Like Superman with a Cape

I wrote this over a year ago, figured I would post it here.

11/18/07

I bought a motorcycle a little over a year ago. It’s something I have always thought of a lot during my life, but something I just never did. In the year-plus I have owned my bike, I have racked up about fourteen thousand miles. Gather from that – I like to ride. Whether that is in the 06:00 pre-rush hour 70+ MPH heavy traffic on the way to work in the morning, riding around McKinney on the weekend, riding the back roads of Big Bend National Park, or a 3,000 mile 10 day trip through Colorado. I find enjoyment in all of them. There is something about it, not to sound cliché – but something about it that sets me free, something that heightens my senses, makes me feel alive, closer to Zen, calmer and more intense at the same time. I think it is as close to flying as you can get, not like flying in a plane, but flying like you had wings – like you are superman with a cape. The speed, the agility, the vision. The awareness of what is going on around you. The smells. You smell everything when you ride a bike, both good and bad. When I ride in the country, the sky is so big, the clouds are so grand, God is so close. A friend of mine said he went for a ride on a Sunday. His wife asked him why he did not go to church that day, he told her he had just been to church – I know exactly what he meant… When I ride there are no cell phones, I very rarely listen to my iPod when I ride, so there is no music, just the sound of the wind. Just the solitude of my thoughts, nothing to focus on but what is going on around me, whether that be a lady on a cell phone in a suburban, or a hairpin turn with a mountain on one side and a river on the other. It’s the perfect stress relief from work and day-to-day life. Riding is therapy, at least for me. Does it solve any deeply rooted problems, probably not, but when things start getting me down, I can take a ride and realize that things are not really as bad as they may seem. It has become, in a romantic sort of way – the guardian of my sanity.

There is so much more to say about riding, is it dangerous – yes, in some respect, but as I have said before, I am not afraid of death anymore. And then there is the camaraderie of riding, “the wave”, etc… all things I really am not going to get into right now.
I don’t ride a Harley, but they have the adage “Live to Ride, Ride to Live”, I don’t know if I would quite go that far, there are certainly other things in life besides motorcycles. But mine has certainly added a new and enjoyable aspect to my life.