What's It Good For - Part II

For ten months now, I’ve allowed the world to peer over my shoulder. Like a kid in a classroom, wanting to be friends with the pretty girl in the adjacent desk (and allowing her to copy off his paper), I’ve shared my life, my thoughts, my struggles, my faults, and my victories. I’ve shared things that I’d hoped you’d find inspirational, and thoughts that I knew were sure to cause discomfort. I’ve shared a lot, not all, but a lot. Sometimes my sharing has strayed over into something akin to a selfishness and narcissism. I’ve allowed it to be acceptable for me to, at times, violate the privacy of others, just so I could get my jollies out of exploiting some good material. I now recognize it for what it is, wrong. In the process of flexing my still weak literary muscles, I’ve done damage. Marietta has suffered greatly as a result of several embarrassing passages that I just needed to write. I’m now sorry and kicking myself for having been so self-absorbed, and inconsiderate.

All in all, however, I like the blog. Some day I’ll print it out and bind it in some nice leather covers and just have it up on the shelf. There’s so much content that I simply haven’t read since the day I wrote it; it’ll be fun to revisit it one day. For now, I feel like closing this chapter, along with the blog. It’s time; the story has run its course. The one post that I had hoped to close my adventure with may never come. It was the one announcing a wedding, and maybe another one announcing the birth of a first child. In obeying the call from the blog to “feed me”, I missed the part about personal stuff being just that, personal. I truly hope to one day be able to proudly and joyously announce “We’re Married!” and “It’s a Girl!” but at this moment the future remains uncertain, much like it was when I began.

In one week the blog will be going off line for good. What began largely as a personal journal has grown to something larger than I now care to maintain. I have a life to conduct, without the constant call of “feed me”, and without having to share the content of my school paper, so to speak. It’s time to focus my energies on other, more real endeavors. It’s just time.

I’d like to thank everyone who has participated in posting comments and sending emails, and I’m looking forward to replying to any emails that come in to me in the future, it’s good to keep in touch with friends and family alike. My email is bobviens@gmail.com.

OK, so that’s it. This will be my final post before pulling the plug on Saturday night at midnight, Eastern time. It's been fun, mostly. No tears, just gladness for all the good that surely lay ahead.

Best of luck to you all, and as always…

Cheers!

~B

I Am Not Alone

I have something important to say...

...but everything I try to write simply comes out wrong. 

Until I'm able to produce with the same ease as my other posts, I'll be quiet.

I've arrived at a significant realization over the last several days and I want to shout it to the world, but nothing's coming out onto the page. I feel paralyzed. 

Waiting and listening, I am...

~Bob

P.S. I love Marietta, and want to spend my life with her. What was I thinking?

What's It Good For?

What started as a travel and what's up with Bob blog, has evolved into something that seems to carry it's own responsibility. The blog says "feed me", and in those times when I have thoughts or feelings that I need to get out of my head and onto paper for me to look at, I comply. Other times when I'm feeling happy about something and just want to share, the posts are generally easy to read and usually easy to write as well. The difficult ones, when I appear to have something to work out, are also "easy " to write, often pouring out of me more easily than all the rest, but they're often fairly difficult to read. I'm sure the responses out there range from confusion (wondering what the heck I'm getting at) to horror ("I can't believe he's saying this stuff out loud"), to sympathy, to pity, to appreciation for my candor, to sadness over my lack of a need for privacy. I can see the comments that are offered in response to the posts, but I'll never know for sure the feelings of those who never comment. I do know that my blog has had an effect in some way on the course of my life over the last ten months and I can feel it tugging on me now, it says "feed me". I'm compelled by the call to feed, but also by the feeling that there are eyes upon me waiting for my next move. At this moment, it feels somehow paralyzing. My response to the blog's call today is simply to write about it rather than to write to, or more accurately for, it. So, here goes...

Since last May when the blog started, it's been visited by 1519 individual viewers, with over 11,000 visits. At it's height in mid-August it was averaging 65 visits a day with the current number being right around 30. This month, the blogs been viewed just under 1,000 times by 146 people in mostly the US and Canada. Not huge, by any standards. I do at times wonder who are these people who find this so interesting? I know some of the regulars, by their comments and emails, but that only accounts for maybe a dozen of them. Would it be better if instead of posting to a public blog, I just found out who was reading and limited the blog to them? I can actually do that.

I agree with those that are uncomfortable with my airing of the dirty laundry, so to speak, on such a public forum, and I'm seriously considering making accommodations for these concerns. Then again I also think that such a move might remove some of the "feed me" factor from my blogging schedule. Maybe not knowing is part of the fun, it's definitely part of the danger. The other obvious option here is to have a happy, mostly trouble free, life where the need to purge my woes onto paper would be unnecessary and also unheard of. That's my first choice and really exactly what I was shooting for.

It's been great having this forum to, at times, work out my issues, but really, to quote someone special, what's it good for?

~B

In the End...

In the end, we're all self contained; each of us a singular, enclosed, hermetically sealed being, able to sustain life on our own. The heart beats, the blood circulates, food is converted into energy, and the waste is collected and jettisoned. The lungs pull in air, extract oxygen and then expel carbon dioxide, the eyes peer out and join the other senses to provide watch. In cooperation with the brain, instructions are generated and transmitted to the drive and navigation systems to ensure a safe and unimpeded journey. It all works independently, aside from the need for an external food source, which is consumed using the hands, thus eliminating (in fully functioning units) the need for outside support; we feed ourselves. We breathe on our own, we walk from place to place, we see, we feel, we smell, we stand and observe, we push away from danger and harm, and we sleep when it's needed. We are truly independent. We are truly self contained.

