It has been two years since I started motorcycling under the tutelage of my good friend Yermo Lamers. What seem like a long two years at the time, was filled with memories that I seem to only remember through the pictures.
It has been 7 years since the last time I traveled. It has been 11 years since I took a vacation. Between finishing undergrad, ending a five and half year relationship, going to grad school and dating someone else; I have not only lost track of time; I seem to have lost myself. I find myself stuck, wanting to go back to a time that I felt safe. A time that I am not even sure what it was or when it was. I just know I was stuck, and this feeling of being stuck that I could not let go. I didn't want to travel for the longest time, that is until I felt the freedom of the two wheels beneath me. Something I said I would never do, just a few years before.
I was almost done with my first novel "Three Broken Promises" at the time. It was in its final stages of cover design and final submission. For the last three years, that was my obsession. It is something I wanted to achieve long before anything got complicated, and here I am only moments away from being done. It was time to take the trip.
Over the years, I have develop a sense of fear of leaving home. While I was always aware of this fear, I never truly dealt with it. Instead, I masked it, and pretended it wasn't there. I develop coping mechanism and halfway solutions. One could argue that I had a full onset of adjustment disorder from my last break up. All I know was that I was inseparable from my "bears".
I couldn't really tell how uncomfortable I was at the time, nor could I identify this feeling that I am able to so eloquently assign a name to now. What I felt as I got on that road was shortness of breath, ulcer like feeling, and my mind was racing wanting to see something familiar.
As we set off under way, I couldn't shake this feeling of wanting to turn around. I wonder if I could make all the miles. The longest I have ridden before this trip was a two day ride that cover less than 400 miles. Today alone we will do nearly 400 miles, and there is a week worth of riding to come. The time inside the helmet, even with my SMH10 headset and music, seem to turn slower. I kept looking down at the odometer and seeing how much longer I had to go. It seem like forever when we finally reached the beginning of Blue Ridge Parkway.
When we got there, I sat on my bike, not wanting to step off the bike for the picture, fearing that I may not have the courage to keep riding if I did. Just before we took off into the mountain, I open my tank bag and took a drink and spoke to Shaba (he was sitting in my tank bag with my drink), assuring him that we will have the best of times together.
Ever since I was young, the mountains always spoke to me; more than any other natures gift. The mountains humbled me, effacing all the materialism and the superficiality of city life. I felt like myself again, remembering the things that really matters. I showed Shaba where we were, and put him back in the bag promptly, since there were many stops to come we didn't stay long. I wish she was here with me, but somehow I knew she would not have enjoy it as much without the limelight.
As we rode through the twisty back mountain road, we came up to a few others who was riding similar motorcycles, so we made some friends :)
A few hundred miles in, we stopped at a tourist site. I'm not much for tourist sites.
Then it was miles and miles of riding. I got on the bike, I got off the bike. Everything starts to feel right, I still talked to Shaba every time we stopped. I took some pictures for him.
It was nearly 90 degrees outside, and a bearable 80 in the mountain. On this one stretch of road, there was a sudden change of weather, and a thunderstorm came over us. The rain came instantaneous, but no more than 3 minutes the rain stopped. All the rain evaporated and fogged up the entire mountain. I could barely see anything in front of me. The fog was so dense, I almost came to a stop on the side of the road cause I couldn't see. Yermo had to turn around when he didn't see me in his rear view.
After a few more lookouts and more miles, our day was done.
After a long day, we are finally ready for bed
Sometime between the rain, fog, and getting on and off the bike I had left a lot of my anxiety in the miles behind me. I was content on just getting on my bike the next morning.
