Different Thinking

I was in the car this afternoon when I discovered that I think differently without the scooter.  With its being in the shop for nine weeks now, my summer just hasn’t been the same and it’s not only because I’m not out and about on two wheels, but because everything looks and feels different than it typically would this time of year when I’d usually be running all over the place on the bike and doing some of my best thinking.

There are places I go to regularly on the Piaggio that it wouldn’t even cross my mind to visit in the car.  The county park.  A favorite boat launch along the Susquehanna.  The various back roads and byways I love to ride because of the curves, or the scenery, or the smell of fresh cut clover and cow manure.  The out of the way bakeries, pizza joints, and bistro type places where it just feels so good to plant the kickstand and grab a bite of something delicious.  The little secluded spots with picnic tables where I can write e-mails or Facebook posts or blog entries.  They just wouldn’t be worth going to on four wheels because they’d feel like alien landscapes rather than my hallowed scooter haunts.

I’ve been missing out on a lot of the kind of introspection that comes when I’m alone in the middle of nowhere with the sun on my shoulders and the wind in my face, experiencing a lot of the things that make the summer special for me.   It’s mostly the thoughts that I miss, though.  The questions that I often ask myself with the hum of the scooter’s engine the only sound around for miles in places where a passing car is less likely to be seen than a barn somewhere struggling to hold itself together and some stray horses idly doing their horsey kinds of things in their fields.   And even worse than not being able to ask the questions is the inability to answer them and to make any progress with heading my life in a particular direction now.

 

The last time I saw my scooter, it looked like this.  It feels like my spirit is likewise apart and waiting to be reassembled.  I really need my bike back!