Day 11: Yachats to Ocean Beach Wayside, 20 miles

A young child, heard leaving a small amusement park, tells her mother, “This is the most exciting day of my life!”

A mother, upon hearing her 28 year old son’s cynicism and apathy, says “This is the worst day of my life.”

A man, ruminating on opportunities missed, promises betrayed, loved ones lost, wonders how to let go of his past, to move ahead, into the uncertain future.
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Why so many days between my training rides?  What have I been doing?  How will I be ready for another tour come this fall?   My days have been fractured, incomplete, interrupted.  Restaurant word, financial stresses, the ever changing landscape of emotion and relationship and context.

Sometimes when I get so lost and can’t find the next step, immersed in a loneliness which I cannot shake, I turn to a musician who bears my family name, Laurie Anderson.  Child of the beat poet generation, author of new music in Soho, guest on the Muppet Show, I was introduced to Laurie Anderson by my engineering friend Lauren. 

Her music challenges my isolated perspective, helps me touch base with the universal nature of human folly and magnificent achievement.  How strangely soothing, her vocoder spoken word and discordant synthetic soundscapes, social critique and wry humor.

“What are days for?  To wake us up.  To put between the endless nights.  Days are where we live.”  From Another day in America by Laurie Anderson