If, in any relationship, I lose sight of the other person, for whatever reason, after a period of time I will begin to worry. Worry and become upset and irrational. Small things begin to take on massive proportions; a neglected mailbox or late arrival at the supper line somehow begin to provoke intense anxiety where none ought to be. And this goes as well for the kind of relationship I have with a hunk of aluminum and steel tubing called Suzi. In the last two weeks, the motorcycle has been sitting in the parking lot, leaking oil and gathering dust. I replace and straighten the cover over her periodically, thumb a drop of oil off the engine, and frown at my thumb. And the ill feeling never goes away. I fiddle with the windshield. I centerstand the motorcycle several different directions and get a different oil level reading each time. I kick the tires. And because none of this fooling around tells me anything at all about the motorcycle, I then kick myself for obsessing and go away and ... continue to worry.

The machines in my life, like the people in my life, are subject to constant breakage and destruction. Nothing is reliable, and there is nothing I hate worse than broken parts I can't see breaking. So I watch everything all the time to ward off impending doom.

So for my own sanity and peace of mind, I have to have a good sit down and communing with whoever or whatever I'm losing track of. I did that today with the motorcycle.

I woke up around 8:00 am (late), and over my dish of oatmeal, trying to plan out my day, I hit upon a crazy idea. Why not, since I have nothing in particular to do, see HOW far I can get north in one day on PCH?

No sooner thought than put into action. By 9:30 I was on 126 West. I kept going and going and going all day, the cliffs in the distance unfolding one after another, luring me on. I stopped at Morro Bay to eat something, and finally turned tail at Lucia. I hadn't quite made Big Sur, I was about 50 miles short.

I arrived back on campus at 9:30 pm. Twelve hours on a motorcycle. My throttle wrist was stone, my shoulders and back were a mass of shooting nerves, and the derriere wasn't feeling much. Nonetheless, tired as I was, I was happy. Because the motorcycle ran so smoothly (while soaking my shinguards with oil) that I almost forgot it was there. hmmmmmmmmm. it was nice. It was reassuring. I can take this thing across the country and it won't break down on me. That thought was very reassuring. There are no clonks or thuds or stiffnesses to mar the flying on the freeway; it's all liquid smooth and it's all good. It's all good. When one concentrates on all the little stuff that's breaking one loses sight of the big picture, which is that this big old bike runs really damn well...

i am dead. tired.

It's inexorable. The slow creep of oil back from the #3 exhaust mount. (I can see it in my minds' eye as I twist the throttle down to 4,500 rpms). The flying pistons are cramming oil into the crack in the head gasket, forcing it out past the looming, dirty exhaust collar. The screaming 75mph wind grasps the oozing sludge and slams it back against the cylinder wall, tearing it and pushing it, shoving it by main force along the flat plains of the air-cooling fins. It spreads out there, and slows down, pauses, even comes to a stop as I throttle down to 55 mph. But then speeds increase again, and the creeping flow resumes its march, closer and closer to the cliff at the rear of the motor...closer...closer...peels off in ropes of tiny globules and smack.

One after another, they bury themselves deep into my denim pant leg, piling up, spreading. I know without looking down that I now carry the brand of old motorcycle on yet another pair of jeans.

If and when fortune smiles upon me I will have a garage. I will have a torque wrench. I will have a complete set of sockets and open-ends, internet parts sources, and long, empty weekends with which to properly act the part of Old Motorcycle owner.

But this has not happened. I'm a college student. I live in a room. My motorcycle lives out in the parking lot. I currently possess a screwdriver, a pliers, and a 6mm open-end wrench.

It's been a sticky, gray homogenous porridge of a day.

All my friends are gone. The place is dead.

Suzi has three oil leaks that are getting progressively worse. And they will be very, very expensive to fix unless I take a week and do it myself.

My gut hurts.

I don't want to study for the GRE. I don't want to spend $60 on a landscape architecture magazine subscription. I don't want to research housing options. I don't want to look for a job. I want to lie back and take it easy and rest and take a vacation. Like I did all last week. WAIT, IT'S BEEN ONE WHOLE WEEK OF SUMMER ALREADY!

Four posts in two days.

This indicates that I am bored and sick.

gah.

This has been haunting my imagination for the last two days. I have to admit it is one of the most evocative short bits I've ever seen written by any of my friends:

"It was a still night in winter near the limits of a small town in northern Italy, during the later part of the Second World War. A scrawny adolescent girl was sitting in the snow by herself, leaning casually against a battered brick wall. A sleepy, thoughtful look hung about her half-closed, dark-rimmed eyes. Bundled close about her small body, held in place by obviously chilled fingers was a worn-out wool overcoat, all rumpled and smudged with age. She wore a tired but faintly contented smile and looked rather comfortable despite the harsh night air.

