Motorcycles

Motorcycles fascinate me. I hear my mom whispering about head injuries and a waitress/nursing student from Big Fork, Montana saying “donor cycles.” I have this memory that involves moving too fast for my six year old eyes. My mom emerging from a chartreuse Cadillac – shouting at my grandfather, “I told you I didn’t want her on this thing.” We made it one block from their house. I can’t blame her. Her early memories involve leaping from one red rock pillar to another in Bryce Canyon. My grandmother yelling in her sweet North Carolina tones. My mother’s curly hair blown by hot dry air. The hair that she later ironed into a helmet to protect her in Astoria high school. (Not very effective in a town that saw eighty inches of rain per year). My grandfather has been straddling the edge of death for awhile and having labored for over twenty- four hours, I doubt she wanted me damaged.
Next Thursday I go for my first Morgan class. Brady (a friend from George Fox) is excited to teach me. My mom asked me why I wanted to be licensed and I told her that you can’t be an international spy without knowing how to ride a motorcycle. You are in serious trouble if someone is shooting and you can’t drive, what might be, the only mode of escape. My life could depend on it and frankly, I could be that much cooler. The eternal struggle to be a bad-ass but, I admit it – I want the title. I felt a little more than pleased when Christian looked at me the other day and in his Massachusetts frat boy manner said, “Cameron you are a little bit of a bad-ass. I can’t believe you drink whiskey….” Some days I can’t believe I do either. I drive a stick, I am unafraid of manual labor, live like a bohemian in the summers, shoot ptarmigan, banter when it suits me, ski like a demon, and have peed (while driving) in a cup. All in all a masculine and impressive resume “for a girl.” It wasn’t until yesterday at a Starbucks that I had a revelation about this drive. ( I know a difficult task amid cups that sport insipid inspirational quotes.) A boy once told me to be easy on myself. I had accomplished enough and anyone would be proud of me. It never seems to be enough. But old Alanis Morrisette came through for me one more time. (I don’t care what you say. I love that woman’s lyrics no matter how cryptic they get. The Ezra Pound of pop.)

"Incomplete"
One day I'll find relief
I'll be arrived
And I'll be friend to my friends who know how to be friends
One day I'll be at peace
I'll be enlightened and I'll be married with children and maybe adopt
One day I will be healed
I will gather my wounds forget the end of tragic comedy

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time of being forever incomplete
One day my mind will retreat
And I'll know God
And I'll be constantly one with her night dusk and day
One day I'll be secure
Like the women I see on their thirtieth anniversaries

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time of being forever incomplete
Ever unfolding
Ever expanding
Ever adventurous
And torturous
And never done

One day I will speak freely
I'll be less afraid
And measured outside of my poems and lyrics and art
One day I will be faith-filled
I'll be trusting and spacious authentic and grounded and home

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time of being forever incomplete.

That is it. Running on and on. A Biology professor told me, “To be a Christian is to live with eternal mystery.” I guess being a bad-ass requires the stamina to keep going with no end in sight. So, here is to getting a license I might never need, creating a dance I may never perform in public, and to shooting at a target that I may never hit.