in motion
I saw Fall today. It was crouched under a gnarled old tree, a dark brown shape hunched and crouching, formless yet crisp as a shadow. It was prickled and tough, like old oak leaves and bark and watched the rushes rustle around it as we drove by, slowly on the road.

We were on old Marcola road, out past the timber mills and all the houses. Out where a single step put you fifty years back in time, where the liberal and loose lifestyle of the Eugenite becomes the tough, pastoral, conservative lifestyle of a Marcolan... someone whose life is wholesome, in the sense that they trust God to turn the earth, to grow the crops, and to make wrong things right. Churches sprouted on the roadside among grass pastures and surrounding each church were houses, trailers, shanties. Some houses were the classic image of the old farmhouse, swing hanging from the porch, others looked just enough shelter to protect those inside them. I saw a girl who looked so much me at 8 years old that it scared me. She was playing on her front lawn in a nightie. I saw houses with smoke curling from brick chimneys the chase away the coming cold... and beyond them the rolling cliffs and hills, already brown and dry with the creeping autumn light bathing them golden orange.

We did a U-ey about twenty miles out, pulled out the stops and came rubling back into town. The whole while I was thinking, "Go faster, go faster!!" I wanted the wind in my hair and to really hug the road when we turned. But Cole said later that he was afraid of making me nervous. "Cole," I said, "if there's one thing you need to know about me, it's that I'm an adrenaline junkie. I like to think there's that small percentage that my life's in danger. I want to ride horses, jump out of airplanes, climb mountains, dive with stingrays. I want to go faster." And I couldn't have been more loose, I was already zonked after a long day... the whole ride was both relaxing and invigorating in a way.

And I'd been on a bike before; not a Harley low-rider like this, a Kawasaki Ninja, some hot-shot's crotch-rocket that put us mostly in the middle of traffic. Though I like the road bikes better, this was a real motorcycle, something that the roadsters respect. I've always wanted a bike. It's been a secret desire of mine for years now. And I think I could learn to ride one. That, and I look good in leather. (notice I'm wearing my leather faire boots and gloves, though... the jumpsuit was too short in the arms and legs ^^)

There's something about seeing the world from a bike that gives it a sort of ethereal quality. On the Harley it's like watching a motion picture of your life, like seeing things from the outside but not in the same way as being in a car. It's like watching a motion picture but being part of it. On the ninja, it's about loving the road. The world is just a little farther away, the pavement just a little more real, the dirt a little closer.

I've said it before- I'm most free in transition, like while I'm travelling. Being on a bike gives that freedoma new introspection. Someone give me some leather, a greasy wrench, and a working machine. I'm ready.