The Art of Perfection
                    A Submission to Tales from the Front
                        Copyright 1998 by Dave Laird

Another Journal Entry that spawned the first:

Feeling a bit beneath the weather, if I were as sensible a man as I have
attempted to create in my children, I would lay down in bed, perhaps to
sleep for awhile, but more than likely to aimlessly drift in half-slumber
until whatever it was that was bothering me, like a mental submarine,
surfaced and begin opening its hatches. Instead, at what might appear to
others to be dizzying speed, I laid out the plan. There has always been the
subliminal fear in my mind that, as I aged, I would grow decreasingly unable
to do many of the things which I, for so long, have taken almost for
granted. Since nearly two years ago, when I had a stress-induced heart
attack, I have repeatedly been told that I need to slow down, to reduce
impromptu expeditions and, oh yes, forget those writing sessions that often
last well into the next day. 

Most of all, I have been counseled by good and worthy friends whom, no
doubt, care a great deal about my physical wellbeing, I should forget that
damned motorcycle, my collection of old cars, and start driving something
respectably similar to that which a nearly forty-seven year old man should
drive. 

Still, despite all the caring counsel to the contrary, I continue to take
great pride in riding my twenty year old motorcycle on trips of incredible
mileage, often under what, to normal minds, might seem extremely adverse
conditions. I once scared even myself by conjuring up a case of double
pneumonia, shortly after recuperating from my heart attack, by riding my
motorcycle halfway across the State of Idaho sans helmet in forty degree
weather. I no longer make that same mistake to push the envelope of
awareness. I wear a helmet almost everywhere, these days. 

There is something about having the ability to lock out the external world,
providing only the rude skills necessary to keep the motorcycle upright and
moving down the road, and expending the rest of my mental energy exploring
the various paths and alleys of thought which otherwise would go ignored. 

I left as the sun rose, rejoicing as I viewed the pretty sight of Spokane
combing her hair beside the river in the first light of the morning. I made
only a brief foray onto the Interstate, just long enough to put my path well
outside that of the city, and thence south to the Oregon border, through the
screaming colors of autumn, the sadly vacant wheat fields of the
Palouse--onward the motorcycle and I roared, until the voice in the helmet,
besides my own, was louder, more strident, than the throaty scream of
Vibrante, the motorcycle. 

What of perfection, then? While I have sought for most of my life to
nurture, father and bring it into the world, as I begin to age past the
mid-point in my life, I must admit, a state of enlightened perfection seems
to elude life with greater and greater ease. No one, save a fool, would
state that we, as a planet, are any closer to or any more likely, to attain
a higher state of spiritual, physical or mental enlightenment than our
predecessors. 

In _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, it seems that the author and
his son are diametrically heading in opposite directions attempting to
attain a state of perfection, and yet, in the author's own words, all of the
rules by which men live would aid such a meeting. Why is it, then, that we,
as a planet of sensible entities, must live in such disharmony? 

It is noon, and I pause along the highway's edge, right beside the Columbia
River, eating the sparse lunch that I fixed for myself back home, in the
dust-kitten gray of the kitchen at four in the morning. As I contemplatively
eat my sandwiches and draw warmth from the coffee in the thermos, I realize
that, like my parents before me, I became the generation to my children,
that they never understood. It would seem that perfection in parenting is
nearly as elusive to the parents in each generation as anything in life. Yet
some things, such as the Columbia River, are unerring in their ways, if left
untouched by man, and allowed to continue their stolid pathway to the sea.

As I crossed into Oregon, within an hour I was able, for the first time in
my journey, to take off the heavy sweaters I wore beneath my leather jacket,
as it was finally beginning to warm up. A good-natured farmer, out
patrolling his irrigation equipment alongside the road, leaned out the
window of his pre-60's old GMC pickup and gave me a hearty wave and a grin
as he continued down the wind rows of his field. I smiled, returned the wave,
and stared thoughtfully after him, wondering the while if he ever would
refuse to wave at a stranger. Perhaps it is something ingrained in men that
turn the soil for a living that makes them less judgemental of strangers,
but then I remember too many instances where other farmers tried to kill me
for the length of my hair ten years ago. 

