Going back

They say you should never meet your heroes but that's a lie. Bear with me and I'll explain.
30 months. 30 months of my life. I'd pretty much gotten over the psychosis I'd developed from that time; 22 months straight as a cycle messenger in Dublin, spanning '95-'97 and subsequently two Summers and a Winter. I just could not get that life out of my head for more than a decade after I'd walked away from it. You see it wasn't a job, or at least, it started out as a job but wound up as an identity that shaped me and made me grow up fast. And it was a great escape.
Like a stereotypical Californian I needed to find myself in '95. Unbeknownst to my inner-self I was totally lost. My Dad had died a few years earlier, my attempts at serial monogamy were crashing and burning regular as clockwork. I was in college but as a mature student I felt like an outsider even though I was developing incredible friendships. I needed to deal with my issues. I'd even been dealt the death card in a tarot reading resulting in the clear-cut message that a section of my life was passing and I needed to lay a wreath and move on.
I somehow got a job despite my lack of knowledge of Dublin and soon became part of a community of cycle-messengers. A murder of couriers. All of them bar none possessed exuberant personalities that more than matched that type of work. You had to have boundless energy and focus. And then off the bike that would continue. Most were musical...either DJs or playing in a band. Some were writers. Many just bounced from one party to the next. Or double/ triple-jobbed. It didn't matter, there was always energy to do more. During that time I made a lot of friends and as is my thing, I spent a lot of time on the periphery. A couple of these people were absolute heroes of mine, icons, people for whom nothing would prevent their stars from burning, infusing everyone about them with vivid energy.
And so it came to pass that a couple of days ago I shook hands with Tom McDonald here in the provincial town I call home. He was back from Australia. Tom had always looked out for me and we'd instantly connected on Stephen's Green. He had stuck in my head for nigh on 20 years and when I sat opposite himself and his lovely wife and child nothing had changed. We've both moved on, through adulthood and responsibility, family and strife but it seemed to me as if we'd met like any other Friday in Bruxelles and just got on with being us. That healthy irreverence and quick wit had gone nowhere. The red dredz are long gone but the same smile and depth of feeling stood out. Nearly two decades apart and the small matter of 10,000 miles... but otherwise....
Funnily enough we both identify and deal with teenagers and young adults coming from tough backgrounds. Later my brother would point out that we probably deal with and identify with those people because we were surrounded by them in the mid-noughties or we were in fact one of those troubled young adults ourselves, albeit skittering around Dublin's warren of streets on bicycles stopping at nothing. Having coffee with Tom just seemed to give clarity and function to all that time on the streets. I know most of my family saw what I was doing as a waste, a lower-caste way of making ends meet. But I just wasn't able, wasn't grown up enough by my mid-twenties. By the time I was spat out the other side of that life-path as if I was surfing a giant, killer wave under the cliffs of Moher, I had graduated. Not just college but I felt I could deal with things, anything at all. I'd been part of something very important to me, a scene or cohort of like-minded people. Funny that most people don't get it, don't see it for what it was, and that makes it a little more special for me. For the craic you should try, just like I did, to explain to middle-aged yokels in your home town that being a bike-messenger was the experience that influenced you the most in your life. Guarantee they stare at you like you have two heads.
I just loved the freedom. Yes I was working long hours on long jobs and spent lonely hours traversing Dublin but the beers and banter in between were phenomenal. Yes it was minimum wage when you took everything into account. And yes it sometimes sucked. But BurgerKing would have been the death of me. So many of the bit-players were transients, between 'proper' jobs but I didn't care. They coloured in everything for me, influenced me with their world view and I seemed to do the same for them. I had my niche, even moving on to a bigger, better company. And I felt valued. You can unearth negatives everywhere but I just know I was very very happy at that time. For all intents and purposes it was like an extended gap year that taught me well. Mostly that I had a value way higher than I'd previously believed. I don't remember half of what I did but I'm extremely proud of my time in Quickstream and Cyclone. Tom, all the way back from Oz, helped to put a cap on the bottle, to place people and things seen and done and put it away for once, maybe labelled as vintage.
Of course the other side of that is that we could meet and have a coffee, Tom and I. We came out of that scene and kept it together. There are the dead and the broken-forever back there.Some people's psychosis [for I really do believe being involved in that world affects your cerebrum for years afterwards] kept on giving. They may have searched out other highs to get them through or travelled a lot rather than sit still, or been paranoid or friendless in the vacuum left by road-hunger. But we escaped. No broken bones, little road rash, less road-rage. A lot of cold and sleet and bucket's of rain. Maybe some arthritis but few betrayals. Meeting Tom was a good thing for me, that catharsis I'd been dreaming of, the closure of a door two decades swinging on it's hinges. They say you shouldn't meet your heroes but I disagree.

