Pink Floyd on My Mind Today

"And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"

I had ju-jitsu practice this morning. We practice on Tues and Fri from 6:30 to 8. Our practices are held at an office building in Alexandria. There is no parking, but there is a metro station nearby. So I park at a metro station one stop down, and ride the metro up to the Eisenhower station.

Once you go through the gate of the metro, you don’t get charged again until you go back out a gate. Then the machines calculate how far you have traveled and charge you appropriately. If you don’t go out a gate, you don’t get charged. If you go out the gate you came in, you get the minimum charge - I think it’s $1.65.

There have been many days where I thought it would be good to get on the train and just ride it all day, back and forth from one end of the yellow line to the other, then to metro center and ride the blue, then the red, then the green, going from end to end, over and over. Movement without a destination.

Today I had the overwhelming desire to do that. When I got back to the Huntington Station where I park, I just wanted to get back on the train and start riding. To watch the urban scenes flow past, to see the lights of the tunnels blur by. To emerge from the dark suddenly, blinkingly into the light again like Dante rising.

Sometimes the answer seems to be in the movement.

But then Pink Floyd says,

"Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here."