Started daydreamin’ when I should have been working. Thinking about races upcoming and the incredible places we get to run through. Even me, old and slow though I have become, I am still running with a camera from place to place. And waiting on the runners to pass by. I sometimes think, especially of late, that the big adventures are over for me, that a graceful slide in doin’ very little is what’s called for. And then it occurs to me that I am thinking like an old guy, someone who has given up on his dreams. And that ain’t me, Partner; just not goin’ down that road. No fuckin’ way.

I started playing with some images I took in Central Oregon a while ago. Looking at them again It occurred to me that I am not a tourist anymore, that I have become a traveler on a road with no name, a local two lane blacktop kind of deal someplace I have never been but I am damn sure gonna get there. I can feel it “singin’ in my wires, tugging somewhere deep inside, callin’ me home to the high speed drift of just letting it roll.

Photo Credits

Photos © Michael Lebowitz – All Rights Reserved

Caught some good runs this week. Comin’ on the heels of the last two weeks, the running was a blessing and a necessity. I took my phone with me on one of them in order that I might try to capture something of the feeling of it. It wasn’t as clear in my doing as it was in my head.

I took a couple of images and kept running. Made it to a meeting. Came home, got dressed in real clothes and went to find out why my eyes weren’t workin’ so well. I found out. I think I’ll keep it close for the moment but it wasn’t nothing and it will change things. Right now I’m feeling like I’m in a John Wayne western, you know, the one where the lone figure is silhouetted against the Painted Desert, drinking his last cup of coffee and talking to the sky. He’s sayin’ that he’s outta coffee, down to his last smoke, that the Injuns are just over yonder and the Cavalry is busy somewhere else. He throws away the coffee grounds, stands up and says that he might as well git after it, time’s a wastin’ and there is work to do. Me, I’m sayin’ that it’s hard tellin’ not knowin’ what’s around the corner, down the road. But stayin’ still isn’t how it works. Movin’ forward, bein’ steady, me and what I believe in, we got to get goin’. Agein’ ain’t for the faint of heart. And it pays to remember that I am not alone as I move into the day, that people care about what I do, about how I am; that John Wayne movies were made up and never true. Knowing that, at long last, is a step in the right direction.

Photo Credits

Photos © Michael Lebowitz – All Rights Reserved