Flying

The sensation of riding a motorcycle. It’s not so much the sitting atop and riding, but being a part of a machine.  Even more than that still, of being apart FROM the machine, becoming completely unaware that a motorcycle is there while you are being ferried, borne of a perfect communion of like needs, inputs, understanding and respectfulness.  You’re not sitting upon this thing, it is not working below you as a thing, but instead you disappear, the motorcycle disappears and what is left is only motion.  Simple sensation.  Thought: action.  Sense: reaction.  Desire and consent.  Sights, sounds, smells become everything, this everything depends on your being aware of it and yet you don’t think of it.  You’re not creating it, but reacting to it.  You’re a part of it, you don’t wait for it, you live in it.

That is the essence of this that I would call flying.  I think, I go.  I look, I turn.  I hunger for the roar of power and I’ve unconsciously twisted, I’ve asked and I’ve received, not with thought but with desire.  I soar with the momentum I’ve produced.  I then have the equal ability to land.  I use it often with force of effort of the wind under the wings, backdraft creating the friction and feel the slowing then the collection back to the start.  I fold the wings in, sit still for a few minutes and take off again. 

I have embraced this basic understanding of why I do what I do, for those glimpses of nirvana, because to be sure these perfect moments don’t happen all the time.  In fact, they are the exception, but also the reason and inspiration of why I ride.  Now I have extended it to a world I’ve never stepped into until now.  To fly with another.  To liken it to nothing short of two eagles soaring for the shear joy of it. Not vying for the hunt, nor the mate, nor the territory. Or perhaps indeed all of those.  But most simply because they can.  Because each possesses the gift of flight, ability, cooperation, and respectfulness allowing such an encounter.  The trust of synchronicity and togetherness.  You move, I move. You begin, I complete. You lead, I follow as if you’ve taken the bait and run, I chase.  I take it from you to start the game again. You breathe, I breathe. Trust pure and simple.  Recognition, respect, playfulness, protectiveness.  Then we rest by falling into step the comfortable and familiar formation, the rhythm of an unhurried dance, a walk through the wine country, at any given time a hairs breath away from being too close and respecting the risk it symbolizes .  Never holding back or pushing ahead with defiance but rather in a reverent challenge.  Enveloped in the comfort of nearness at speed.  And the speed is palpable and real, and requires a readiness to react brought on by something as small as a lifted heel, an inclination of posture or a side-long look.  As I look away from you now I can’t help but remember how the rest of the world was looking on, seeing it, hearing it, watching it.  Wishing it were they, living the moment on a wing and a prayer, wanting to be us, wanting what we are, what we have.  The world sits as an audience and we are the show, acting it out but not in control of it, as this one was scripted in the wind. That one perfect moment.