"'S cold," I commented, lighting a Camel. I wondered if she spoke English. She looked vaguely Slavic. She didn't answer right away and I took my first drag.

"Do you have a place to get warm?" I asked. I bent toward her, to hear her reply.

There were holes in her coat. Little tears or rips here and there, filled with rich red-brown syrup, frozen to ice in the bitter night.

Slipping from my fingers, my cigarette went out in the snow beside me as I gently touched her face. She was dead.

Toque (crashboxing.blogspot.com)

Original post may be found here

At the bottom of the grade, I coasted carefully to a stop, so carefully I overshot my intended parking target and we stopped beyond the corner by Boccali's Pizza. I tipped the bike onto its sidestand and cut the motor. She slid down onto the pavement and stood there, flexing one leg and then the next, propping up the smoked visor. Her long brown hair lay tangled down the back of the armored vest. “Oh, you're so lucky. It's so gorgeous, the fields with the horses in them, it's like flying. It's so beautiful. You're so lucky.”

You are lucky, too, you know. Because you weren't afraid of motorcycles you got to be First to Fly. “Oh, I know. It really is like flying, flying along the ground. I really love it, you know.”

And I stare off into the citrus grove. I can't tell you this, but I'm so glad you're with me here so you can know it too. I don't know how to tell you how much I appreciate sharing this with you, to look into your eyes and know the beauty you see is somehow the exact same beauty I see. I'm always alone when I see beauty from my motorcycle, and I hate that. I hate just seeing it alone, for then something's wasted, some facet goes unseen and unappreciated and beauty doesn't deserve that. It's a crime to waste beauty. Maybe when the tree falls in the forest with no one to hear, it doesn't make a sound. But somehow when the horses in the meadow go unseen, it's different. There should be someone to see the horses. It seems a waste of something good.

So I'm very glad you're with me now. I know that I will never see you again. You will go back to your busy life and busy job and two cell phones and boys and online computer games and Florence, Italy, and you will forget about flying on the motorcycle. But even if you forget, I will remember. I will remember the awe and wonder in your brown eyes, your arms trusting me in the curves, your head turned to the side, that we saw the same thing together, and that beauty wasn't wasted that time. I will remember, and who knows, maybe, just maybe, you will remember too.

“Well, it's getting late, I guess. We should probably start getting back to campus now....you ready to head back now?”

“Yes. Oh gosh, my hair is a mess”.

(Yes, your hair is a mess, for God's sake...deal with it)

I twisted the throttle down slowly and carefully, catching a stomach full of 60 mph air. The road lay straight, a ribbon stretched and glistening in the hazy afternoon sun. Fences flew by quietly on either side and serried rows of nut trees unfolded. Her arms and body relaxed and I felt her head turn to one side. We flew along, wind blasting my face under the open visor, flew along for miles until the ribbon showed a twist far ahead.

I slowed down well before the first curve channeling us toward the valley. Her arms tightened around my waist as we banked through the initial curves, back and forth , back and forth. This was the preamble to the famed Dennison Grade, an asphalt snake clinging to the mountainside, easing the passengers on its back down into the sheltered Ojai Valley.

We approached the first wall, and as it slid back to reveal hazy emptiness, I tapped the motorcycle down into second gear and banked into the first curve. Her body slid up against mine. I caught a glimpse of our shadow as it swung by, a pair of shoulders and helmets and long hair blowing back in the wind.

We leaned and shifted, back and forth, back and forth, swallowing curve after curve. I kept it revved in second, nursing the grip to minimize bucking. The big 4-cyl shouted harshly into the wind, holding its cargo back against the incline. Her arms lay lightly around my waist as we swung down low into a hairpin corner.

(you should be grabbing me for dear life, but you like it, don't you)

We swung up and out, then down low into the next. Up and down, up and down. The rhythm is soothing, mesmerizing, we descend like a seagull circling and tacking, back and forth, back and forth...

give me the wind /
and a wide open road /
curves and leather /
three pedals and a shifter /

Blah blah blah.

blah blah.

Blah blah blah blah.

I'm not sure if I missed her or she missed me, or we both missed each other, but in any case I made a choice and it was the wrong choice. I slipped and stumbled yet again. Now there is the same sinking sight of quiet irony in the dark blue hoodie and brown skirt that I remember from so long ago. Yet the pain is diminished somewhat by a layer of acrylic cynicism accumulated over a summer of listening to the silence and a year of listening to even emptier noise. Oh, don't let it be this way, I beg myself, and the cynicism only folds in on itself quenching all rebellion.