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Michael considered fate at 12:09   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

Just back from a long weekend on the CT coast, 460 trouble free (knock on wood) miles on the motorcycle, weather that even the gods could not have produced if they tried, and 20,000 leagues of scenic ocean views. Hours upon hours of lazy sailing with beer in hand, hauling along behind the boat-on-a-rope, and barbecuing swordfish, salmon, and beautifully sweet sugar and gold corn on the cob. Staying up till the orange ball of a sun peaks up over the horizon, it's rays burning across the water to blind the poor old still-visible man in the moon. Sleeping late while the flaming orb of heat powers up it's gigantic nuclear furnace to heat the afternoon like an ant beneath a magnifying glass, straight through any possibility of a hangover.

These things and more are what cause that oh-so-familiar summertime experience: beach traffic.

Luckily I left my cruising for the evening hours; as the sun was retiring for the night down below it's blanket of a horizon. Riding through miles and miles of dark highway with nothing but brake lights to guide my way like fenceposts along a country road. zzzzzoom, zzzzzzzoom. They pass by quickly and then their cousins the headlights, leaping suddenly into the rearviews, fade out into the distance - not quickly like the brakelights approached but ever-so-slowly as life fades out of an old man, seemingly taking years sometimes despite the happily painted smile of contented lived-ness on his face.

The thrum-thrum-thrum of the engine seems to produce a cyclic rhythm beneath my legs though I am old enough to know that it's all in my head like phantom notes at a heavy metal concert - those slayer guys played fast, but not that fast. I listen for the slightest variation in tone, ever nervous for a tire blow-out or a broken chain that would send me flying over the pavement, the bike flung sideways and the foot pegs sparking along lighting the road up like an independence day sparkler. The Carharts I wear, thick and heavy in the mid-day sun, seem thin and flimsy now, here in the dark, as the heavy air piles up against my thighs. I can feel the moisture on my legs, every few minutes I swipe my hand across my visor - a human windshield wiper - as heat lightening crackles silently in the distance.

This is summer in New England, with violent mood-swings in her weather like a petulant child's. The flaming heat, burning tar, torrential rains, and quiet clear nights with starlight twinkling through the atmosphere like a pretty girl at the state fair working her way through the crowd to come and say hi to you. Without this, without the humid summer air and the dewy mornings, without the afternoon thunderstorms, there would be no New England for summer is what saved this place for those people so many years ago. As stubborn and puritanical as they were they would have nevertheless moved westward soon enough had our New England not provided the stage for them on which they could perform their farmer's play.

By the time I was back to my summertime homestead I was baked to the bone, cramped, sore, and the bike was tired and panting. It was 10:15pm and I had just completed 230 miles. I puttered a circle through the backyard and pulled up on the cement slab beneath the garage's overhang. I listened for a few seconds as the engine quietly purred at idle and then shut it down. In the woods behind me, far away, peepers cried out in the dark at the inequity of it all, everyone of them trying to talk over the next one. A lone firefly made a moondance through the yard looking for a mate in the grass. *Blink* ... *Blink* ... *Blink* *Blink* ... *Blink*. As the engine cooled off tiny heat waves swam off it's fins in the dark that no one could see. The metal, cooling and shrinking, complained like a marathoner after a race, haggardly and without much sense, going *tink* .. *plink* ... *tink* . *bink* .. *ping* .... *tink*.

I crawled inside and peeled off my leathers, yanked off my helmet, and poured myself onto the couch. After some time to breath I cooked myself a bachelor's dinner of spicy sausage, muenster cheese, green peppers, and onions on whole wheat. I drank a glass of water. I drank another glass of water.

And then I went to bed because I had work in the morning.