The importance of the senses

I crave tangibility. More than anything, I crave something tangible.

I have known this all of my life, but at certain times it becomes much more apparent. Tonight I am thinking about planning a motorcycle trip - there is so much fun to be had in planning. And for me, that fun begins with a map.

A map is a representation of all the places I want to see and go to, and all the places in between. More than that, a map is a representation of all that will happen along the way. The distances represented on a map can be equated to time spent covering those distances. And time can be equated again to experiences, Experience. A map is important, it is the first mental step before the physical steps can begin.

And when I can touch that map, draw on it, pick it up in my hands, feel it against my fingertips - it is then that I can truly feel and know the significance that it implies. I can plan as much as I like using web applications like google maps, and they are great. But for me the route does not exist without tangibility, and I can't touch a google map. Or smell it or taste it or hear it or see it in the full three visual dimensions that exist in this world.

If the map isn't palpable, then how can the roads and routes and plans that it represents be any more real to my senses?

I am reminded tonight of something that I learnt in an English class when we were studying Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.

Our teacher posed:
Why is the format of this book so important? Why does it matter that it is letters? What does this signifiy?

Stumped, we responded with predictable answers - it allows him to write in the first person, helps develop characters, add some sort of credibility to a fictional narrative - none of them incorrect.

But, she asked, how do we feel when we receive a letter in the post? Is it not somehow infinitely more special than getting an email, or even a phone call from the same friend? It is the tangibility that is important.

With a letter in our hand we can connect more intimately to the words that it contains. We can screw it up in disgust, cry tears all over it, hold it to our hearts and sigh. We can smell the paper and imagine the person who wrote it, and know that they also held this paper at one point, know that they too had a chance to feel, smell, taste, hear and see what we are seeing as we experience this letter in the real world.

Complete experience - experience that is emotional, physical and psychological - begins with tangibility.



I need a map.

Level Up!

Sunday, 23rd August
5.45am
ODO 17,250mi
Alarm. Breakfast. Pack up. Gear up.

6.45am
ODO 17,250mi
Gear on, bike started, pulling away.

7.00am
ODO 17,255mi
Fuel stop 1, chat with the attendant who is at the end of her shift and hoping to catch some sleep before watching the F1 later in the day.

7.10am
ODO 17,260mi
Heavy rain. Visibility very low. Bike is lurching, power delivery extremely uneven - misfiring? Starving for fuel? Electrical problem? Unknown. Still running? Yes. Continue. Soldier on. Distance remaining to Ruislip, London 390 miles.

7.30am
ODO 17,275mi
First drops of cold water seep in to clothing, body begins to shiver slightly.

7.45am
ODO 17,290mi
Motorway, 70-80mph. Heavy rain continues. Power delivery problems persist. Begin talking to motorcycle, urging, encouraging, romancing.

8.35am
ODO 17,340mi
Cross into England, A74(M) becomes M6. Rain continues.

8.45am
ODO 17,355mi
Fuel stop 2, Southwaite Services (between Carlisle and Penrith). Petrol for the Suzuki, jam donut, coffee and a stretch of the legs for the rider.

9.50am
ODO 17,400mi
Rain stops. Suzi and I are discussing names for her. Nothing concrete yet, but we're getting there. 250 miles to London.

11.00am
ODO 17,475mi
Fuel stop 3, Knutsford Services (yes, really). Early lunch, chain lube and fuel for my steed. Beginning to thaw out, still slightly damp.

12.00pm
ODO 17,520mi
Sunshine. Smiles.

1.30pm
ODO 17,610mi
Fuel stop 4. Call London to check directions. Completely dry, sunshine is warming. Tear wet weather pants climbing back on, but it doesn't matter now.

2.15pm
ODO 17,650mi
Arrive Ruislip, London. Slide off, stretch legs, greeted by plenty of sunshine and a very kind offer of help from friends. Watch closely as Suzi is carefully pulled apart, greased, lubed, re-sparked, and fixed up. She sounds great, and I feel grateful.

