Along for the Ride

It isn't always the most comfortable place. It isn't always the warmest or driest place. It isn't even always the safest place, and that may be part of its charm. It is an open, endless, constantly changing place, unwavering only in its inability to disappoint. It's color, texture, movement, sensation, speed, and freedom. It's serenity, and adventure racing side by side, like the road's double yellow lines that sometimes break, but never meet. Risk tingles up the spine of tranquility in this place.

The back of a Harley, hanging onto the warm, bearded, tattooed biker I married has been my breathing space in a life full of "to do" lists since I was 15. My hands on his back offer the illusion of safety, as the wind, carrying a whiff of danger, in the momentary inattention of a trucker, blows by. The rides are wordless conversations weaving spiritual threads, bound to keep us upright even on the sharpest curves, and steepest slopes.

My first ride was the sample the dealer gives away to get the addict hooked. Flying along with a whispered prayer, and grabbing fate, not for the first time, by the seat of its pants, the inevitability of a raging obsession shimmered in the summer air; mingling with the road dust I inhaled desperately, just the way an addict sucks down smoke. It was lust at first breath, love at first ride, and life at the fullest, right there on the edge of two wheels, and a puff of exhaust.

In a pack of bikers, riding for charity, or at a rally, or just "because," my thoughts are drowned out by the low growl, and rhythmic hum of hundreds or thousands of engines, and I can just be, thinking only of the feel of the sun on my face, and the sweet smell of exhaust in my nose, without guilt, without worry, and totally without self consciousness. Everyone around me is in the same place - his own place and mine.

When it's just the two of us, I can feel the thump of an old Skynard song beating from the speakers, hear the twang, taste the moisture, and dust in the air, and almost see my thoughts skimming, and bouncing along the edge of the road, staying in my shadow, as if they don't want to bother me; but can't help wanting to come along for the ride.

On a city highway, where loose fast food wrappers flap, and flutter from the gutters, trying to catch up, kids wave, giggling at their own audacity in trying to get the attention of the "big, bad" biker. Even when all I can smell is burned diesel from the trucks that surround us, blocking the view, or the warm, slightly sour scent of yeast from the beer brewing factory, and the unmistakable smell of too many people in too small a space, it's only an experience. I don't wrinkle my nose or hold my breath; I just suck it up like the first coffee ice cream cone of the summer to savor later when its pungency and the ice cream headache have faded.

On a barely used back road, one corner will gust an icy chill down the back of my neck because the trees never let the sun reach the road. The next curve, though, will blow tropical heat in my face from an open field, carrying the smell of hot day, warm animal, sour milk, and freshly produced manure, and I do wrinkle my nose, but reflexively because we're almost at the end of it before I can separate, and identify all the scents.

A stray pebble might snap me in the face. My eyes might water in the wind. Maybe my knees will lock, or my ass will go numb, and maybe the rain pelting me at 50 miles an hour will sting, but it won't matter. Riding is the place where time stands still enough to see, and disappears in a blur at the same instant. When I'm too old to throw my leg over the seat, I'll sit outside in my rocking chair with a blanket, hoping to catch the scent of memories carried in the wind as it rides by without me.