Evening Ride

9x12 Oil

When I was around seventeen I got hooked on my mother’s motorbike. I don’t know why she got it. Maybe it was because we lived in a small fishing village and it was easy to zip around on it. Maybe it was the artist in her, wanting to be heard. Or maybe she just needed to feel more alive.

It was a firetruck red Honda 70. That’s not a big bike, just one or two steps up from a lawn mower. But for her (and for me after I hijacked it) that little putt-putt was perfect. At first, I rode it out on the wide concrete pier while we waited for the fishing boats to come in. Then I took it all around Kailua town, puttering down narrow alleyways and up rocky back roads, and a couple of times even up Palani Drive to the dump, where I winced at the aromatic onslaught and grinned at the vast gold mine of discarded junk. I loved the mystery of that lawless place!

But back to my mom’s mini chopper. Part of my motorbike learning curve included the idea of keeping my eyes peeled for possible hazards, like slick pavement, loose gravel, cars with tipsy drivers, or as it happened, hard to see cables that blocked off roads. I went head over handlebars when I hit it. The bike was fine, and I wasn’t hurt. Just embarrassed, because a girl I liked saw the whole thing. “Heh-heh,” I said, dusting myself off. “Didn’t see that.”

Then I started going up and down the coast, seven miles from Kailua to Keauhou. Back and forth, dodging bugs and basking in the freedom. What a blast, riding with the wind in my face, wearing only shorts and rubber slippers, no shirt, no helmet, local style, which was really not all that smart. But those were different days, so much safer and far more laid back. Anyway, I survived those never-to-be-forgotten motorbiking days without further incident.

The thing about that memory and this painting is that they both remind me of something important, and that’s this: If I am not enjoying being alive in this mysterious, amazing world, what’s the point? If I am always beating myself up over this or that (which I often do), or if I allow someone else to beat me up (which I have done), then I am surely missing the boat.

I confess, I have been a seriously addicted kick-myself-down-the-road offender, especially with my artwork. More often than not I look at what I’ve spent hours painting and gag. Jeez! What did you have for breakfast, boy? Battery acid? You can’t paint for beans. This is … is … dreck!

I’d be willing to bet that I am not the only one wallowing in this affliction. I am always getting scolded by friends. Shut your yap already, they say. Stop berating yourself! Stop the negative self-talk, it’s depressing.

So for a few minutes, I do. Then I’m back at it.

Good grief.

But there is a ray of hope. Sometimes you just have to hear things from strangers, even if they’re no longer in this world. A few days ago, I read this:

“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of ‘getting to know you’ questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

“And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, ‘Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.’

“And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: ‘I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.’

“And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could ‘Win’ at them.” (Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse Five)

Hmmm.

I think I need to mend my ways. And I will. Yes, yes, I mean it. It’s just hard to be less successful than I want to be. But really now, is being successful the point? My gut gives me the answer without hesitation. Boom! Right now! Of course not, it says. The point is that you are on a life-long journey so amazing you can’t even put words to it. The point is to enjoy it, love it, roll around in it, study and absorb every dusty pebble along the way. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of kicking yourself down the road. What are you, anyway? Some old dented tin can?

Honestly, I need to stop my dang complaining and rearrange my priorities. I need to man-up and go for a ride in the country, and reconsider the way I do things. Yeah. That would be perfect.

Does anyone have a Honda 70 I can borrow? Preferably red?

I still have my rubber slippers.