I love motorbikes (classic and vintage in particular). I have owned a few over the years, and found few things more therapeutically joy generating than leaning into some unknown journey on a crisp sunny morning.

“In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it you don’t realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.

On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.”

― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

However, I also worked in an Emergency Department for a long time. I saw a lot of stuff.
Additionally, I slowly discovered my mechanical ineptitude, my innate clumsiness (almost a superpower) and a propensity for looking where I don’t want to go…both metaphorically and geographically.¹

Once I dropped my brand new bike, simply because I forgot to put the kickstand down and then walked away (see? a superpower).

Once I dropped my bike on a steep mountain bend and was lucky to walk away.

My motorcycle days are thus behind me.
Even so, everytime I see someone ‘in the scene‘, I yearn. Oh how I yearn.

1. One of the things they teach you when you are learning to ride a motorbike is that when you are cornering, NEVER look at the thing you don’t want to hit, and ALWAYS look in the direction you want to travel. ↩︎