Scooter in the Sticks

Exploring life on a Vespa Scooter and Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle.

Vespa Scooter Freedom

by 16 Comments

Vespa GTS scooter along rural road.
This looks like freedom to me. Of the mind, the spirit, and the body.

Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.

MOSHE DAYAN

An escape from the noise of everyday life into a state of Vespa scooter freedom is a gift of hope and joy. The same now as it was when I began riding a scooter so many years ago. In minutes the noise and stress that can accumulate in my head burn off like fog on a sunny morning. The air embraces my body and I’m flying. All I can think is it’s great to be alive.

It doesn’t take long until I’m far from home. The scooter has quietly transported me to a different reality. The long road, the spring light, the promise of life emerging again from winter reduces my world to something simple I can grasp. Like the throttle of the Vespa.

Riding provides a taste of freedom, and it quickens the soul.

Continue Reading

Rider Indifference

by 54 Comments

While I can’t recommend it, an Emergency Room visit does break up the monotony of daily life. No heart attack this time, instead a foot injured by an overly exuberant dog. As my father always said, “It’s hell to get old.”

Shaking Rider Indifference

*NOTE* This post has been pressured by rider and hair stylist Billy Blades. I avoid him. He’ll tell me my hairstyle is something out of the 1980s. He rides a Goldwing. Can I really trust him? 😃 *NOTE*

One morning my dog Lily knocked me down some steps in the garden while we were playing with the tennis ball. It hurt but I thought I would walk it off. By dinner time I told my wife I was going to the Emergency Room. X-Rays showed no breaks. The doctor said “severe contusion” and sent me home.

Aside from that sort of diversion, my days begin and end with a sameness that is hard to understand. This must be what prison is like, an interminable counting of days where one day is the same as the next. It’s easy to understand how life could descend into a comfortable indifference fueled by streaming video, music, and books. Despite blue skies and sunshine the world feels empty and alone.

I’ve struggled to find balance between the reality of my day-to-day life and the mental construction of it. The gulf between the two is great. And rather than work toward some construction of a bridge, I’ve fallen into inactivity and indifference. As if I’ve been condemned to live on an island with no prospects or resources. This must be why I’ve been stricken with rider indifference.

Of course this is utter bullshit. A result I can only point to because of the hypervigiliance caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. There are reasonable actions to take. But there is also the false apocalypse built from too much time and too little activity — physical, mental, or spiritual.

So I think it’s time to make an inventory of reality and imagination in hopes that I’ll emerge from the endeavor moving into life again.

Continue Reading

Dreams and Other Realities

by 17 Comments

Vespa GTS scooter in the woods at sunsetThe End of Things

I’ve been blessed with a cinematic form of daydreaming — sequences of images and narration that move seamlessly through time and space to tell a story. I don’t know whether this a common trait among people. It’s provided entertainment and distraction throughout this life. Riding at times provides a stage for a mini-series of adventures both real and imagined. Looking at the Vespa parked in the trees as the sun went down opened the door to a variety of mental adventures.

Recently many readers provided feedback, insight and suggestions in response to an online survey inquiring about possible products and directions that could appear on Scooter in the Sticks. The results will help discern wishful daydreaming from paths worth exploring. For those of you who responded — thank you. You’ve confirmed, rejected and illuminated the palette of vague ideas presented. The data collected will be useful in the decision making process.Continue Reading

Life is Good

by 18 Comments

life is good blog graphicKeeping All the Plates Spinning

I want to believe life can be simple.  That existence can be reduced to a few, important tasks.  If only I had discipline.  Or more money.  Of if the world would behave the way I think it should.  Then things would be simple.

The blog graphic came into existence while wondering why I couldn’t ride more often.  As if life could be something akin to eat, pray, love.

Ride, sleep, ride.

As enlightening as riding can be, it leaves a trail of infantile denial about some things.

Still, I can’t help but think I’m doing it wrong.  I should be on the road more — happy, joyous and free.

Fine dream.  So is winning the Powerball drawing.

Back to reality.  Fueled the car and van this evening along with the gas can for the snowblower in anticipation of “the worst snow storm of the season.”  Penn State has already announced it will be closed tomorrow.  I’ve already started to wonder if I can go for a little ride on the Vespa.  Wish I had put the snow tires on.

Instead, I’ll run the snow blower, sleep late, and generally pretend I’m retired and lazy.  Testing options for the future.

And that’s the way it is on the night before the storm.

Life is good.

Little Boxes

by 8 Comments

Steve Williams, Vespa blogger

Photo by Gordon Harkins

Confined in Wide Open Spaces

Thinking about an open concept versus rooms with walls.  The common interpretation would refer to the architectural approaches to living and working spaces. Bright, open spaces with vaulted ceilings and window walls as opposed to more conservative and confined areas that may be secreted and cut off from the rest.

The same model could be applied to the mind.  And even to some degree to riding a scooter or motorcycle.

My head inside a full face helmet; a mind inside isolated from the outside world.  Life inside little boxes. Even riding in wide open spaces I remain confined in those little boxes.

Steve Williams bloggerSmall Spaces

The narrow walkway between buildings in State College, Pennsylvania feels safe in the closeness of the walls and the protection against the sky. It’s as if you’re cut off from much of the world — a decidedly non-open concept for space.

There was a time when the open concept held my imagination and fueled dreams of adventure in the wild and open spaces of the world. Over time I’ve realized I’m predisposed to a compartmentalized existence which affords opportunities for invisibility, isolation and privacy.  But more powerful is the sense of self and focus I find in the small spaces where the yawning abyss is not drawing energy and concern.  While the open concept and space is seductive, it ultimately leaves me entirely reactive — I see and respond.  It’s visceral and fires emotions.  But ultimately I retreat to a little box where I’m free to think.

When I was younger I would have thought the rooms with walls would be a prison. Could be for me they may be the doorway to freedom.

2017 Brave, Bold Blogger Challenge

This post is part of a month long writing prompt challenge conceived by Kathy at Toadmama.com.