Chocolate Chip Cookie
How is it that a chocolate chip cookie is so important to me?
Is it really a talisman of some mindful focus on the present moment? Or merely a reflection of a lifelong addiction to sugar?
I choose to believe the cookie’s oversized importance points to something greater than sugar. A magical draw toward the present. A jumping-off point where I abandon the past and the future and exist now.
Of course, all of this may be a delusion brought on by a rhinovirus that woke me at midnight after hours of sleep, my body sluggish but my mind racing.
Still, there’s something to my singular focus on a cookie.
To Breakfast
The direct route to Perkins to meet a friend for breakfast would consume five miles on the Himalayan. Rising early provides time to take a more rambling route and transform the mature, efficient 5-mile journey into a 15-mile exercise in self-indulgence.
It’s here the cookie may be important. Whether eating that cookie or making this ride, in both cases I have a singular focus on the moment before me, for a short time wringing reality from the present.
I’m certain the feelings of flying, soaring, and every other pleasurable experience while riding are related to the distillation of life to the act of riding. It’s calm, slow, and serene. There’s no adrenaline or imagining myself as anything other than an aging man riding through my experience.
One of the reasons I bought the Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle is because it precludes to a great degree any temptation to be aggressive or competitive. It engenders a peacefulness that I can’t do without and have difficulty finding in other situations.
Autumn Descends
Chopping corn is one of the first signs of autumn for me. Before the leaves change or the air takes on energy unique to the changing of the seasons from summer to fall.
Along with visual indicators I recognize enhanced fragrances masked by summer humidity. From the sharp odors of agricultural production to the gentle aroma of fresh-cut grass, the singular focus of autumn riding reveals treasures of sight and smell.
I love riding this time of year.
Air and Light
Is the world clearer and brighter? I certainly feel it is though without any desire to use sunglasses or darkened visors to shield myself from it. I know I stop more often to gaze into the distance and think about nothing. I’m standing on the earth, for a few moments, unfettered and free from the circumstance of the day.
The Himalayan seems especially capable of supporting my investigations.
Wandering Home
After breakfast, that cookie in my tank bag, I choose a route through the mountains that will further distance me from, well, everything.
It’s not that I need or want to escape, but rather wring from the singular focus that occurs while riding an experience of this temporal world that suggests something greater in this Universe.
Later in the day, sitting with a cup of hot tea and that cookie, I’m transported back to the mountain and the soft crawl along a gravel road. For a moment, I shed the weight of my worldly concerns and smile at the lightness of spirit that comes from my singular focus.
On riding. And on that cookie.
You are lucky. For us to get autumn to come we had to have a hurricane to suck it in.
I wondered how you were faring Ken. I assumed you were far enough north that you didn’t face the hurricane directly. Is everything ok?
Autumn is surfacing quietly here.
Cookies are a very important part of my life.
Simple men have simple pleasures.
You’re right Steve. Sometimes a good motorcycle ride at a serene pace will make the day brighter. My 250 Nighthawk is my go to for that. Somehow I don’t get that sense of serenity on my Kawasaki. It always grumbles “Is this all you got?” when I take it out. I always thought a good medium size ADV would serve you well.
Well you were right. The Himalayan has been perfect for me — size, weight, performance. And it has opened up new avenues to explore that are close to home.
Hey Steve well said it many times over the years so once again will say how thankful and just lucky I ran across your posts in 2015.Our same age and seems we began our two wheeled passion around our youthful yrs.bring todays adventures in life and the road treks a real treat for all your devoted followers. Thank God for you and my Bonanza mini bike at age 13…Take care and keep writing and certainly riding. DON E.
Thank you for your kind words Don. I feel fortunate as well to have found a door to riding. Writing sort of followed along.
After 8 days I’ve finally tested negative from COVID. Lingering fatigue persists but I’ve read that’s pretty common. I’m not up to riding quite yet but hopefully that changes before the snow flies!