The Ride

I am watching my husband through the window.  He is lovingly preparing his dual sport motorcycle  for review tomorrow by a perspective buyer.  You may think from reading the previous sentence that I have a dedicated "harley-chopper" fanatic, a dyed-in-the-wool biker who would rather cruise the high- and by- ways of the American road than just about anything else.  Well, you'd be wrong.  


My husband bought the motorcycle at age 55, . . . as a tether, a tether to a mental age that represented to him the precise moment between youth and old age.  Yes, he liked the freedom feel of an open air ride.  But more than the frenetic physical sensation, he liked the freedom feel of being just the right age; mature enough to know how to be responsible, and young enough to enjoy the pure pleasure of it.


Not being a real biker, he used the bike only occasionally.  Yet, no matter how much or how little he rode, he came home rejuvenated.  He wore a smile of silent appreciation of himself.  It was an aspect of his life that he didn't have to share with me, and that was a good thing, because motorcycles terrify me.  He'd rip and rumble his way into his own world, full of thoughts, sights and sounds that were his, exclusively.


Now, at age sixty-two, he is selling it.  The practical reason is that we will be traveling for about a year and a half, and the bike would just sit.  But, the more important reason is that he is moving on.  He is looking, albeit reluctantly, to new ways of seeking excitement, of finding pleasure and thrills .  He's going to do it, we are going to do it, by being out in the world, in new places with new people. 


Still, he will miss his motorcycle. He will miss the ride that let him glide through the perfect age.