T-59: The Meaning of Matter

We are now less than two months out from our big trip.  There is still a lot to do, but we making progress on all the easy fronts.  The easiest front of all is focusing on the stuff side of this equation.  What will we take?  How will we carry it?  

I particularly focus on this, making lists, and making piles and sorting, arranging, and measuring the pile.  Wes is very happy to let me do this.  I approach these matters with a combination of relish, fixation, and sheepishness. 

Beckett's playwriting/choreography for Quad

The relish part:  part of this is just the simple joy of numbers.  I, unlike so many, understood completely Samuel Beckett’s nostrum, uttered by his irrational character Watt, “there is nothing so comforting as numbers.”  Watt spends endless time trying to count steps (12 or 13 or 14, depending on whether you count the risers or treads), or figuring out the number of combinations of moves that will allow him to moving his sucking stones throughout his pockets without repeating either stone or pocket. 

I am embarrassed to say I understand this.  Ever since I was a little girl, I have been using math to help me cope with excess time, or stress, or boredom.  I remember when I was about 10 or 11 figuring out that there were 10 reflector poles per mile.  I would then figure how many poles there would be on this trip.  I would then do fractions in my mind to pass the miles.   

I still do this.  Yes, I truly do count swimming laps by doing fractions: 1/72, 1/36, 1/24, 1/18, 5/72, 1/12….  I suppose this is a mild form of autism.  It occupies the mind without engaging either the emotions or the body.

I like data.  I keep records.  It makes me feel grounded.  It is clear, finite, fixed.  It is not confusing and changeable, like people are, or interpersonal communications are.  My life is full of people.  Each one is wonderfully different and amazing.  Each one learns differently.  Each one communicates differently.  Some are good at it.  Some are not.  Some say what they are thinking and feeling.  A whole lot don’t.  I find it work to negotiate all these changes all the time.  I am amazed and jealous of people, like my friend Janice, who flow through the tides of diversity and emotion, with such grace and empathy. 

I find quite challenging to be a constant source of output.  My natural state is being a receptor, who then likes to arrange and systematize (see above), but who doesn’t much like to talk about it.  I do not have that whatever- it- is, that allows people to tell the same story over and over to different people.  This makes me a truly rotten promoter.  I have seen my friends like Rich and Keith go from person to person, happily sharing the same information over  and over, seeding a room with information.   I become either embarrassed, bored, or exhausted attempting this useful task. 

For better or worse and probably both, I have a wonkish, writerly turn of mind.  I can spend hours in silence.  I am overly stimulated, and as a result, way too talky and hyped up, when I get around a group of people.  Most people think that blatherskite is me.  That is the me they experience.…but it is not the comfortable and peaceful me.  It is the nervous and anxious and overcompensating me.

So part of this trip is just respite.  There will be days and days of  focusing on the simple, concrete need to deal with physical reality.  We need to pack the bike.  Is the bike packed? Check. We need to make our camp.  Is the camp set up? Check.  There are beginning, middle, and ends to these tasks.

Many hours on the bike are spent in silence, just being.  The body is active, the mind is quiet and receptive, perceiving the ever-changing panorama.  I love having a bike computer and watching the numbers go by and doing my fractions.    The ambivalences and endless interpersonal communications, with the constant negotiations and misunderstandings which make up the reality of my daily life will stop for a while.  I will revel in the concrete and rest in the simple meaning of matter.