Going Where?

If you've been here more than once, you know that I like pictures.  All kinds of pictures.  I take some every day though they're more often of the mundane variety than of the profound.  I have no real reason to take most of the photos I shoot.  I take them because with digital equipment it doesn't cost as much as traditional photography once you get past the initial outlay.  I'd think that most folks shoot pictures because there's something in their heads which would explain why they're shooting what they are.  With me, it's often different.  I shoot.  And I shoot some more.  Later, here at the computer, sometimes I get a notion of what it was about a scene that spoke to me in the first place and which led me to make a snapshot of it.  More often than not, the pictures simply get filed, usually as "scooter,"  "people," or "misc" until I fill the picture directory with enough bytes to burn another CD or DVD of them.  I burn the disc and archive them all to an external hard drive, and often in the evening, especially in the winter when I'm house bound I'll go through some of them in random fashion and remember the times of my life, most of them, like most of all of ours fairly ordinary.

About a second after I took this shot I realized what it was that compelled me to park the BV right there and capture it.  That long view down the top of the dike made me think wistfully about where I am, and where I might have been if I'd taken roads long ago that I rode past.  I'm in that stage of life where one can't help but ponder what might have been if other choices had been made, other pursuits had been followed, other dreams had been dreamed.  I look at my mom and dad in their golden years and wonder if they've felt like this for the past twenty-five or so years, and wonder too, if they did, how they managed to get up day after day to face a new morning.

Change is in the air.  Major change.  I have a lot of wrestling of self to do.  I only half joked as an undergrad that I chose psychology as my first major in order to figure myself out.  It was 30 years ago back in May when I walked across the stage to get my degree and I'm really no closer to knowing myself now than I was then.  I need to back up.  I need to take some roads I was afraid to take as a kid.  

Doing that in life is a lot like doing it on a scooter.  There's no reverse gear.  The only way to back up a long distance is to turn around - to put your back to where you were headed and your face to where you'd gone before till you find where you sort of left yourself on the side of the road.  It's not quite time to turn the bike around prudently, but the time is coming and in the mean time I'm gearing up to do that one-eighty.

My time off from school will continue for a few more weeks, but because of various issues my "vacation" is essentially over.  The dirty side of being grown up and responsible is about to bite me in the butt.  When all that dust settles it will be time for me to take stock and do what I need to do so I won't spend the next chapter in my life thinking about what might have been while I still have the power to make a difference to myself.  Who knows?  I might even trade in the scooter for a motorcycle at some point.