This weekend, I sat at a pool and chatted with somebody about my book, Priceless. I shared with her that thing I love most about the book is that the characters continue to live beyond the pages, and are an active part of my daily life.
It’s a beautiful thing to look back at parts of our life, and realize they are beautiful enough of moments that they deserve to be immortalized between the spine of a hardcover book. What’s more incredible than looking back is looking at the present moments in my life as similar [albeit, written about less] chapters in a future book.
I never intended for Priceless to sell a lot of copies. More than anything, I wanted to hit pause on my life and share some of the most beautiful things I’ve seen with anybody interested enough to read it – or for a future child, or spouse to discover.
Earlier that day, I decided to have a little ‘Dad adventure’ with the company of my friend, Michael Jackson; taking two Harley Davidson motorcycles out for a ride to nowhere – and back.
When I wrote “The day Michael Jackson went to Heaven” in Priceless, I had never ridden a motorcycle – let alone, a Harley. Yet, I remember seeing the look on his face whenever he pulled up with Linda on the back, and that smile was enough for me to recognize the rush of life you get when you ride a bike.
In the years that followed writing Priceless, I found myself on the back of several motorcycles – including my first-ever ride, which MJ was more than happy to give me after I worked up the courage to ask.
Michael has always told me “You’ll never see a motorcycle in the parking lot of a therapist’s office.” And I started to understand what he meant, the more I rode my first bike – a Suzuki M50.
The M50 was a great bike to learn on, but I started to understand the importance of getting the right bike for your body and size, as I quickly felt I had outgrown the engine size and weight of the bike.
A few months ago, MJ suggested that the two of us take a ride together. I imagined it would be fun, but didn’t know when we’d actually carve out the time to do it. After our first ride, I was hooked.
On Sunday, a garage door opened and I saw a small collection of magnificent looking bikes, and heard the words: “Well, which one do you wanna ride?”
I pointed at the meanest looking bike – “the Fat Boy”.
Minutes later, I had over 1500cc of pure testosterone between my legs.
If you’ve never ridden a motorcycle, I can’t properly describe the way it makes you feel when you turn on a bike and rev the engine for the first time. It’s this instant feeling of raw power, energy and danger that lights up your soul.
Whenever I see a loud, badass motorcycle on the road, I can’t help but stare as it roars by me. That afternoon, I was the rider on a badass motorcycle that would make your eardrums tremble, and boy did it feel good to be on the back of that hog.
When you’re on the back of a motorcycle, there’s only one thing you can do; ride the motorcycle. It isn’t a time to multi-task, or you’ll wind up dead. That’s what makes riding so cathartic; it removes all of the unnecessary ‘clutter’ from your mind and forces you to grip the handlebars and hang on for dear life when you’re going 80 miles and hour on the highway.
At that speed, everything changes. Your ears are getting pounded by the wind, which sounds like the engine of a jet racing by you. You feel the strength and harmony of the bike as it changes gears and screams while you pull back on the throttle.
You feel free.
Something else happens at that speed that might make most people uncomfortable; you get a very close look at the careful fabric that holds together human life, because you know that if you make a mistake – you’re dead. There’s something incredibly peaceful about walking to the gates of life and death and deciding that’s the place you’re going to ride – right between the middle of your handlebars.
I don’t think that many people know what it’s like to be fully conscious that one wrong move could end their life. However, life is full of those moments on a daily basis. When you ride – it simply brings that awareness to a place in your brain where you can easily comprehend it and listen to what that reality has to say.
As a human being, I think that we need to be in touch with ourselves – on many levels. Some things we comprehend by thinking through them, while others are understood through our emotions.
I feel a certain way when I’m happy, while other emotions come up when I’m sad. When you’re riding a motorcycle, you tap into a whole new realm of feelings and emotions that aren’t experienced commonly.
You feel like a rock star.
You feel like a badass.
You feel like a fighter.
You feel in control – and out of it at the same time.
These sorts of emotions aren’t easy to find in day-to-day life. I don’t know many people who get that raw, badass feeling when they’re taking out the trash – even though that’s what it is. Yet, on a bike – these feelings are too loud to drown out or ignore.
When the ride is over, you get a feeling of relief as soon as you turn off your bike. You’re glad no accidents happened that day, while feeling like you just rode an unpredictable bull for several hours. It’s a feeling of deep accomplishment, joy and satisfaction.
Some people lose their lives on the back of a motorcycle – I found out what it means to live mine. Free, loud and on full throttle.
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