Warning: this is not going to be an eloquent blog post. Today felt as though I was being dragged backwards and upside down through a bramble patch. Information overload sufficient to make my brain hurt. But I haven't written in a while.
Remember when I rode on the back of a motorcycle and loved it? Oh go on, you remember. Or maybe it was just a milestone in my life that everyone else has forgotten. Probably. Probably most of the people who were reading this have grown bored and wandered off, but for those that haven't: I went for another motorcycle ride! On a bigger, faster, prettier bike this time, all the way down to Orange County, a much longer trip than the one from Westwood to Santa Monica. It was the perfect way to spend my last day of freedom, between the end of J-term and the beginning of my second semester, before buckling down to read and write papers and think of difficult, slippery things. Out of touch with the mundane, absorbed completely with each moment, pummelled by the air that we were slicing through, keenly staring down the freeway, trying to anticipate what every other motorist would do, and how Nyasha would respond, and how to stay with him and not lean the wrong way, clinging on as he accelerated down the open road. It was exhausting, but utterly thrilling.
There's a quotation I remembered from the Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:
“In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame. On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.”
Which is exactly right. We were part of the sky and the road and crisp, cold air. We skimmed past LAX as a plane, a huge plane, was swooping into the runway. It was so big, and just suspended there, right above us. And we sped past factories, all lit up like christmas trees and beautiful in their lonely, stark, industrial way. And then we rushed on down the pacific highway, stopping at Huntington Beach pier to watch the sun sink, lingering, almost as though it was loathe to depart us, and admire its reflection in the mirror flat sea, so flat it felt as though we could spring from the pier and run across it towards the beckoning horizon. Sometimes the world, and life, feels so beautiful that your chest aches from the strain of time pulling you forward.
Oddities of the pier: one of the men fishing there caught a silver, struggling fish and shoved it into his cooler box; a couple took a selfie with a selfie stick; a one-man-band busker played a metal guitar, drums and a harmonica; and benches in memory of loved ones.
It was a day of presence, of life, of breath whipped away by the wind, of brutal awareness, of calm.
And afterwards, we laughed about it, shakey-legged, adrenaline-fuelled laughter. Dissecting each turn and gap and lean. That's the best part, I think. The connection of it. If I had a bike I would never ride it without a passenger.
And that was my last day of holidays before the semester's onslaught. As perfect as they come, really. Happythankyoumoreplease
That's all for now. Much love.