I fondly remember the palpable sense of freedom I experienced on the road last summer. How it felt to glide along on two wheels with everything I needed to survive firmly attached to my bicycle, and moving along with me, under my own power. It was incredible and yet very real. I long for that feeling of joy and adventure. It's one puzzle piece that I know, deep in my heart, fits perfectly. I won't forget that. I've learned a lot about myself, and life, and love, and the world since embarking on my journey, though I believe the lessons and understanding I've gained as a result of knowing Marietta, stand somehow above the rest. I shall always be thankful and ever mindful of the great and lasting gift she provided me. That too, I hope to never forget.

In the end though, I remain self contained, in my mind speeding along a quiet road, reaching for my water bottle, grateful to be alive. I take a drink, slide the bottle back into place, and smile.

Cheers, from back in the States!

~B

Leaving On A Jet Plane

I'm fly tomorrow on US Air from Munich to Philly to Boston (oh, my! *). Please indulge me one more time for one last video. It's totally cliche, and not at all biographical, except for the plane ride and the melancholy, but alas... BTW, most people think this is a Peter Paul and Mary song. They had the hit, JD wrote it and does, in my opinion, the best rendition. Enjoy! ~B

* If you haven't seen The Wizard of OZ, rent it! I need to stop doing that.

Dear Amy...

Hi Sis, 

Sorry for the confusing videos. They both seemed apropo of my situation, at the time anyway, (the High Fidelity one was a tad over the top,  granted, but it's a great song and one of the best movies ehhh-ver!) I was bummed last night and availing myself fully of the last opportunity to enjoy real German beer, at least for the foreseeable future. I'm sure that had something to do with my video selections. 

So here's the deal...I'm headin' home. 

I could have used the more obvious song by Daughtry - Home, but that would have been too obvious and even more over the top than The Killers selection. Sure, despite that fact, I could still have opted for Daughtry and hammered the point home, and at the same time, give a nostalgic shout-out to Gina back in Nova Scotia (huge Daughtry fan), but really that song, as great as it is, is sooo played out, and the reference to home as the place "where your love has always been enough for me" doesn't quite fit. Not that I don't feel loved at "home" in Turners Falls, I do...sure, but that's really not the point, ya know? So I went with the closing song from Local Hero. There's this bittersweet ending to the movie where Mac gets sent home from the

beautiful coast of Scotland by his boss Burt Lancaster. It's a sad but appropriate conclusion; Mac really loved that little fishing village by the sea and the special people there and how different it was from the life grind back in the States, and BOOM, it was over. The fictional town of Ferness, with it's beautiful landscape and solid stone houses, rich with history and romance, and BOOM...over. Burt sends him home, just like that. I think that was the better choice of videos, plus it was a lot easier to listen to for anyone not so thrilled with my rockin' sensibilities (music-wise, that is).

So, sigh... I'm coming home, mid-week I guess, just waiting for the right flight deal. I have a bunch of stuff to haul back with me. Not only do I have my jam-packed backpack (Marietta used to get backpack and sleeping bag interchanged - very cute, and the same thing I did when I was a kid, weird, huh?), but I also have the big duffel bag that Mom helped me pack just a two weeks ago, and I have a bike in a big box too, plus a bunch of stuff, clothes etc. that I got over here, Geez! Well, the bike is really not worth much, and Chris thinks its crap (which it's not!), but I'm still attached to it, so I guess I'll have two checked bags and a bike in a box and my carry-on. Doug's gonna be real glad to see me standing there waiting for him at the airport. Speaking of which, I'll be flying into Logan, probably with a layover in Philadelphia. I originally hated the Philly airport, until I saw the international terminal that is, very nice.

So that's the deal. Time to get a job! I have my resume all spiffed up, check it out. Work, yeah... about that. What's the next great career move for ol' Bobby Boy? I'm open to suggestions. I have had a lot of time to ponder and reflect on my life and how it's evolved. Where I went wrong, how I've made the most of this adventure and how I've handled adversity, and also how I've been lucky and how I've grown in the process. Anyway, I did kind of a life assessment last week and came up with a bunch of stuff for what I wanted my life to look and feel like. I also set down on paper, so to speak, the things I did not want for me, that proved invaluable in clarifying my thoughts surrounding this most recent decision. This is some of what I came up with for personal goals...

Pretty basic stuff really. You'd think this was all part of the required Human 101 curriculum, but I've unfortunately had to figure this one out on my own, even though you, my wonderful sister, may have tried to steer me right into several of these revelations at many different points in my upbringing (hey wait, I'm "older" than you, right?) It really helped me to do this exercise, if only to get the simple stuff out of my head and onto the page where I can see it, and live with it for awhile, and tweak it as needed, and finally say "yup, that's me". So I did it, feels good. It doesn't make the decision to leave Augsburg any easier.

I think, aside from whatever else was going on over here, the thought that I could successfully conduct my life without the foundation of a steady paycheck and a clear daily routine, in a place where, really, I don't speak the language, was somewhat naive and gigantically optimistic. I think you probably agree; another one of those things you probably already tried telling me. You're so smart. OK, Smartie Pants, what's next? I think I need to impose on your hospitality once again and re-occupy the futon couch in the cellar (I know, it's a really nice cellar) until I can get back on my feet. I'll find a way to get a suitable winter bike when I'm back so I can get to whatever work I land. I miss doing that. My friend Doug told me yesterday... "Just remember this....In the beginning there was a bike, and it was good". So true.

I'll keep you posted on when so you can arrange the suitable homecoming parade or whatever seems appropriate for loved ones returning from Germany. I'm sure it'll be grand.

Lot's of love, kiss the girls for me...

~Bobby