Ride to think...

[phil]

The school year is ending, another year has passed. All of the 1/4ly reports come due, all IEP meetings get crammed together and every second of time is filled with paperwork. The search for summer work begins to weigh on my fractured mind, long days indeed. My thinking begins to get foggy. I can't tell if it is age creeping in or unreasonable demands that are clouding my synapses. I stumble on my weary legs out of the building and into the parking lot. My machine has been waiting all day among the cages, among the SUVs and hybrids... The black paint nearly glows under the sun. I don my helmet and prepare to slay the dragons. The key slips into the ignition with clean clicks, my thumb finds the button and the boxer comes to life. My body takes over, sensing the mind is not up to the task. I feel like a passenger, the machine takes me out of the city towards the hill towns. I regain my train of thought on route 20 in Huntington, I can feel again, I can smell the pines, I can sense the river running beside me, my senses awaken. I slip the clutch in first gear and loft the front wheel over the tarmac, the engine screams to life again along with my mind. I carve the twistys of routes20, 112, 66, 9 and the like... I untie the knots and quiet the demons. When the ride is over, my 1150r ticks itself cool in the garage. I realize it is more than a motorcycle to me, more than transportation. It is lucidity. I ride lucidity...

[Xdot]

Beautifully written Phil, truly. Thank you for that splendid prose.

And don't forget to turn in your TPS reports.

[phil]

Thanks xdot. just blowing off a bit of steam...

[riceburner]

Yup - biking is the best antidote to work ever devised.

[sjbmw]

Well done. Another "ain't seen no motorcycles at the shrink's office" story:

I was watching a VH1 "Behind the Music" show about Jon Bon Jovi a few years back.
In the late 80's, after years of non-stop world touring, Jon Bon Jovi started to lose touch with reality.
He sat drunk on a Malibu beach everyday, until... He jumped on a motorcycle!

The 10:30 minute mark here: "the motorcylcle trips were 'therapeutic'"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES61mcXn ... re=related

Motorcycles as medicine is not a myth, it's fact!