Lines, Cash, and Smile!

This morning was an adventure we all try to avoid. Every few years, this place calls your name and lets you keep using your car. We all dread the experience now but when we were 16 years old we couldn't drag our parents there fast enough. This blog has coincided with my official relocation to Illinois and therefore, I was forced into the unpleasant alter-universe of the DMV, where manners and logic are rejected.

Although this blog is more about the journey, today felt so much more focused on the ends rather than the means. Getting my Illinois drivers license was the target and how it happened, I didn't care. When I arrived at the DMV, you go through one line to get your number to wait in another line. This gentleman decides to tell me that they do not take visa but they take all other major companies, cash, or check. Well of course, I find my wallet holding only visas. Then I tell the royal mannered gentleman that I need a first time Illinois license and to do so I will need a Certificate of Residency. "I know what you need. Just give me what you have." Once he has reviewed my papers for apparently the sole reason of self gratification, he send me to the person with the real power of accepting or denying my license application. This gentleman doesn't have the snap of the welcome team but simply speaks as much as my mailbox outside. Through the entire transaction he opts for pointing and grunting as opposed to using vocabulary. The next step in the process was the most shocking of them all. The written test. After spending hours online reviewing the paperwork I would need to prove I am the person I say I am with 3 different forms and that I am living at where I say I live with 2 additional forms of identification, the website failed to inform me that I would be taking any exams. Which is funny because I thought the next exam I would take would be a little further than 2 months after graduating from college. Pop quiz! The quiz was almost an insult because they ask you to match colors and shapes with names. Sounds like 1st grade to me but at least it was the easiest quiz I had taken in over 6 years. Then the time came. Photo shoot. They dont give you a mirror or a warning of the flash that causes you to need Jesus to put dirt in your eyes to drive home.

Overall, it was an adventure. I met interesting people who have somehow ended up working at the DMV, a job I don't envy. I didn't get the time to ask about their stories today but I know they have them. All of the people in that place from all over the world seeking to have permission to go on adventures of their own. Seeking the ability to use a car to explore the world and meet other people. Just as a bicycle is freedom to explore. The DMV is place that issues not drivers licenses but explorer certifications. I hope that I am able to achieve this and not simply sit passively behind the wheel but to notice my surrounding and what it takes to get from place to place.

Exploration

Bugs are hitting my chest, my legs are pushing around the crank arms, and the wind is blowing by my ears in a way that make it impossible to hear the sedans and minivans whizzing by in such a rush that they make me a just another component in their obstacle course to happiness. The reality of the situation is, they just passed it. It was me, riding my bike. A bicycle is something that transforms a person. It is newly found freedom to the child, adventure to the teen, and transportation to the urbanite. For me, all of these are true when the saddle is my recliner, the road is my Sunday football game, and the passing scenery is my commercial breaks from the stress of life. I am removed from the work schedules, friendship drama, and never ending to-do lists. I am transported to a new world of exploration.

So many people have simply seized to explore. This seems to happen as people transition from childhood to adulthood. When a child's sense of adventure becomes the sun at dusk, the child's mother calls s/he home for safety. What if this safety of walls, roofs, and televisions was abandoned. When a person enters the world with such an adventurous spirit, there is truly so much to discover. The problem seems to be a settling for the routine. Americans need to get out and explore, dive into adventure, ride into a risk or two.

Through this space of an online blog, I am going to share my stories of exploration. Some will be stories of riding a bicycle, some on the "L" train in the city, some will be in the car. All will include interaction with self, others, earth, and God.