Bike Ride and Standing at a Risen River Bank

Hey friends.

Having had a chance to see a bit of our region from the back of a neat motorbike, trips courtesy of the European Biker (read the blog post about the people I've met), I've come to think of a few more things.

I'm always thinking, apparently, and it's both frustrating and enlightening.

I love taking bike trips with him. He's a great friend to talk to about life. Yesterday, we absconded across state lines and took a trip through Honesdale to Narrowsburg, and then along the Upper Delaware Scenic Byway through Calicoon and Hancock and back through Equinunk and Dyberry on 191. Equinunk, the town at the near end of Pennsylvania away from many other places and people for which Tom Clark is always giving us the weather and rain gauge readings from the probably 9 people who live there. It was a beautiful day for a ride and the sunshine was at its best.

So was my brain.

Somewhere along a really big downhill and a left bend just after Long Eddy, the mountains opened up with a view for miles of healthy farm fields, mountains, green trees, and the river banks. All hues of blue skies and green trees and fields and gray hills in the sunlight my brain stopped thinking about stuff and things. I said "Oh Wow..." into the wind and just smiled. My brain flat out could not focus on anything except the beauty and grandeur of this whole thing called life.

Because maybe I had been looking at most of it the wrong way.

Check out this cartoon from Zen Pencils :

I love this poster. I love this quote by C.S. Lewis. I refer to it often when my brain won't stop obsessing over certain life details.

And yet, yesterday, I realized I had missed something in this cartoon and I misunderstood the quote.

I had been focusing on the fact that someone came along and her heart was fixed and she was in love again with someone and would find happiness. I was seeing her as hesitant to give her heart to this drawing of a dapper darling, but in deciding to, he fixes her broken heart - and with him, in the last frame they are holding hands, she is able to be happy again.

Yesterday out of nowhere as I stood on the banks of a muddy, overflowing, disgusting rain-soaked-water-logged mess of a beautiful river in Calicoon, there were no kayak tours and even the Canada geese were not happy with the water levels rising - I hadn't even thought about this cartoon in a few months - I realized I misread this cartoon.

Maybe he's simply a balloon repairman from a carnival or a circus or even Taney's, who knows. He is asking to simply see her broken balloon, charming her with his balloon fixing techniques and skills, and when she finally agrees to his repair work, her elation isn't at him - it's at the balloon being repaired. He just wants to complete some repair work and then go on his merry way. It's not about really being in love with "any one" person - it's simply about love. Go back and look at the second half of this cartoon again and you'll see that she never really looks at him again after he unlocks the box.

She keeps looking at her own heart.

She never takes her eyes off her own heart.

Even at the end when she's smiling, she's not smiling at him - she's smiling at the fact that she is happy at her heart once again.

I have all the happiness I need right here with all of you.

I have always had the happiness I need right here with all of you and you continue to show me how much I need love in my life. Most importantly, my own love. For as awesome as I am, self-love isn't an easy thing for me - but I promise you when I step on that plane that's the thing I'm going to work on the most.

I'm so grateful for each and every one of you for the happiness you've given me through some of the worst years anyone could ever have had. At the times when I forgot to look ahead, each and every one of you wiped the tears from my eyes and gave me back the hope of being happy one day. You showed up at my house and gave me the key for this box. You took me places and showed me things I wasn't seeing. You spoke to me with words I needed to hear.

And to Cecilia? I can now explain it.

And for Annabel Kaye? I make no apologies about it.

Self-love. That's the key in this cartoon which opens the lock on this chest of a broken heart.

Oh, there have been many characters in the cast of people auditioning for the role of the dapper darling in the drawing -and many of you know the hilarious stories of each of the try-outs and one of you even kept a list - but the main character in this whole love thing is the girl.

Lewis is right. To love and be loved is a vulnerable thing. You have to keep your own thoughts at bay or you'll get eaten alive and busted down like the balloon. You'll have to open up your own dark corners to yourself and come to the battle within yourself of the mean and ugly things only your brain can think. You will be vulnerable to yourself and that's the only person you really can't get away from because at the end of the day it is you, yourself, and you and those thoughts. So they better be loving thoughts or you'll be miserable. Self-love.

That cartoon girl? It me. My heart is happy. I am happy.

So again, I say thank you for showing me the greatness of this world and all it has to offer. Thank you for inspiring me to think about things that are bigger and more grand than I could ever have hoped to find on my own.

And thank you for helping me with the self-love.

Stay with me on this journey, would ya? I hate losing people and I budgeted to buy a lot of postcards to send you.

See you soon,

Sláinte