Sisyphus Don’t Moto

It’s been twenty five weeks since blowing my patella tendon and beginning yet another long journey back. It’s been a bit of a dark, grinding time. Crutches. Weakness. Pathetic. Pushing through Sisyphean physical therapy. I’ve written less frequently during this time, and frankly, what I have written was too lame to share with anyone.

And then I was delivered something completely unexpected: a magazine with my photo on the cover and an embarrassingly complimentary story about my strange, peripatetic career.

https://www.captrust.com/resources/second-act-bill-kerig-wont-stay-still/

The headline: “Bill Kerig Won’t Stay Still” absolutely smacks with unintended irony because right now I’m as still as I’ve been in decades, maybe ever. And I pretty much hate the forced nature of it.

It’s not that I didn’t expect the magazine story. The journalist had interviewed me so many times that she and I had become friends, and I’d done a photo shoot for the piece out at Antelope Island. I also expected the mildly vertiginous feeling I get when some version of me is presented to the world by someone other than myself. The guy on the cover (who seems to be me, but I don’t really know him) looks really old and weathered. But, as I stare at it, trying to make sense of how that could be me, I find myself kinda liking that old dude. He’s not pretty, but in his wrinkled eye sockets there seems to be a kind of peace that I rarely, if ever, feel. Maybe it’s just a trick of the lens, but for a moment, I want to be that guy, pulling off my motorcycle helmet after a rip in the desert.

That was the first surprise.
The second surprise was the overwhelming sense of gratitude I felt as, just when I needed it, something showed up to lift me up a little and remind me that maybe I wouldn’t be addled forever. Maybe there would be more moto days in the desert, even for that old dude. Which is just enough to get me back to physical therapy for another session.