Tuesday, August 31, 2010

A Hint Of September

For all the physical and emotional distance I've traveled in the last five or six years, leaving the house in 4am darkness with a change of seasons in the air still feels like home. I miss this when it's gone, in the dead of winter or the height of summer, where scent and sound feel static and dull, and when I realized several days ago that my early morning run down to Santa Ana would require a jacket for the first time since May, I zipped myself into my gear with purpose and a feeling that the creatures hibernating in my head through the apparently endless days of June, July, and August had not only stirred but felt like dancing.

It's cooler outside than it has been, autumn tugging at the edges of an August night, silence except for the creaking of the horse-headed oil pump that sits perhaps fifty feet from the house, its rhythmic dipping and accompanying creaks as much a part of the aural landscape as the distant trains that pass in the night, and as much an anachronism. I straddle my bike and roll it backwards up the driveway and off the curb, finding neutral and pulling the choke, letting the quiet roll over me one more time before I push the starter and it growls into life, vibrating between my thighs and up my arms as I engage first and give the throttle just enough for an uphill start and then the winding streets that lead me out to the main road, empty of traffic at this time of morning, the asphalt beneath me holding the glow from distant stoplights to my left and right as I pause just in case, one quick glance each way and then hard on the throttle, up through the gears, the engine waking up as I hit sixth and ease off for long enough that the red light at Alta Vista and Rose turns green just before I blow through it.

There are a lot of reasons I like riding, but this is where it's something more than a way to commute and save money on gas. The relationship between rider and bike is more intimate than driver and car. Sensations of speed and torque are amplified, and the physical act of controlling this machine, of learning and respecting its limits, of knowing just how to nudge and cajole and sometimes muscle it through whatever situations you happen to encounter is strangely personal in a way you can't understand if you don't ride, or even if you do but have never lost that control or found yourself on an empty stretch of road with an itchy throttle hand and a overwhelming desire to find out just how fast you and your machine can go...

Which is not as fast as some, I freely admit. The bike I ride to work every day is the most junior model of Kawasaki's Ninja range, sleek and black and packing a 250cc engine in a frame that suggests something larger. This translates to a top speed that once, on an unusually empty stretch of the 91 freeway one midsummer afternoon, touched triple digits, screaming and trembling as though experiencing some horrifying epiphany, an illusion only strengthened by the fact that it felt somehow more limber afterwards, like a muscle after a strenuous workout.

The Ninja is viewed with some apparent disdain by serious bikers (as opposed, I suppose, to frivolous bikers), and is often recommended as an entry-level bike. These two views go hand-in-hand, not because the community is particularly elitist (although it certainly can be), but because novice motorcyclists are mostly likely to be found on entry-level bikes wearing inappropriate equipment and having accidents. Hence, "I bet he/she rides a Ninja," can become a kind of shorthand for describing somebody who exhibits little understanding of the competency and awareness required to pilot a bike around traffic, pedestrians, and laws.

All of this is fine with me. I have no real interest in the mechanical aspects of my machine beyond those things I do to maintain it and keep it healthy. I don't often read motorcycle magazines nor know very much about how different bikes compare to one another or what the hot new models are. All I really know is that riding the peaks and valleys of that long straightaway on the first morning that carries a hint of September while the engine note carries a hint of desperation as it climbs past the usual amount of revs is a thing that makes the heavier burdens of my day that little bit easier to shoulder.

I turn left, slowing for the light to change again, and it's a straight run to Santa Ana from here, Kraemer becoming Glassell becoming Grand, eight miles of - for the most part - empty streets and green lights, a clumsy metaphor for the weeks I'll feel this way, like every morning is fat with nostalgia and spontaneity and - above and beyond all of this - an overwhelming sense of possibility. posted at 8:48 PM ---------------------------------