MotoTherapy: I Would Ride10,000 Miles

On Sunday, the odometer on my motorcycle ticked over to 10,000 miles most of which were ridden in solitude. Quite a feat considering I only got my motorcycle endorsement last May. As with many momentous feats in life, the exact moment it passed was pretty nondescript. Its greatness exists as told in the stories of the journey that lead up to that moment.

On this day, tired of tracing the same circles from our home, Oivind and I were chasing a token – Mary’s Little Lamb in Sterling, MA. After capturing our token, I hit 10,000 miles on the way home at the edge of the Littleton Conservation Trust where Hardwood Avenue intersects with Tahattawan Road. It was freshly laid blacktop and yet still, a pretty nondescript place.

But it was not that ride that had me counting down the miles, “9997. . . 9998. . . 9999. . . 10,000! Stop! Pull over right here, I need a picture.”

No, it was a culmination of journey that lead me to 10,000 miles, one that began with a craving for solitude.

Road Trip 2001

“You think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis, and, nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

When I younger, I would traveled alone often, but the last time I took to the road alone for an extended period of time was in 2001. I was triumphantly at an apex in my life. I had just completed my masters at MIT. Quite a feat considering I had only just been waiting tables at Pizza Hut 7 years earlier. I packed up my pickup truck and headed north from Denver.

In solitude, I reveled in all that had passed before I arrived at this accomplishment. Leaving home, battered and alone, with nothing but a carload of clothes. Waiting tables at two Pizza Huts. A one bedroom apartment filled with used and busted furniture in the kind of neighborhood that requires two dead bolts for the door. Married and divorced from a man who demanded my obedience and expected me to be nothing without him. A full load of classes and always working full time doing whatever it took – fast food, cashier, waitress, computer desk staff. Appeals to financial aid, scholarships and internships then a fellowship to MIT.

That trip was my last hurrah before I gave myself over the the toils of adulthood. I hiked the Tetons, rambled the wilds of Yellowstone and lost myself in Glacier. Later, I wandered the wilderness around Rainier then drove the Pacific Coast highway from Seattle to San Francisco before dusting myself in the Salt Flats of Utah. Throughout, I pitched tents in the backcountry and campgrounds, bunked in hostels, surfed couches and spent nights with old friends and boyfriends.

Three months later, I buttoned up my collared shirt, donned a pantsuit and reported for adulthood.

Road Trip 2017

This time, the road beckoned from my spot at bottom a low point in life. In hindsight, I can see now, the moment I celebrated 16 years earlier was not on a step on an upward ascent, but rather at a pinnacle before skating downwards to the bottom of this well.

In the solace of solitude, I dug into the recesses of my mind and reflected on all that had passed. I downsized from a pickup chock full with all I could fit to a motorcycle filled with a carefully curated set of items, but I carried heavier baggage in my heart and soul. It’s funny, it would have been easier to list here all the items I did carry rather than list the complicated mess of life in the ensuing 16 years. The life moments were not so obvious to formulate a list yet as a list the moments could be distilled into one complicated single item – me.

Adulting is hard.

No, it’s complicated.

In the deserts of the southwest, I got lost in the vastness of the world and felt the smallness of myself. On the great Rocky Mountains, I felt the importance of connections and bonds. In the heart of the plains, I sat with my mom and embraced my grief. By the time I reached the Great Smoky Mountains, I tested my moto skills and allowed myself to again think about the future. I met my nephew in North Carolina and screamed into the wind in Virginia. Then, I rolled home.

10000 Miles and a Year Later

I know I’ve recounted the bits of this story over and over. Sometimes, I wonder if I am dwelling on it, milking it for more than it’s worth. I can’t live in nostalgia forever, but honestly, life has been a bit surreal over the last year. It wasn’t even a year ago yet that I returned to Massachusetts.

On one hand, nothing has changed externally. I was gone for months, separated from the everything I built in those intervening 16 years. Then, I returned home, parked my bike out front and walked back into my home. Without hesitation, I shrugged on my previous life like it was a pair broken in, old shoes – although it was comfy, the fit felt weird and outgrown. I went about the routine – cooking in my kitchen, bathing in my shower, sleeping in my bed, sitting on my couch, barbecuing in my backyard, teaching my classes, walking my dog. . . just doing the things I did before.

Yet, everything was different. The stuff was the same and the place was the same, but I wasn’t the same. I didn’t want to be the same. I don’t want to be the same.

So, my mind remains steadily occupied with stoking those memories. They are like fireflies in darkness. Little sparks that I long to capture in a jar and gaze at looking for meaning in life. And so, I keep hunting.

Happy Cooking and happy firefly hunting.