Saying Goodbye
Yesterday they put my motorcycle on a tow truck and took it away.
To me, it doesn't look anything like a "total loss" - it looks like you could replace maybe five or ten parts and drive away on it just fine. But those five or ten parts must cost more than I think that they would, as the insurance company declared the bike to be totaled purely on my verbal description of what was banged up on the bike.
Of course, I would be willing to hammer out the dents, rather than replace the parts, but that doesn't seem to be part of the motorcycle-repair paradigm these days. So it's a "total loss", and now it's GONE, and there's a big hole in the middle of my Garage Mahal.
(however, Kim has just about filled up the garage - a thousand-square-foot monstrosity that seemed to be an infinite resource when we moved into the house two years ago - with stuff from Indiana that she is "going to sell". Someday. Much of it has been there for a year and a half already. This is another one of those wonderful opportunities that a husband has to keep his mouth shut).
I won't see that motorcycle again. I remember now when I ordered it at the Honda dealership, and went by there and saw them putting the pieces together; they delivered it to the apartment in which I was living at the time on top of a tow truck, much as it was taken away yesterday. I was very excited at the time. Now there's a hole in me where my motorcycle was.
Today we went to the funeral of a friend. The whole event was about saying goodbye to someone. We'll not see him again in this lifetime - and, although most of us believe in another life to come, how likely is it that Chris will be standing around in the afterlife, waiting for me to come through the portal? : ) So I don't expect to see him again, either.
Not long ago, I sold my boat. It's possible that I could see it again, and never know it, as all they would have to do would be to change the name, and then it would be just another MacGregor 26 - so I don't expect to ever see it again and say "Hey - there's my boat!"
I'm reminded of a line I heard not too long ago - somebody, somewhere, said something like "I've reached the age where life has stopped giving so many new things, and has started taking some of them away". There's something ugly about the way that life in this world was constructed - such that, by the time you can appreciate youth, it's already gone. By the time you can afford to do things, you're too old to do them. By the time you know how to live, it's too late.
This lends credence, to my way of thinking, to the central thesis of A Course In Miracles - that God didn't create this world for us to live in, but that we created it as a place to hide from Him; because so many things about life in this "mortal coil" just seem to be designed bass-ackwards.
At any rate, I'm going to miss my bike. In fact, I miss it already. I was missing it as they were putting it on the truck.
To me, it doesn't look anything like a "total loss" - it looks like you could replace maybe five or ten parts and drive away on it just fine. But those five or ten parts must cost more than I think that they would, as the insurance company declared the bike to be totaled purely on my verbal description of what was banged up on the bike.
Of course, I would be willing to hammer out the dents, rather than replace the parts, but that doesn't seem to be part of the motorcycle-repair paradigm these days. So it's a "total loss", and now it's GONE, and there's a big hole in the middle of my Garage Mahal.
(however, Kim has just about filled up the garage - a thousand-square-foot monstrosity that seemed to be an infinite resource when we moved into the house two years ago - with stuff from Indiana that she is "going to sell". Someday. Much of it has been there for a year and a half already. This is another one of those wonderful opportunities that a husband has to keep his mouth shut).
I won't see that motorcycle again. I remember now when I ordered it at the Honda dealership, and went by there and saw them putting the pieces together; they delivered it to the apartment in which I was living at the time on top of a tow truck, much as it was taken away yesterday. I was very excited at the time. Now there's a hole in me where my motorcycle was.
Today we went to the funeral of a friend. The whole event was about saying goodbye to someone. We'll not see him again in this lifetime - and, although most of us believe in another life to come, how likely is it that Chris will be standing around in the afterlife, waiting for me to come through the portal? : ) So I don't expect to see him again, either.
Not long ago, I sold my boat. It's possible that I could see it again, and never know it, as all they would have to do would be to change the name, and then it would be just another MacGregor 26 - so I don't expect to ever see it again and say "Hey - there's my boat!"
I'm reminded of a line I heard not too long ago - somebody, somewhere, said something like "I've reached the age where life has stopped giving so many new things, and has started taking some of them away". There's something ugly about the way that life in this world was constructed - such that, by the time you can appreciate youth, it's already gone. By the time you can afford to do things, you're too old to do them. By the time you know how to live, it's too late.
This lends credence, to my way of thinking, to the central thesis of A Course In Miracles - that God didn't create this world for us to live in, but that we created it as a place to hide from Him; because so many things about life in this "mortal coil" just seem to be designed bass-ackwards.
At any rate, I'm going to miss my bike. In fact, I miss it already. I was missing it as they were putting it on the truck.
I've been strictly a 4-wheeler now for nigh onto 15 years. I still get pangs of remorse when I pass a dealership. But, there's hope. The wife says I can buy a Harley when I'm dying of cancer.
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I'm sure glad health insurance doesn't work the same way motorcycle insurance does, otherwise they might have declared you a "total loss" just because you had a few parts banged up.
I can't believe how fast you've gone from "once is enough" to "I sure miss my bike". I've never owned a street bike myself because my Mom disapproved of them so strongly. I still can't bring myself to buy one, even though I'd really like one and Mom has been dead since 1993. Just goes to show you how strong maternal disapproval can be. Might be even stronger than spousal disapproval...
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Jim,
I was struck by the introspective and melancholy tone of your post, to the extent that I started getting all introspective and melancholy myself. So I was pondering some of the issues you raised and got to thinking about the nature of life and loss from the perspective of one who doesn't believe in the after-life, and sometimes even questions the existence of God.
It occurred to me that the "bass-ackward" nature of life could be explained as simply the effect of entropy. We spend all of our energy constructing an ordered existence, only to have entropy come along and take it all apart again. So where you once had a motorcycle, and a boat, and a brand-new BMW, entropy has caused them all to revert to their original state (not belonging to Jim). Well, OK, the BMW is still around. even though it's got 1000,000 miles on it and any number of dings and scratches. And someday, hopefully in the distant future, the chocolate house and the new pool will go the way of the motorcycle and the boat. It's just entropy in action!
The big question in my mind is, if there is a God, did S(He) create entropy?
I'm glad we had this little talk :-)
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Gary - I don't see any real contradiction between "once is enough" and "I miss my motorcycle". In fact, were it not for the (blatant truth, regardless of my sentiments) of "once is enough", I'd be looking for my next bike - still melancholy over the last one, no doubt, but excited about the new.
And it's just that existence of entropy in that way that makes me tend to believe the Course In Miracles stance that WE did this (material existence) to OURSELVES as a way to HIDE from God. We can create all of this confusion and pretend that that means that there must not be any sort of rational Creator.
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