Aplausos

Bullfighting is a metaphor for life. Its in the struggle, the beauty, the torment and excellence before the inevitable. On the yellow yellow sand of the bullring the torero only sees the bull, the beautiful creature he will do the dance of death with. He doesn't see or hear the crowd, doesn't absorb the adulation or jeers. He only thinks of the domain of the bull and the domain of the bullfighter. Like life, the outcome isn't pretty but sometimes the living of it is a thing to behold.#################################### Yesterday was one of those days. I wasn't ever gonna be a bullfighter. I was always gonna be ordinary. Yet yesterday, for an hour, everything was sublime. I wasn't hoisted on the shoulders of the crowd and whisked out the main gate, flowers and hats floating past on the breeze...but I won a race after being in the wilderness for such a long time. To be surrounded by such a welcoming team of friendly faces and fierce team-workers made it special. And the cuadrilla at home...friends and mentors and my coach seemed a huge part of it too.############################### Yesterday we clipped in and sped away into the domain of the bull. Moving ever closer to the creature that could make us or slay us. And it was beautiful, symmetric, controlled. Mick and Albert contained everyone's effort inside an infernal metronomic pace that became the creature's undoing. The bull charged and stood, charged and stood and in doing so wore itself out. Us toreros pressed home our advantage. A sublime day where everything went right.################### The last few movements played out quickly. Pressing on, the late last surge, an energy emptying effort from the beast behind and it was over. I planted my feet in the sand, dug in for grip and for less than a second myself and the beast were one as the sword went in and the creature went down. I had finished what everyone around me had begun, getting to the line first, getting the kill for the first time in six years. It felt beautiful covering my gold and purple cape in the sweat of effort, the dust of the ring. And better still the handshakes and messages from good people who'd stuck with me during the poor times.

Alien

December. The Omens are good. I am healthy. I am motivated. Somewhere out there is a new cycling season waiting to swallow me up. As I trundle through training sessions I feel like I'm back playing Space Invaders as a sixteen year old, in the basement of what is now Ephesus Kebab in the New Ross old town. A bunch of us used to run down Goat's Hill during morning break in school, play video games for a few minutes and finally run back up the hill in time for whatever subject was up next. Askew adolescents. Anyhoo...Space Invaders...you see, you keep moving, don't slow up even for a moment, back and forth blasting the baddies off the screen. Consistently avoiding the explosion that heralds your demise, your last life spiralling into deep space.####################################I've been locked into the tractor beam of training since September and I'm loving it. 48 in a few weeks time and I've never been more motivated. Yes the roads are slippy. Yup the air is cool. Of course I could be curled up on the couch drinking port and watching Fast and Loud re-runs. I just can't. What was Grace Jone's tune from the same era as I played Space Invaders? 'Slave to the Rhythm'? That's it. That's me. Kit laid out, bottles full, tyres hard. Sometimes daylight, sometimes not. It doesn't matter to me. Out the door to stop the thoughts or sort them out. Attack the imaginary rival or watch the numbers defy my age or ability. Always a glimmer. Just a glimmer. Probably shortening my life but justifying it in the process. I've come a long way from Space Invaders down the town but I'm still trying to escape the mechanical humdrum of my greatest fears; The white noise awaiting me if I ever stand still. So don't think or blink, just keep moving.