Have you ever spent 100s of hours on something, working and grinding just for the feeling that it creates? Rather than the product? I bought this guy in a way different state and at a way different place in my life. 

I learned to ride a motorcycle shortly after my mom passed away in 2014 and this was a time in my life to heal, 2015. I bought this 1981 Suzuki gs550 as a second bike, to learn to work on something without wrecking my then beloved Harley. This bike has become more and more meaningful to me. It’s not perfectly planned or perfectly tuned. To me it’s perfect in its own way. Perfect in its blemishes. In its erratic jetting. In the mistakes I’ve made and the things I’ve learned. But each time I put my head down, one step at a time, and it seems like I’m closer. 

I’m not gonna pretend there weren’t times where I dug something bigger than I could handle. A number of times on the side of the road trying to figure out what it was “this time.” 

I keep this bike for the memories and blemishes that shape what it is and what I see–not for what it is on paper or to others. And somehow I’ve come to know this bike better than I know the back of my hand. I think most motorcyclists see their bike as some odd reflection of themselves—that they think they know and think they can change.

Maybe there’s always something new that comes. But isn’t that life? 

I felt something when I grabbed a handful of brakes but it was something wrong. Fear. Something I was rightful in feeling. But something that wasn’t real until I created that very real reality–the fall. That reality that could have been recreated by emotion, a new emotion albeit false or learned.

Do we accept that we will fall? Do we ride and hope that we never will? Somewhere in between maybe. I fell that day. I fell another day. On the track I tried to keep pace with a group of riders taking that final left going into a chicane and I soon was looking off the track and then, into the dirt. I looked and went.

Where we are looking is where we will go. Look through the turn. Sometimes our body tells us what is real. But sometimes we have to learn. What feels most uncomfortable may be the safest of places. 

It’s a constant dance with Mr. Flight and Mr. Flight. Sometimes it makes sense to run. Or maybe it always makes sense. Is it rational to fight with danger? Or is it even less rational to run from it? We can run from danger our entire lives. Some do. Some try. Some fight with danger their entire lives. Some Embrace it. Dance with it. Some dance with it so that danger is no longer danger anymore. Or rather. Doesn’t seem so. They learn that it is okay to be banked at maximum lean angle in turns because they have never hit a gravel patch or ice. Some experience the opposite. And learn that it is better to be level. Some learn it is better to be on 4-wheels. Some learn it is better to never die. Or rather to never grit their teeth at the possibility of it, face to face. Some learn it is better to never live. To run and sprint through peril and joy and depths of sorrow and folly. Some learn that to live is to succumb and some learn that to live is to die. Some learn a different concept of life altogether. One of facts. Some just learn and live by fiction. And this fiction becomes their reality. They look through the turn and they believe therein is safety…because of how it feels. But perhaps that is just safety from everything else besides death. Sometimes you protect yourself in the worst ways possible. Dragons aren’t real. And science is safety , wisdom and bliss. 

Some learn through experience. Some through books. Some through emotion. Some through others. Some learn and some stay the same. Some learn the same things. Some learn to fear. Some learn to walk. Some learn to crawl because of the dampened risk of falling. Some learn to run. Some learn to drive. Some to ride. 

I recall the first time that my fresh knee puck touched that black asphalt. I remember how scared I got and how I grabbed a handful of brakes that day, followed by a headful of concrete. Where was I? Who were these people? I knew that I should know where I was and know these people, in theory. Sensibly, don’t we know the people that talk to us and seem to be friendly? Don’t we know the places we are and have come before? I knew I had a concussion. They didn’t seem to believe me. Sometimes we know things from our gut. Or sometimes we have to unlearn them.

Hell. How would I have even have gotten here if I didn’t know where I was? And they kept saying my name but I kept having to ask theirs. I soon woke up to the clamber of paramedics and people standing over me. And I felt like I was learning a few things for the first time. For one, my mother’s passing from a year back was reborn inside of me. I felt like crying. I felt like I just learned it. I felt ridiculous sharing this learning with a dozen strangers who weren’t strangers, around me so I masked it or tried.

These strangers were just there for a fellow rider who went down. I kept asking if her bike was okay. I felt bad as this new stranger and friend had shared her cherished possession with me.

I didn’t know these people. I only knew that I was scared right now. 

Step forward a year. I am at the Bouche de la Mer of Senegal. Or trying to get there. “Where is N’Gazobil?” I ask some local people. “C’est ici.” You are here. Sometimes we are looking for something that is already there. Or sometimes we don’t even know what we are looking for so we can’t even gauge if we have reached there. 

I stop to enjoy the many boats and wind of the sea. I get on my way to the next stop. I wander. Where is the highway? I go back north and then south again. I stop to ask the man who has witnessed my erratic tracks. 

“Where is the highway?” He tells me that it is down the street. He tells me it is right at the corner of his Aunt’s house. He hops on the back of my motorcycle without a question and off we go. 

We arrive there promptly and he asked me where I am going. I tell him Djifer. He says his other aunt lives there and that she would love to have me for dinner he is sure, that is if I don’t have plans or anything. He motions towards his phone. He picks it up as I observe him chatting with said Aunt. I don’t really understand how we became friends so quickly but here we are.