Fifty-Nine Years Old

I hit 59 today.

Helen made a dragon for me. It stole the show. She has a talent with art. The dragon is an echo of action figures my mother used to make me out of construction paper, with sewn joints. Helen improved on the concept with cardboard and brass brads. The back is a mosaic of weird lizard and swamp images. The paint gives it great texture, and the red nails are an inspiration.

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I’m not done reflecting on the trip. It was a thick experience, and I need to sit with it a bit longer.

As I think about it now, three major themes emerge. The first is that life remains rich and exciting, regardless of age. I had a hard time with 50, but 59 is great. I’ve been out of the saddle for a year, and I’m not the steadiest correspondent with people I care about, but both motorcycling and my friends remain profoundly important to me.

The lesson here is clear: do what you love with passion and fellowship.

The second theme, perhaps largest in scale but hardest to grasp, is where the country is right now. Everyone I spoke with has a keen sense that things are not good. The perspectives span the spectrum from deep concern to End-Of-Days. Nobody I know thinks we are headed in a good direction, and everyone is in agreement that the climate is a red-alert problem.

And yet, my friends and family are all in great shape. Each of them are pleased with where they are living, have creativity in their lives, and are filled with a sense of purpose. They are not alone. It was wonderful to see. I don’t think a single on of them would claim their lives are “perfect,” but I also don’t think they believe perfection is the goal. I am so very proud of each and every one of them.

More: the West looks beautiful. Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming are filled with crystal blue water. Yosemite is snow capped. LA is lush and green. It was hot in the desert and cool in the mountains and stormy in the plains.

No one was rude to me in three weeks. Political signage is at a minimum. Sure, there were a few Trump flags, one or two anti-Biden signs, and a good lot of Biden/Harris bumper stickers celebrating the last go-round. Overall, it was minimal.

So where are we?

From my saddle, it looks like we are enjoying the rain while we have it. We are exhausted by the mess that is our political system, disengaged with the two very old men fighting it out on stage, and enjoying what we can, while we can. Homo sapiens are good at adapting to the present and less good at high-level strategies for a global future.

The third major theme brings me back to where I began. What is motorcycling to me?

Motorcycling is about time, space, energy, and movement. The miles stretch out against the count of the clock, the states pass with the turn of the calendar page. While riding, I am projected against those two measurements, my energy distilled into a projectile on a trajectory forward.

It is my metaphor for life.

I hurtle through the cosmos, setting my direction but ultimately moving into the unknown. I have no choice but to take what comes. Much of what comes is, in fact, quite pedestrian. A lot of it is beautiful. Some of it is challenging. A bit of it is downright scary.

On the motorcycle I have five controls—two brakes, the throttle, the shifter, and the clutch—and the ability to change direction. That is my agency in the face of the future.

I can, of course, pull off the road.

To that end, one can spend one’s time avoiding the future or one can press onwards. Indeed, that is what “onwards” means to me: since we have no choice but to move through time and space for our limited duration on this earth, in my view, it is better to flow with that motion, indeed to own it by grabbing the throttle and hitting it, than it is to dwell at the side of the road or to while away the hours in some bland motel on some bleached main street or ruined strip mall in fear of the road ahead.

That road may well be thick with chip seal. Perhaps those more quick-witted than I can figure a cunning way around upcoming obstacles. I find that it is better to keep going than to stop, to trust oneself than to doubt, to ride than to watch from the sidelines, to grin at the aches and pains than to obsess over them, and to risk disaster than to disengage.

I have a number of simplistic distillations of reality. Anything complex confuses me and, I find, becomes impossible to execute at the time of need. Executing something simple in a successful manner is no easy feat, while performing something complex under pressure in a shifting environment is profoundly difficult and easily botched.

This trip was about recalling the basic metaphor of motorcycling in my life, and I’m glad for it.

Onwards!