A ride across London to meet more friends, with bike and rider both sounding happy, although rider is now due for a tune up (terrible singing inside helmet).

Mission accomplished. Safely, reasonably comfortably, and with confidence regained.

Thanks for reading. And for all your support after my previous post of hesitation and doubt. A moment of weakness that has since been rectified thanks to help in various forms from friends and family, as well as an 850mile bonding session with KC. We decided on the name on the way back up north, twisting through a gorgeous hilly backroad across the Scottish border, sun shining down, engine humming away, miles passing easily.

Next mission: purchase a camera to document the fun.

Rethinking the next level

I think, re-reading that last post, that I might have an idea of what is missing at the moment.

People.

At the moment I am completely on my own in Scotland. With my marvellous Ms M on holidays with her father, I am left with no one within a 500 mile radius who knows me, regularly engages with me, or cares mildly about what I want, need, desire, plan to do.

If someone was here perhaps there would be another mind to bounce off. I could build my excitement either by seeing it mirrored in another's face, or by vehemently opposing another's doubts. I would have some genuine measuring stick of what this might mean.

Instead I am completely on my own in this right now. Which is perhaps the reason that I chose London for my first big trip, rather than a more scenic Scottish route - I know people in London, people who know me. People who might have a genuine interest not in the nature of the trip, but in what this trip is for me.

So now I find myself questioning this need for a mirror. Can I actually do something like this on my own, or do I need that measuring stick of others, that nod of approval (or even frown of disapproval) from those around me? Do I need this trip to mean something to the people in my life, or will I be able to find meaning for myself within myself completely independently of anyone else?

Where has all my confidence gone?

I need to go searching for it, because rumours abound that there is a great reward for the one that finds it.

Next level

Now I have the motorbike.

And now I need to go back and reconsider why.

For some strange reason I find myself petrified. I have taken to comparing it in my head to actually buying my tickets to travel in the first place - it is a significant amount of money, which signifies an even more significant starting point.

I'm not sure which risk scares me more - what I have to lose (financially, emotionally, physically), or what I might have to do in order to gain as much as I hope to from this experience.

Enough babble.

I bought a motorbike. That's right, I finally bit the bullet and just bought one. Which could be a problem in itself - my impatience has led me to buy a fairly second-rate machine, with obvious patches of rust, and plenty of problems of its own.

Character, some might say.

In any case, I do not, as yet, feel any great connection with the bike.

It is exactly what I was after - a cheap, 10 year old Suzuki Bandit 600 with low mileage, which I can afford to insure and which should be comfortable enough to ride reasonable distances.

It has been down the road at least once in its life, and looks to have been mildly neglected by previous owners. It would take a fair amount of work to get this bike riding as good as it probably should.

But nae buther laddies and lassies.

She is currently having her brakes worked on by a mechanic (yes, I am paying a mechanic to work on it in the absence of friends and tools to do the work myself).

Then I take her for a quick jab down South, to London, just to see how she handles over a reasonable distance.

Test run pending, I will plan a route shortly thereafter, pull together some gear, and hopefully indulge in some selfish sojourning down unknown sidetracks in distant Europe.


You see, even as I type that I seem to have doubts that I will make it here. It feels as though something is going to go wrong, something will intervene and stop me. Or is that just my natural hesitationn speaking, my cold wet soggy Scottish feet? How much do I want this?

I will let you know once I get a chance to escape from this place of hesitation, this place of necessary comfort, this place of indecision. I will let you know how I feel once I get out and ride the bloody thing!

Wish me luck please. I think I might need it.

Priorities...?

How strange.

My desperation for a motorbike has taken over, so much so that I am not allowing any time at all for blogging. I have been working every waking (and often sleeping) hour of every day (and night) possible to make this happen. And I am getting closer.

Ironically, this has meant that I have begun to neglect this space. Ironic, because a part of me wants the motorbike so that I will have more to write about here.

I still do have things to write about, and I will try to wring them out when I next have a moment and a portion of energy to spare. It has been 3 months!

I have since been to Dublin, fallen in love with Croatia, and made an hilarious cousin into an amazing friend on another jaunt into the Scottish countryside.

