When life is in harmony, when a moment is perfect even if only for that second, a happiness and place in the universe feels… possible. And you breathe and life slips back to its chaos and doubts. But there is the memory of that feeling. And sometimes a picture.
Whether you are religious, spiritual, or just have a sense of humor regarding life, the little conductor hovering over his fleet of boats as the sun dips westward paints a moment of transcendence from daily turmoil. A calm lake with all boats home safe and moored are ready for a different sort of performance as the day moves toward evening. This photo always makes me smile. Sometimes it cracks me up. I like knowing someone has the sense of eclectic madness to create a scarecrow conductor on a wharf! Very often it reminds me that finding meaning in life is about seeing more than the problems. You have to be open to the strange coincidences that pull you out into something greater than our fleeting time on this planet.
The story of the photo is actually just as amazing as the meaning it holds. Raven and I had been riding our motorcycles on the most difficult trip we’d ever taken. We call that journey the Trip of Trials. From flat tires to break downs, vertical winds that toppled our motorcycles to campground after hotels that didn’t take dogs (or dripping wet and desperate motorcyclists) that trip from Canada to Vermont nearly did us in. Literally. The last two miles to home really unnerved me as I couldn’t imagine everyone would make it in one piece.
It was the last ride with our Dragon, who cuddled Mr. Happy in his motorcycle carrier on the back of Raven’s bike. So for every second of sheer difficulty, the trip is suffused with love and joy tinted with sadness of the loss of our 16 year old Cairn Terrier that followed far too soon after the trip. And there were some great moments during those two weeks.
One of them came near the end when a long, long day of riding northward along Lake Champlain in Vermont while looking for a place to spend the night led us from dingy little campground to one at the northern tip of the lake. There in a campground that looked to have seen its heyday in the fifties, we were given a whole empty section. Seriously. They took a look at us, our motorcycles, the news we carried two small dogs, and sent us to the a distant and quiet spot with lots of grass,
electricity hook up, and water. The dogs ran around chasing crows through several acres of grass. They gave me directions to get back in town the quickest route to hit a store for supplies for dinner. I think we ended up with bourbon marinated salmon that night. There are photos of Dragon watching me cook with his usual intensity directed at the fish. He was a great dog and friend.
And before we settled into our tent for the night, the four of us took a walk along camp trailers that had been installed by 1960. Most of the campground contained permanently parked old RVs. And finally we made our way to the lake and found a photo so emblematic of the day, our trip, life, and the serendipity of any of it working out as amazingly well as it did. Some things just come together.