Movement

I'm out early this morning on the bike. A beautiful morning for a ride. Alabama blue skies and a brisk 58 degrees. Traffic is light but already beginning to build. L.S.U. is in town for an afternoon contest with Auburn, and the faithful from both sides are already converging on the Plains.

There is nothing like a motorcycle ride to clear your head and experience the complete sensation of movement. Other forms of transportation just don't stack up. The bike gives you the total package: the weather, the sights, the potentially life or death interaction with other vehicles, even the smells of the areas you pass through. The vibration of the motor running through your body like the pulse of blood through your veins. The feel of the imperfections of the road surface. It is the ultimate form of travel. Something you just can't experience within the enclosed confines of today's automobiles. Perhaps travel by horseback is a close second, but my country is too closed-in to make that practical.

I feel the need for movement. Dylan once said that movement was the key to writing. That there were many great writers who couldn't write because they weren't moving anywhere. I've thought a lot about this, and I believe he may be right.

Am I moving? I'm not sure. Lately it feels that if I am moving it is simply running in place. Neither forward nor backward. Something like the sensation felt when you sit at the railroad crossing as the train passes. That brief moment in time when your brain is unsure whether it's you that is moving or the train.

Movement.

If you are moving, you are headed away from something or toward something. At present I can't tell which is true for me.

But I feel the need to get moving.