Is it still a train of thought if it's on a motorcycle?

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Is it still a train of thought if it's on a motorcycle? Current mood: happy The far side of the lake flickers on and off like an old film, disappearing and reappearing rapidly as trees whip past my vision. Warm, heavy air captures scent and holds it, intensifying the honeysuckle and fresh-mown hay until it feels as though we are swimming in summertime. I anticipate the turns, our bodies synchronized and balanced, dancing with the living asphalt. The speed is exhilarating, but it is this measured, magic balance that defines our best rides. (It's rather like meditation, really- I'm having difficulty describing it- it is learned and practiced, but feels utterly instinctual. It requires a certain hyper-awareness of the here and now. It's a matter of rhythm, of relaxation and of skill. Such rides definitely tap into an energy and a power that is beyond the everyday). Passing through forest, the air is thick with the scent of hot, baking pine straw- sweet and toasty, it perfumes the air as surely as fresh spice cake on a crisp winter evening. I see the butterfly in a split instant, and abruptly it whips along my wake and off somewhere behind me. Does it wonder what in the hell that was all about? (I'm glad I didn't splat it). Slower, easier here, I stretch warmed muscles and tip my helmet toward the sky. We've been lucky today, skirting pewter-black billows and staying dry. Now I see a smooth expanse of perfect turquoise, strewn with endless marches of roiling brilliant white cumulus. The sun is getting lower and it is sparkling with improbable incandescence off the stream winding through the fields. Brief flashes of life whiz by, little glimpses into other universes populated with joys and sorrows, wisdom and folly, peace and stresses that I shall never know anything about. Flash, flicker, flying by and they are gone, just as quickly as they arrived. I'm overwhelmed, happily trying to take it all in, sucking in life and love and exhilaration until I feel as though my heart would burst. How much life can one being hold? I see the passing place coming and adjust my position, and then we fly away to new horizons.