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sublingua | |||||
| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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Open Road Demons
Me, The Open Road, Freedom, and Responsibility Well, there is a steep learning curve when learning to ride a motorcycle. And let me tell you, curves themselves are a little tricky what with the slow-look-press-roll technique and also? Considering how deadly even the most innocuous seeming mistake can be on a bike, my life (which I have come to value) largely depends on my skills. So I've been practicing practicing practicing. I've been going out at night, after dark, and riding the two mile long road that circumnavigates the campus. Since I'll be riding mostly in the city, I've been practicing a lot of what Hottie Jason calls "parking lot skills" (tight U-turns, slow turns, 90 degree turns, and so on) too. I've had Max follow me around a bit so that I could have an accurate gauge of how visible I am to other drivers. (And this has been a good thing, as given that my jacket, which I bought because it is made, in part, of reflective fabric, was not terribly visible after all, so I bought some reflective patches to add to the back.) Anyway, it's fun, it takes a lot of concentration, and it makes me remember how difficult it was to learn how to drive a car. I learned how to drive when I was about ten. My mother used to let me drive her big, old, pea-hued, 1973 Chevy Impala (a boat of a car) around the neighborhood when I turned 10. When my older brother, at 14, wanted to learn how to drive, my parents decided that they were only going to teach one of us, and he was it. It was his job, after he had gained some very rudimentary skills, to teach me and my younger brother how to drive. (I was 11, my younger brother was 9.) So my parents would give us $5 for gas and we could take turns driving where ever we wanted to until the gas money ran out. Later, when I was about 14, my mother got her first motorcycle. She was about to leave her job and my father (thank god on both counts), and to her, the motorcycle was a symbol of her freedom and independence. It has been the same symbol for me, and has reminded me too of how much responsibility comes along with that freedom and independence. I mean, I already know that my life depends on my skills (see above, in re: learning curves), but too, I have had to learn how to care for this object that my life depends on when I am riding. I am learning things about my bike that I never bothered to learn about any car I ever owned. I mean, sure I knew how to put gas in and how to call AAA when I broke down, but I never had to do a pre-ride inspection of my tire-pressure, my electrical system, my lights, oil and other fluids. And that is an every ride occurance if I want to keep this thing in good shape. So, yeah, there is the part of owning a motorcycle that is fun and exciting, the "me and the open road" aspect of it (and that road is so immediate as to be almost overwhelming sometimes), but there is also the incredible mindfulness that must be exercised as I do ride and as I care for my bike. But I love her, too. She's beautiful. I have yet to name her, but this morning, I was thinking about Edna Pontellier's bid for freedom in The Awakening, and I thought, maybe Edna? I don't particularly like the name tho', so I think I'm going to keep thinking. And now? It's time to register my sweetheart.
More lies:
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