The Problem with Sleeping

You lay back on the pillow and gaze up at the ceiling, feeling the ache from the day. The stress begins to fall away as a calming blue feeling envelopes you as you slip off into another nights rejuvenating slumber. The mind wonders through fantasies and mystery, intrigue and sometimes drama.

Often you'll wake the next day alive and ready for the new day, atleast most people feel this experience.

For some, the slumber only brings with it several hours of mental delinquency. Awake you hear the mind slipping into irrational thoughts and ideas. Awake you have the opportunity to head it off at the pass before something Ill-advised takes place. Awake your in control, or if at nothing else, have influence over the outcome.

Asleep, the mind is free, uninhibited by the constraints of society, physics, common sense. Asleep, the mind will take your random thoughts out beyond the Sun and leave you there.

5 a.m. I wake to the alarm clock every morning, 5 a.m. my day gets under way. 5 a.m. is when I get to begin to decipher where the brain has been for the last 6 hours.

I reach over to the nightstand and shut off the alarm, I lay my head back down, "Maybe just a few more?" I ask myself.

Ding, ding, dingdingding, ding ding ding ding ding bwahp! brawhp! brawhp! "What the Hellll!!!" I sit up and make my way for coffee to clear the webs.

As I stand half asleep in the kitchen watching the clock on the pot slowly click through, waiting impatiently for salvation to fill my mug. Dingdingding, dingdingding brawhp! brawhp!

"Where have you gone this time?" I ask, half knowing the answer that would come I most likely didn't want to know. "If you build it, it would be amazing!" The voices reply, "beyond the Sun amazing!"

I hang my head as I stir my first cup and head for the clarity of the shower. "I'm gonna regret this won't I?" I ask myself while the water heats up. "Never" they reply,"Have we ever steered you wrong before?","Ha! Famous last words" I decided to bite.

By the time I've finished my cup and readied myself for the day, the sound in my head has explained in thorough detail what they feel would be the greatest example of classical Hotrod minding set to an unorthodox use of medium.

A 1979 Honda CR250r converted for street use, with hidden lights and turn signals. Updated controls and valving, big pegs, custom expansion chamber, LCD display tucked behind the number plate.

Dingdingding, dingdingding, dingdingding I love sleeping sometimes.

Photo credit goes to the Internet

Greenwood

4:45 a.m. Saturday, it's the weekend, my day off, everyone's day off, why is the alarm clock going off? The mind slowly stumbles into consciousness, "Oh yeah! Greenwood's today!"

The rhythm of the race begins, stubble down the stairs to the kitchen.  "I know it's yesterday's coffee, I don't care!" I grumble back at my brain as I fumble to get a cup out of the cupboard without waking the entire house.

I make a fresh pot and begin the rituals, camp chairs, check, cleaners, towels, granola bars, check. "Was it supposed to rain today? , eh, doesn't matter!" Car! Don't forget the car!

The birds even growled as I raised the garage door, I have to push the Pearl from dry dock. I don't dare attempt to fire the sails while the house is sleeping.

A few more cups of coffee and some kisses to their foreheads and the calm of the morning is abruptly disturbed as the dual glasspacks begin to patter out their song.

No one else is up, no one but the initiated few, I hear them out there in the early morning light. Chokes still have shut, they burble up to the lights, blip, blip, green!

WHAH!! WHAH!! I hear them tear down the hill towards the Wood. The glint in my eye flashes as the goosebumps raise on my arms. The God's of Speed are very happy this morning, the children are coming to church today.

15 minutes later, the Black Pearl and 700 or so of her closest kin and relatives impatiently stand idling in line waiting for everything to be organized.

I get to be the pot 'o gold at the end of the rainbow this year, last in first out you might say. I get the pleasure of enjoy the sights from my helm. My gear drive wirring away as I struggle to keep the Pearl up above a stalling idle. She seems to favor 2 speeds, parked in the garage and butterflies up against the stops, everything else just aggrovates her sense of purpose.

After all the dresses have been pressed it's out to take in the sights and meet the people. I always make a point to stop through John Walkers Workshop to see what fantastic bits he has been working on and chat him up for a few, another year without disappointment.

Then It's back to the Pearl to do my duty of answering questions and keeping my lawn chairs warm. Street meat for a mid-day snack, a couple pints to keep the energy up, then home for the evening to enjoy more pints and something roasted over open flame.

It may seem like a lot and a waste of a Saturday to some, maybe to the droves that come out to gawk in the chrome and splendor. But the endless inspiration and ideas that come make every moment worth the trip.

Thank you to the Greenwood Knights for another fantastic day, I'm not sure how many times the Pearl has gone or how many more she'll have. But it feels good when people recognize your ship from the Father of the person you got it from, sitting in that same spot, in that same weekend 25 years ago.