It's pretty easy to get stuck in a rush. Stuck in a rush for days, weeks, months, until it arrives at a point so natural that it's no longer a rush, it's just normal life.
8pm becomes a normal finish time from work, pubs become more familiar than the kitchen, breakfast becomes a decadent indulgence, you can't find time to fit seeing your friends in because you're too "busy" with other things. Months become weeks that fly by.
I ride to and from work everyday. The freedom, the movement, the singlness of the act, the races you find yourself taking. I love it and preach about it like a reborn evangelist.
But like a junkie, I've found to keep loving it, I've had to keep on pushing the boundaries. Gone are the days I used to balk at dodging incoming traffic to get a better position. Long past are the times I would give ways to cars because they're a lot heavier than me. Welcome heady days of adrenaline, danger, risk and a pretend life as a cycle courier. Hello to the view that traffic is nothing more than a moving mountain biking trail.
Figure 1. Someone living the dream
In recent times, I've been thinking about slowing down. Realising that the sketchy moves I've been pulling, I'll only be able to pull for a certain amount of time. Seeing those few accidents I've had recently could have quite easily ended up with me having more than a broken bike.
The other morning I was riding to work, deciding to take a different route to the normal one that I take. Figuring it was a nice day, I had an espresso in the sun before hopping on the bike, throwing some tunes in and flying along.
Over the Thames, in and around the busses, and up the dangerously blind shoulders. I notice that there seemed to be a slowing of the traffic.
I sccoted around the inside of a bus to get up a bit and sat a car stopped in the middle of the road.
Beneath the back of the car lay a man.
His legs bent the wrong way around a wheel. He's eyes glazed over, gazing blankly into the face of a man on a mobile who was calling the ambulance.
I noticed the pool of deep red blood circle around his head, eventually spilling over and forming a trickle towards the street gutter.
It was a surreal chaos, the driver of the car was distraught, the blood flowed and all the people waiting for the bus were just standing there and watching,.
I got off the bike and started to help out. There was nothing we could do for the injured man, so I calmed the driver, spoke to the guy on the phone and started directing traffic until the ambulance arrived. Some plumbers got out of their truck, surveyed the scene, propped his head up with a cloth and then deftly maneuvered their truck around the prone man, speeding off to their next job.
Surveying the scene, it looked as though the man had made a dash across the street to get to the bus stop, running into the path of the car he was trapped under. In a rush.
I left a short time after they lifted the car off him and started getting him ready for the ambulance. He was conscious as they loaded him into the stretcher.
I left the scene, not looking back, riding soberly up the vacant street. The sun, the espresso and the tunes had all left me, replaced with the thoughts of wine coloured trickles in the gutter.
Doing something completely different for a change, Adam and I decided to go and see a band together at the Mean Fiddler in London.
Mixing it up a bit, we decided that we'd take in a punk band. We haven't done something like this since the last time we saw a punk band at the Mean Fiddler , which was well, weeks ago.
Figure 1. Red Stripe - the Mean Fiddler beer of choice
But this time was complete different, instead of seeing one of the greatest shows by one of the greatest punk bands out of Boston (which was the Bouncing Souls), we saw one of the greatest shows by one of the greates punk bands out of Southern California - Lagwagon.
We've even got photos to prove how much fun it was:
http://kransky.com/lachlan/pictures/20070416_lagwagon/
People complain about the weather in London, it's too hot, it's too cold, too wet, too smoggy, too...too.. too, well something or other.
Figure 1. Snow in London
I've experienced some bad weather in my time and London doesn't really cut it on the world scene. Which leads me to believe that people complain about the weather in London purely because they are in England. And in England, complaining about somethign rivals football and queueing as the national sport. What I will say about the weather here in London is that it's generally more bland than anything else. Not bitter enough to be harsh and never beautiful enough to be delightful - it's the vanilla ice cream of weather, the Prince Charles of extremities. Exceptional in the fact that it is so boring.
But this morning something different was upon us. A heavy blanket of snow coated London. And with housemate Christina waking us up at the ungodly hour of 6.30, we were treated to seeing it early on. Here are some shots of my house, the ride to work, and my nerd workmate Crafti and his snowman.
The photos of can be found at http://www.kransky.com/lachlan/pictures/20070124_London_In_Snow
Here's a quick video I made for the family over Christmas showing what makes up my life here in London.
Interesting, if you like 8 minutes of good music ruined by a stack self-indulgent photos and videos showing where I live, what I do, and who I do it with...
continued...
