These writings are supposed to be about how I've been learning through movement, and even though I haven't been writing about it, I sure have been moving... a lot! Sunshine (my 2008 Suzuki Bandit 1250s) and I have clocked over 5500 miles of riding since April, and Burt (the 2003 Shadow Spirit 750dc) and I continue to take my wife and me for two-up spins around the hood and to short shopping trips, clocking up not nearly as many miles, but all of them fun.
Both bikes bring me a lot of fun, but Sunshine, though, has become a special kind of 'extension' of who I am as a human being. That bike really holds a special place in my life. When I'm riding her, everything just feels natural and 'right', and when she's parked in the garage, my mind occasionally drifts there, knowing she's sitting quietly, and I find myself really looking forward to the next ride.
I've also been to Colorado a couple times since I last wrote to spend time with my mom and handle her medical needs, and I've also tripped to southern California to spend time with my dad.
In all those tens of thousands of miles this year, both on bike and car, I have really just spent a lot of time reflecting.
Sitting still, in a pretty quiet room or space, is for sure one way of meditating, and I know it works for a lot of folks. But my form of meditation has always involved movement of some kind or another. Moving across the land, on foot and by vehicle, across rocks and cliffs, moving in and across water, moving through the sky, in free-fall or in some kind of vehicle, ... you get the idea.
Movement allows me to focus all my attention and to also lose myself in the experience. Not all movement does this to the same degree, obviously, but all movement seems capable of helping me achieve that state of "being-non-being" that clarifies and distills and makes me feel whole again when I'm done.
When I was last returning from my trip to California, about a month ago, I got a call that brought me to tears. My friend and neighbor, Ron, was in a very bad motorcycle accident and was on his 4th surgery to help screw and staple him back together again. Fast-forward to today, and it appears he's going to be fine, thankfully. But he won't be walking for several months and won't have the use of his arms for most of that recovery time as well. He was lucky.
I've spent a lot of my free time the past several weeks visiting with Ron. I listen to his stories, his adventures of places I have never seen, and may never see the way he's seen them. Every few days, I try to bring him coffee from an exotic new destination, a coffee shop he may or may not have visited in the past. I always send him a picture of the coffee headed his way from my "coffee adventure ride", so he has something to look forward to, and when I get it back to him we talk about what I saw and the ride out there and back.
I really enjoy my coffee time with Ron, and the stories... all the stories. I know we're both looking forward to the day he gets back on his bike.
A few folks have asked me if Ron's crash makes me want to stop riding... "of course not", I reply, "life is for the living," and some are obviously confused. But then again, most folks who ride passionately or live passionately already know better than to ask that question. It's the armchair folks that ask, mostly.
Life *is* for the living. Each day *is* a gift. It sounds like so much cliche, but it's all true. Nothing is guaranteed, no outcome, no "tomorrow" that people all around me seem to live for.
And so I ride each day and take in each moment now like it's going to be my last. When I skydive, I'm 100% present. When I fly small airplanes, the same. Running or walking or climbing or ... same. I'm not "racing towards death", or really "racing" towards any particular outcome. I'm just maximizing the moment - living ... really LIVING ... in the now.
I wish you all a life full of peace and adventure, a life well-lived and worthy of your own stories worth telling.
No comments:
Post a Comment