Embracing the Senses
Many neurologists believe there are 21 senses, not just the five we learn in school – touch, taste, vision, hearing and smell. Riding a scooter or motorcycle embraces the five and I expect a great many on the longer list. On a beautiful summer day riding along US Route 6 fires the nerves and ignites the brain. Riding is the spice of life, the additive to a day that makes life a feast.
Spiceless
Thoughts of spices for many raise ideas of food and culinary adventure. In the kitchen this evening I thought about the spice that has the most influence on my life and a way to reduce it to a photograph. I come up empty with spices unless, perhaps, I should have filled the red spoon with salt.
Instead I moved past food and on to the Vespa. Riding is the spice of life. In this life at least.
Motorcycle or Scooter
Makes little difference what you ride — any machine adds spice to existence. Looking through my photos I came across this one of a BMW F800 GS motorcycle made during a ride some years ago. I still remember the route through the forested hills south of home and the open stretches of highway to the west — that motorcycle spiriting me away physically and emotionally in an experience that lives today.
That’s spice. That’s what riding is about for me.
A few days ago I read something about arriving at the end of life and not regretting that I didn’t go to one more meeting at work. I understand what that means. At the last breath I imagine I’ll be thinking of spices — one last embrace of my wife, a smile from my kids, a look from the dogs.
And one more ride.
An thinking when this one post a day in one month comes to an end, many of your readers are going to be missing their daily “spice” of Scooter In The Sticks!
Speaking of different spices, how goes the new position at work?
No doubt spicing your daily existence as well.
It’s not been difficult so far to write the posts but topics will run in short supply eventually. Before too long I’ll be writing about my sock drawer or the kind of laundry soap you might find in the basement. So come March 1 it could be crickets here.
Work is intense. As the blog challenge goes I’ll be posting about the job tomorrow. Stay tuned.
A beautiful post Steve. I also love this one a day post. Brent
Thanks Brent. Don’t get used to it though. I’ll be dropping back in March to my normal pace. Probably.
Riding definitely adds spice to one’s sometimes “regular” existence. Even riding to a meeting is better than driving one’s car to it. Riding away from the usual debacle of a meeting is even better!
Sometimes, especially when the job is tough, it becomes more difficult to manage the cold, the stress of the job, and the time crunch. More and more often I’m thinking I need to drive.
#fail
Riding any two-wheeler IS the spice of life!
“Two-wheeler”. I smiled when I read that. As a kid, 5 maybe, I remember conversations with the kids in the neighborhood, “I’m getting a two-wheeler for Christmas!”. I was five when I got my first two-wheeler…
I’m with Kitty on that one. 🙂
(So, SO happy to have gotten a bit of riding in after two solid days of rain. Not that I didn’t enjoy the respite – inclement weather is sometime’s nature’s way of telling you to stay put unless it’s urgent – but “ridin’ around in the breeze” certainly was all right.
Well done. Perfect close. Thanks for playing along.
It was an enlightening challenge. Thanks for dreaming it up!
I sure enjoyed this one Steve. My wife doesn’t get it at all. After a ride the other day I told her just how fun it was and tried to explain it – nope. As soon as I step through mine and fire her up – I’m legally high. If there’s an afterlife, I hope it has scooters!
I’m sure there must be some cool scooters in the afterlife. And fine winding roads…
I love the idea of “Legally High”. I think I’ll have to steal that for a blog post title!
Here’s to the “Spice of Life”…
Bravo!