Dad

My father and I just had a really long talk (helmet-enabled) as I rode out through city and country scenes today. I took routes I've really never been on before, some that I have been, and we spoke about the nature of life, spirituality and human nature. We spoke of joy and peace, of partnership and friendship, and he spoke clearly and from the heart, of his mistakes and his wins and failures.

He is old - now mid-80's - and his health is questionable, but with every conversation I feel more connected and put together, as a man, as a human. More whole, if that makes sense.

And it's not really what he says or doesn't say, what we talk about - it's more like how folks say you have two conversations going on at the same time, the conversation going on in words, and the conversation going on without words. I've heard different percentages of each, and I'm sure each conversation and its participants vary these amounts, but with my dad, there seems to be a whole lot that he isn't saying that's really important for me to receive and understand, and somehow I do. This wordless exchange of ideas and thoughts and wishes and hopes. It's worth the call a thousand times over.

Another beautiful spring/early-summer day. It's gonna be a hot one, but nestled in the curvy twisty country landscape between mammoth oaks and elms covered in ivy, my helmet fills with green as the chill in the air cuts into my open riding jacket and catches me by surprise.

It's lovely beyond measure, and I spend the rest of the ride in a moving meditation, listening to the purr of the engine as the bike and I open up under old railroad bridges and lazily unwind through countless tree-lined curves.

Mindfully Present

You hear that a lot these days - about the importance of being 'mindful', being where you are and nowhere else. I agree.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have the answer - ride.

Riding a motorcycle makes it very difficult to be anyplace else. Riding is freedom and when you've got freedom and the machine you're on expresses your every thought in effortless fluidity, you've got nowhere else to be. Everywhere you are, however fast you're going, however much the wind is pushing back, however sticky or loose the gravel or asphalt or dirt, ... that's exactly where you are, when you are. Time and space collapse into the single expressive motion of you on the bike. It's beautiful.

Rode Burt a lot yesterday (my Honda Shadow Spirit 750dc cruiser) and even rode him out in a full hail and rain thunderstorm. Not on purpose, mind you, I thought I could outrun the storm so we could have a couple pints of ice cream in the house to enjoy our favorite shows, but I got caught in a big way regardless.

I just smiled and laughed the whole ride. The whole ride.

Don't get me wrong - I got soaked to the bones by the sticky warm evening downpour and blinded by the lightning crashing all around, got pelted in the face by tiny hail pellets that stung with every bite, but I still laughed and laughed. I was just thinking how Burt really needed a wash and polish, and so nature provided the perfect wash.

But I also laughed because everybody around me thought I was nuts, all of them driving around in their trucks and cars and SUVs and hiding under storefronts and awnings and bus stops hoping for a dry moment to "run for it". They looked and me riding by and I caught several of them taking phone pictures and shaking their heads or looking at me with blank stares.

No matter. I didn't hide. I charged into the fray. I didn't run to a car, either. I just rode and took it all in, all of it, raw and exposed, swimming slowly through flash-water puddles as high as my chain and countless other riding challenges. And I loved every minute of it.

Today, Sunshine (the Suzuki Bandit 1250s) and were on the move at sunrise, and the sky is cloudy white and clearing from the storms, which lasted all night. I'm sitting at a new-to-me cafe in a small Wisconsin border town typing this and getting ready to switch gears to my day job. The couple hour ride out here was perfect.

It's a good life. A very good life.

Reaching and Riding

Riding is reaching for something I cannot quite grasp. It enables the reach, supports it, but doesn't really give me a clue as to the full extent of it. The ride melds math, physics, body, mind and spirit into a singular expression in motion. It delivers truth in a way I am unable to put into better words than these.

Out at sunrise exploring the world today. The clouds seem to be breaking up from the wetting rain of the night before. I decide to take in the city scape before heading into the country. My favorite coffee shop and first stop with the bike is now closed until 7am (they used to open a half-hour earlier), so I ride out again through the varied city landscape, taking in the university district and moving into the low-rent neighborhoods and out again towards the tracks and river, where massive tarp-covered barges dominate the river on both sides.

By the time I reach the Mississippi river basin southeast of Saint Paul and start crawling the farmland backroads first south, then east, then north again, the sky changes its mind and begins to darken again. The warm wind I had been cruising through turned sharply cold and the clouds threaten and thicken again the further north I ride. I cough a couple times in my helmet as my unprotected neck takes the brunt of the bitter bite.

I decide to take the first road west and head south and back towards home again. The sun is high enough in the sky that my wife should be awake and I want to make a day of it with her somewhere fun. Still the cold wind bites hard, and I am ready for a break. It's been a couple of hours of solid riding on the bike and the ride is taking an unusual toll today. I see a passing "cafe" I've never tried before and ride back and park in front.