In the mean time, check out someone like Carla King for a preview of what I hope my next adventure might be like. She's a pretty cool solo biker chick, who writes as well as she appears to ride.

Upcoming...

Dublin, May 2-4.
Croatia (Zadar + possibly an island?), May 13-20.

Then no holiday days left from work. Or money to spare. But I think its worth it!

Ich bin ein Berliner!

Speaking English first is a very handy skill to have. It is rare that you will visit a place where English is not understood by at least one person in the immediate vicinity (admittedly I haven't ventured far off the beaten track).

But it does come with an inherent set-back. Most of the people whom I have met that speak English first speak nothing second. I fall quite painfully and from a great height into this category, and I hate it.

I don't speak any other languages. If an Italian, an Indian, an Arab or an African approached me in the street for help, I would be relying on their English skills in order to provide some assistance, because lord knows they haven't a hope in hell with me.

It is something that I have almost come to resent about myself and the majority of English-speakers that I meet along the way. Especially those who espouse the view 'Why should I learn another language when everyone can understand me?'

The classic example is an American traveller whom I met in Berlin, describing an encounter that he had with a beggar in Rome. Pleading with him in Italian, this poor woman received the reply (in the harshest of Chicagoian accents) 'Woman, if you can't even beg in English then you ain't worth my time. Learn English if you want my money.'

I had to hide my frustration with this huge-sunglass-small-tshirt-tight-jeans-wearing boy by taking a large bite of bratwurst and chewing ferociously so that he wouldn't see my teeth grinding.

Until I asked myself - am I no better than he is? I can't speak Italian. Even when I tried, most of the time Italians don't understand me. And let's not even begin with my French, Spanish or German. Yet most Italians (and French and Spaniards and Germans) that I met could understand my English. I wonder how much of his English that beggar-woman understood?

There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. I found myself staring wide-eyed at a colleague of mine recently when she switched from English to fluent French when she realised that the person with whom she was speaking hailed from Paris. I found out later that she spent a year in Paris, and could also speak Spanish from time spent in Spain, and some broken German from a few months as a correspondent at a German newspaper.

Whilst now that the novelty has warn off her skill is less a topic of admiration and more a ground for practical joking (There's a call for you, and its someone German. No really. I swear. Yes, they only speak German. I would never lie to you!), I still find myself in awe of anyone with an English-speaking background who can speak a second language. Not even fluently - even just an understanding and a few broken spoken sentences are enough to earn my surprise and respect.

When JFK proudly proclaimed 'Ich bin ein Berliner!' to a cheering crowd in West Berlin, 1963 he earned (perhaps belatedly) a small amount of ridicule from the English-speaking world. In a rather abstract way, this phrase can be taken literally to mean 'I am a jelly donut' (although apparently it did not sound this way at all to the adoring crowd assembled on the day, and Kennedy's message rang loud and clear). And I admit that I used to have a giggle now and then when I saw it in history.

But really this is the sort of effort that we should all be making. Language is culture, and so often we travel not just to see places but to experience different cultures. You cannot experience a culture without at least attempting to speak some of the language. You cannot connect with people unless you show a willingness to understand the basis of their country.

Whilst us English-speakers might be at a disadvantage in that it is not really necessary for us to learn another language to get by, we need to be reminded every now and then that it is necessary for us if we want to travel completely and genuinely.

My girlfriend's fantastic French flatmate loves speaking English and has moved here (to Scotland) so he can practice everyday. Now he can not only travel to, but also connect with the English-speaking world as well as the French-speaking world. He can (metaphorically speaking) not only pronounce 'Je suis une personne française' (or something like that), but also 'I am an Englishman, I am a Scot, I am an Australian, I am an American, etc.' These are the broad horizons that I crave, and I hope to have them within my view one day in the near future.

Learning languages should not be feared, or seen as an unnecessary hobby. It is something that I aspire to, and hope to make the time to embrace so that perhaps one day I can also proudly stand in a room of jelly donuts and announce that I, too, am one of them.