Ok, so it's been a long time between drinks for this blog.
The other day I was on the way to work and an article in the Guardian on the latest two months of killings in Iraq, which have been the bloodiest so far. Accompanying the article was a photo of a young girl, screaming in a hospital. Despite having seen these kinds of images on a daily basis, I was sickened.
I wrote to the paper, writing a letter I knew wouldn't get published, but it felt good to write regardless.
---
I'm an adult, born in the information age. I've watched television, seen movies, read newspapers, explored the Internet. I've seen more violence, more inhumanity and more horror than most war veterans. It's become an unfortunate reality that I've become desensitised to the majority of what goes on in the current world.
But after reading of death toll in Iraq, ("Civilian deaths soar to record high in Iraq"), I had this unusual sick feeling in my stomach. Revolted not just by the brutality of current events, but also by the fact that this is a crisis created by our elected officials. A crisis created for not one single concrete reason.
Knowing what we know now, to hear that these same officials, given the chance, would do the same again is unfathomable.
I have a message to all of those who would re-elect these people: You have blood on your hands.
I just hope it doesn't stain your armchair.
I found my first roll of film from South America.
After finally having enough money in my pocket to get some film processed, I got the last two rolls of my trip developed and scanned into digital format. I've managed to lose one role somewhere in my piles of unorganised clutter, but I'm sure it will turn up eventually
Figure 1. Me saying cheers to you, on a glacier in Patagonia
It’s been almost a year since I started writing this travel journal. Usually, I sit down, think of something that has happened and let the words come out. This entry has been particularly hard - I think this is maybe the 10th time I’ve sat down to write this update. The words still aren’t flowing, but it’s time to write something.
Figure 1. My hand writing, on a beach somewhere on the west coast of the US
The short story is that I’m now living in London. I have a bedroom. I have a job. I have a phone. I commute. I have friends. I make small talk about the weather.
Which is all pretty normal – that’s what life is usually about. But I’ve had a real challenge adjusting - despite having good friends and family around me, I’ve felt pretty lost at times. Which, considering that I spent the last year taking wrong turns, losing maps and not speaking the language, is kind of odd.
It all started a bit over a year ago when, for a number of reasons, I decided that I needed to shake my life up. In what seemed like the logical next step (and a good idea at the time), I proceeded to tell everyone I knew that I was going to cycle around the world. (Not that I’m a cyclist at all but I wasn’t going to let that get in the way of my plans). Eventually I told enough people about my little adventure that I had to do it.
And that’s where it started. And while I didn’t cycle the entire world - with a pair of hawaian shorts, a pair of boxers, some jeans, and two t-shirts - I’ve seen some amazing things. From the serene beauty of migrating killer whales outside my tent in the Gulf islands off the US, to the blood crazed vigilante mobs swarming around me in Guatemala, I saw, touched, tasted and felt completely different sides of life. I’ve done things I thought I would never do. I’ve looked into the mirror and asked myself why I was doing what I was doing. I spent time with some of the best people in the world. I made some awesome friends.
There were times when I found myself alone, crying in frustration. Times when I was the happiest person on earth. Times when I was so lost that I couldn’t feel anything at all.
Like a lot of people, I have a bit of a constantly evolving soundtrack to life. And even after my music was stolen from me at gunpoint, throughout the entire journey there were a couple of lines from one song that kept on playing in my head. By an outrageously cool ska/punk/Spanish/country/polka band from California called the Mad Caddies, the song is called “Leavin”.
“Now, Looking back on all the days gone by I sit and wonder what it would be like if I never went away?
Would I see the world the way I do? The memories that brought me to this place that I now call my home today?”
Figure 2. The Mad Caddies rocking it out in Moombadoda, Botswana.
(Incidentally, the faded, torn brown shirt that is all my photos, is a Mad Caddies t-shirt)
So, while I’m living in here in grey, wintery London and while I’m sort of here for the money, and while I’m not entirely sure that I want to be here - home is a state of mind – a result of a whole bunch of stupid times that I’ve had in the last year. And even though where I’ve been and what I’ve done isn’t too different from what millions of other people do when they take time off, I’m loving home.
What does the future hold? A year ago I asked myself the same question, hoping that in a year’s time I would have a clearer answer. I guess I might try and work on that one now.
You've reached the blog of Lachlan Yates. I'm in the process of travelling around the world and generally making an idiot of myself.
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