand.

The hero learns that he is required to act regardless of whether he has the understanding to do so.

The hero learns that understanding the repercussions of any action they take is out of their grasp. Th hero learns that attempting to understand these repercussions leaves an individual hopeless, flailing in a dark void that can only imprison, serving to offer only endless questions to unsolved answers.

In order to live in reality, action needs to be taken. To dissolve fear Neo needed to risk losing against Agent Smith. One needs to risk losing and exposing oneself to further fear. The type of fear that can make you nauseous at the ponder of it. The type if fear that doesn’t ring the doorbell before entering.

Inevitably, there is always a Morpheus that needs to be saved, there are always fears to overcome. Use your wings for heroic purposes.