I got rocks in my head – or something like it, the Doc said. Called it by some other scientific medical term but essentially that’s what it boils down to. Calcium deposits in the inner ear that limit the flow of whatever balances the senses and lets you know what is flat and level. Not serious really, except when you are doing something where balance is important – like riding a MOTORCYCLE! And here I am – riding – and it is as though the handlebars are not connected to the bike. I gotta pull this thing over or it is gonna flop over. I’m also hard headed enough to shrug it off. After a bit of rest and setting still, the world stops spinning and it’ll be good. Well it would be good – ordinary, if I weren’t on this damnable bridge. So I ease off to the shoulder, just wide enough for me n the bike to be out of the flow of traffic and here I am. Stopped – on the bridge.
You have to cross bridges if you want to get from Arkansas to the Gulf Shores of Alabama, you know. And I wanted to get there. The kids, and grandkids, and friends, were there and wanted me to come too. Had a nice spot on the beach just waiting. I’ve done this before – just a nice little putt. 530 miles – I’ve done waaaay more than that. Easy Peasy – except for this vertigo – and this BRIDGE.
The Mississippi bridge, that I had just crossed gave me a clue – in fact it gave me a spook. Something was not right with my head. This bridge, the one I am on – cowering beside my bike – looking down at the pavement, not out – cause there ain’t anything out there. I have to focus on something close. Get a grip dude.
This bridge is one of them Hot Wheels type bridges they build in the bayou country. They gotta go up from the lowlands, way up – high enough so that barges and big boats can navigate. It’s over the Yazoo river in Mississippi. Oxbow delta land. Full of swampland. It is absolutely foreign to a ridge runner like me. Hadn’t been feeling well for a bit anyway with sinus, being summer and all. It’d been a couple months since that last episode where I nearly fell off the deck I was measuring for a stairway. That’s the one that sent me to the Doc’s office to figure out what’s up with that. No big deal — until — The Bridge.
I getting my composure back now. The panic has subsided enough to give me some of my cognitive functions. There is no staying here. There is no going back. It is a two lane bridge – for each direction. Two lanes eastbound and two westbound, separated by space. Not connected. Why did they have to do that? It wouldn’t have been nearly so disorienting if they had joined them together. As it is, I am on this thin ribbon of concrete with no frame work. Just those 36″ concrete barriers for side rails – 1000 feet in the air. (Could have been. I didn’t check)
There is the horizon up ahead. The place where the crest is and over that rise, down has to happen. It has too. You can do this. You’ve been riding these things for 50 years. Now stand – traffic is moving. A car just passed and disappeared over the rise – obviously oblivious to the gravity of the situation. So throw a leg over – c’mon – the handlebars are firmly attached to the bike. See – you can do this. Just one more truck coming – is that? Dang, it is. A concrete truck! Fully loaded. Just crossed onto my section of this noodle on stilts. Did you know these things move? A lot!! NOT HELPING. A few more minutes here won’t hurt. Look up, look down, look edge to edge. These are your parameters. Now, brake, clutch, engage starter, one down, no traffic — ease on. One up. Over the top – – – and there IS a down to the other side. I have visual keys to lock onto. Trees. Down. Catch a gear – three – four – five.
All of this is foreign. Never have I encountered anything quite so disconcerting. There is a “rest of the story” obviously because I am writing this – from my chair with my feet up. Safe at home with my dear wife who likes me – and my little doggie that LUUVZ me at my feet. I had a decision to make up that road a ways. At a rest area there in the depth of the Yazoo oxbow country. To go on and possibly get in deep trouble or worse. Or to call it and go back home. One thing I did know for sure. It would NOT be back over that bridge. The family wanted their Papa to enjoy the fun they were having at the beach. I was still 250 miles away. AND there were bridges. My vertigo had subsided but I was – and still am, far from 100%. A tragic incident is not what I want to leave them with.
I eased on down to Jackson, got a bite and on to Vicksburg and got a room. Hydrated and laid down to let the spinning slow down. I’m telling ya – it’s like being drunk. To think, I used to spend big bucks to feel like this. Anxiety. Being somewhere strange – totally alone. With only faith to cling to that, “this too shall pass”
A champion of faith – of old, Paul, wrote:
Why are we in danger every hour?
I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day!
What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
I’ve always run hard. It is all I know. A realization did come to me years ago that I did not have to go 90 with my hair on fire to enjoy life – and blessings. Still what ever I do, I do it with my might. Seems my might ain’t what it used to be – that’s kinda frightening to me. Looks like I have a new challenge.
Find a way to fight the good fight with this new normal
Paul lays it out again —
Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
Paul died, by choice to sin every day so that he could begin new. I live like that – or try too but I think I died a weeks worth on that bridge.
I woke there in that Holiday Inn – composed and refreshed. Enough anyway. Made the 300 miles back. Business as usual now. Work is going great and picking up. I’ve got good men with me to pick up the slack. New opportunities are presenting to teach and preach His Word.
That Doc is going to have another customer. There may can be something done to soften the rocks in my head. And the bike? Well I have a road. Right here, between me and my shop. Bout 10 miles. Just the right amount of curves and hills and ONE bridge.
Face your fears.
The golden rule'r's 