It's an out and out breakfast spot, but I tell the waitress I'm just looking for coffee and to sit outside if possible. She says "sure, I'll bring you a coffee outside" without much affect and so I make my way out to a plastic table to write this. I must have looked pretty worn, since she brings me a cup of plain water and a mug with an entire thermos of the hot stuff, leaving the thermos on my table.

I said "thank you" and, later, I catch her passing eye again and say "I really appreciate it, the coffee is good." I can see and feel how she catches herself genuinely smiling back at me - how that smile surprises that small but still-unjaded part of her that once believed in human beings to be generally kind and decent folks. No doubt serving thousands of impolite strangers over the years has taken it's toll. That is written very plainly on her prematurely-aged face.

I pour some more hot coffee from the thermos, take a sip, and type this... and contemplate all this stuff as I do.

Life Behind Glass

More rain is coming as I ride into the brightening eastern sky. It's spring in full swing here.

The ride this morning in the brisk early air is responsive despite the wet streets from an evening and night full of rain showers. Sunshine and I are really loving these new Pilot Road 5 tires, very solid wet performance. The Road 4's they replaced tended to slop around on wet paint and tar snakes, but the Road 5's have "some" hold on even these nasty surfaces. I park and find a quiet spot to kick off my work day.

Sunshine looks good, even behind glass. But life behind glass ain't all that - life is about living, not watching. Sunshine was designed to integrate with her rider and move through challenges. She was definitely not meant to sit still!

I want to say something meaningful here, something about living versus watching life go by, but I really am forced to check myself after the long dinner and post-dinner conversation we had with friends/neighbors of ours last night.

Life is what you make of it - and what you think of it.

Each and every person gets to decide for themselves what makes them happy or sad, how they live or how they don't. That amazing freedom of thought and expression are privileges which this great country of ours exemplifies and promotes. It's something no other place in the world really has or promotes anywhere near as much as us Americans! Nowhere else, really, not like here.

But even so, most people choose a limited view of themselves, and then go on selecting reason after reason why that limited view is valid. "I'm afraid" or "sick" or "allergic", "too old" or "too young", "too weak" or "too strong", "too big" or "too small", "too pretty" or "not pretty enough", ... "I'm too important for THAT" or "I'm not important enough for THAT", ... "I'm too rich", "I'm too poor", "too classy" or "not classy enough", .... On and on.

On and on the people all around me (a) give themselves limitations and then (b) spend the rest of their waking hours in an ever-steady effort to justify them. It's like some horrible feedback loop of limitation and justification, of wound and wound-speak, of disfunction and validation. Everywhere I turn, people are boxing themselves up into countless labeled boxes, and then complaining about while also being comforted by their self-critical cardboard cages.

For a guy with (a) no fear and (b) no limitations, it's absolutely maddening to see the world around me and the people in it spending their waking hours this way. What a waste of human potential.

But I'm just a guy on a bike, not a wizard and not a fortuneteller. I don't know how people's lives are 'meant' to work out, or even if they are 'meant' for anything at all. And nobody knows best for me either, that goes without saying.

I just need to check into my and only my life and let others sort themselves out ... or not ... I guess I just have to learn to step back a bit.

Lovely Finish

Spent the evening hours carving seemingly endless turns on various country roads through the eastern border towns. Amazing riding, and an awesome finish to a long day and even longer work week.

Happy Friday to all.

Knowing When

Beautiful orange sunrise this morning but chilly again. I wore just a t-shirt beneath my gear and I instantly regretted it as Sunshine's speedometer indicated 60 mph and beyond. The cold actively siphoned away heat from my hands and core quicker than my body could replenish it, and so I aborted my 50 mile ride out to a new coffee shop in favor of a near-city favorite and called it.

Time enough for the rest of that ride later today, I thought to myself. The coffee warming me back up as I write this tells me I was right to call it for now.

Yesterday, I faced a similar decision but for a different reason - exhaustion.

Every muscle in my body ached from having been up north doing demolition work on an old farmstead home and barn. From sunrise to well past sunset for the 2 days I was up there, outside of working hours as a software developer, I was moving or ripping out or hauling the entire first floor (furniture, appliances, built-ins, ...) of the home out to the barn and, there, organizing and sorting a lifetime of leftovers from the previous owner(s).

Although the sun was shining yesterday and the sky blue, my riding felt "off". Sloppy clutching, twitchy steering, missing traffic cues, ... I put myself on the bike for a ride to a coffee shop and change of pace in the afternoon, especially as it had been 2 days without riding. But everything about riding failed to "click" yesterday, and so ... I called it, filled up her tank and headed for home, even though there was plenty more riding to be had.

So knowing when to call it - glad I have that instinct. It's good to be bold, but only the smart get to be both bold and old. :-)