I guess perfection does require a haircut, in order to work. About the time
I traveled through Umatilla, the voice in my helmet, speaking in modulated
but demanding tones, that it was tired of watching the road go by, and that
perhaps it was time for a break, especially since I had an ugly leg cramp at
the time, and I pulled into Lew Barnes' Fruit Cup Fruit Stand, which was
closed for the season, and parked the bike.

Perfection had once been here, or at least had been here every time I stopped
by during the long growing season. In my mind's eye, I could recall seeing
the huge wooden planks that daily were loaded down with fresh fruit,
vegetables and other bounty of the land until, as its owner once said
proudly, you could hear the nails holding the saw horses together groaning in
unison beneath their load. 

The richness of the gold in the pumpkins, squash, the reds in the cherries
so tart they would give your mouth a lesson in sour; even the dense purple
of the grapes and the color of the earth itself, favored this place for a
time, each year. Now it was gone, perfection fled, and yet not, for
overhead, in the deciduous trees that over hung the fruit stand, giving it
shade in the hot summer days, were chattering now, talking in myriads of
autumn colored voices overhead, in the same colors that once graced the
fruit and vegetables that passed by this way onto new homes. It seems that
if you find, identify and remember a place where you once proudly identified
something that was excellent and return to find it gone, perhaps it has
merely moved on and transformed itself into something else. It would seem,
then, that perfection is perhaps transitory. 

I decided late in the day, as I crossed back into Washington, that I would
look in briefly on Pasco, to see if the street gangs had entirely taken over
the town, perhaps declared a portion of the town a cop-free zone, since the
cops had only recently sold a lot of signs declaring certain blocks of the
city drug-free zones. I grew disgusted when, upon driving through the area
that only weeks before had been declared to be drug-free, to encounter a
group of teen-agers riding in a low rider selling crack-- and judging by the
look of the baggies in which it was packaged, it probably was imperfect, at
that. 

Even the most perfect of plans, according to Murphy's Law, will go asunder
within an hour of conception. As soon as the sun left the sky, my plan of
discovery for perfection began running off its tracks and into the rough.
The temperature, although it had been cool all day, plummeted like a stone.

Where, earlier, the chilly air had been but a mild distraction, was now an
outrageous and uninvited guest inside my helmet, my threadbare gloves, my
coat. By the time I reached Sprague Lake, where I knew there would be a
pocket of fog slumbering alongside the Interstate just waiting for my
arrival, 

I was already cold to the bone, despite having bought a brand-new pair of
leather gloves in Moses Lake to stave off the cold from my fingers. Yet, as
soon as I saw the fog, drumming its fingerlets on the surface of the
roadbed, as soon as I saw ice forming on my glasses, suddenly it didn't
matter anymore, for although I slowed down, it was more to savor the view
than to attempt to deal with the night air or the fog fingers beating on my
glasses, I finally saw perfection. 

Frozen to the bone, uncontrollably shivering, at sixty miles an hour, the
clouds, which had restricted the moon all night parted, and for an indelible
moment in time, there, silhouetted against the moonlight on the water of
Sprague Lake, were a flock of snow geese, travelers from icy Greenland bound
for South America, carefully navigating in the dark, for landing spots on
the water. I stopped alongside the Interstate and watched as the geese
started calling out their landing coordinates as carefully as any jet
airliner would do as it descended through the clouds. 

Shedding my helmet, I could hear the lead goose, at the point of the ragged
vee they formed in flight, calling what sounded like orders to his
lieutenants, and in unison, without a single bird breaking its place in
line, they landed on the lake's surface, setting off shimmering wakes that
traveled as far across the lake as I could see. 

I laughed at my perfection, for as soon as the geese were contentedly on the
water, I thought I heard a collective sigh of relief. Even perfection, it
seems, is sometimes best enjoyed when it is over and done with. 

I rode into Spokane at midnight, drawing a few inquiring looks along the
way. After all, how many seekers after perfection do you ever see at
midnight on a twenty-year old motorcycle when the temperature is 39 degrees?

That, too, may be the art of perfection.