Motorways of my mind


So...

Why am I here? Well, I suppose I'm not really asking you, I'm asking myself. I suppose I was writing (or trying to) and I got a classic case of writer's block, or better said, I had (or have) a bumper-car bonanza of words banging around in my head trying to find a way out.

Get them out and where you want them. That's the idea anyway. But then I think not just about the words when they 'get there', but how they get there. How they come together and the journey they take to get them where you want them. My train of thought you could say.

I remember as kid I had loads of Lego. All those bricks and pieces. So many different ones. All in a huge bucket. Sometimes too many, especially when I was looking for that specific piece to make that Lunar Buggy. So the whole bucket gets tipped out all over the floor - not much to my mum's delight - and I would scavenge for it.

You build and build, imagination running wild. You add pieces and take them off and add others. The piece you really want to use won't fit so you adjust your model until it does. Who said the lunar buggy wheels can't go on a lorry for the petrol station? Or the rocket boosters from the landing craft can't go on a drag-racing car? The Spaceman figure would become a firefighter in a protective suit, or a racing-car driver.

Then it's completed. Ta-daa! You have the finished product infront of you. I would sit and look at it, play with it for a while, maybe a couple of days. Then I would pull it apart and throw all the pieces back in to the bucket with the rest. All that effort, all that crafting. Yeah ok, there was the satisfaction of the finished model as I lay sprawled on the floor on my front playing with it. But the best part was the putting together of the pieces, the building of it. The journey of construction.

Years, quite a few beers and the acquisition of a driving license later, I remember a few road trips with my friends.

Tom, Moo, Johnny Honda and myself. That was the usual crew. All loaded in a Honda (yes, you guessed it, Johnny's Honda). The positions in the car were always the same. John at the wheel (hell, if he liked driving so much who was to argue..), Tom in the front passenger seat as the only one without a license and therefore elected DJ/stereo consultant (even if somehow done so in a dictatorship fashion :-) ) and Me and Moo in the back.

We visited various places, had quite a few good weekends, many laughs and as many beers. But it wasn't just that, the when we got there part; it was the journey there. All those miles, all those motorways. Deciding which way to go, where to stop on the way - and the rest (including revised updates of all individuals present of their current England football XI - subject to heavy discussion). That was the part we liked best. So many laughs on every journey, and I'm sure there are more to come...

So like the Lego building and the road trips, my mind journeys too. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Other times it gets lost. But it keeps moving. Down a network of motorways. The motorways of my mind.

Come and cruise with me. I'm always looking for a travel partner.

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