Anticipation

“Anticipation, anticipation
Is makin' me late
Is keepin' me waitin' “ Carly Simon

It is one in the morning and I’ve been priming the pump, hoping for inspiration, looking for a reason to write. Priming the pump by reading scripture, reading about writing, planning a pathway to PAR’s story; even this blog as well as Calvary’s Thread has been meant as a warm up to a larger work. Who is to say what actually woke me up to get a drink this morning and crawl back into bed only to have sleep elude me as worries invaded my thoughts and danced around in some bazaar rehearsal of personal interchanges that I would just as soon avoid. I fought off the destructive thoughts by engaging in the fantasy of rebuilding my past with some out-of-reach sports glories only to have me start in thinking about my upcoming trip and how it will relate to PAR. The struggles continued until I gave into the small voice that told me to write and now here I am writing about wanting to write. It’s makin’ me late, keepin’ me waitin’ for sleep but that’s what anticipation does.

Friday, I head off to Laughlin, NV for the Southwest Region of the Victory Motorcycle Club (VMC) meet and ride. Anxious anticipation; I won’t know anyone there, been a Lone Wolf rider and now looking to see what the pack might have to offer, what sort of story materials will be there. At this time it looks as though I’ll ride out in lone-wolf style, by myself and on the route I choose. Riders from the Southwest will converge on Laughlin so at some point in time I will likely see others and we’ll fall in together for the remainder of the run. Anxious anticipation; I am out of my element having worked with youth for so long I’m more at home and more friends with them than any adults even approaching my age. Now I’ll be trying to mingle having been told by my one contact with the ride just to “look for the bad looking bikers in the Casino and start introducing yourself.” I’m committed though, to see PAR through and experience what he might feel going out to find people he doesn’t know, riding his bike to a place he’s only been to with friends and his only love, not on vacation but on a mission. My mission? It is to break out of my normal pattern of sitting back quietly observing the interactions of others and forming my own story for them. Now I need to interact quietly and observe myself meeting new people, interacting with them to find common ground to see what it is God wants for me in the situation. Anticipation has loosened the mooring lines of my mind to the pier that has kept me from running the rapids of writing a story that will lead to uncharted places. That’s a very exposed place to be and I’d rather be in bed.

Saturday the VMC has a group ride with “75 to 100” bikes going somewhere to “have a free lunch”, you know what they say about free lunches, and then come back. Doing a big group ride has been on my list and may find its way into PAR’s future so this is good. I’ve been anticipating riding along with rumbling bikes on the two-lane highway to some cool place to have lunch and hang with new friends, assuming I break out of my introverted cocoon Friday. While many of these folks are going to be bad looking bikers, they are not a hard-bitten motorcycle gang and outlaws and will be providing me with materials for the stories I’ll write and posts I’ll make here. Anticipating is keeping me waitin’ to go back to bed to be ready for a full and busy day at the office. But first, I’m anticipating how I am going to present myself to complete strangers as a man of God, a spiritual person first, and biker way down the list. Tricky that; don’t want to be overtly sanctified and scare them off and don’t want to be of the world so much that I indulge in hypocrisy. Saturday evening there will be the VMC banquet and I should be able to tell if I’ve made friends or alienated people. PAR will be with me; our Lord and most of the folks interested enough to read this will be too. I can sleep on that, “So I'll try and see into your eyes right now…And stay right here 'cause these are the good old days”.