Exploring life on a Vespa, Royal Enfield Himalayan, Honda Trail 125, and a Kawasaki W650
I watched this video again and just shake my head as what people do on the road. Guts, skill or insanity?
What do you think of a superbike riding through and against traffic like Trinity did in the second Matrix movie? Whatever it is it’s one insane motorcycle ride.
Life on the Vespa just seems pretty boring in comparison…
Ordinary moments on ordinary days in ordinary places. My riding of late is devoid of real or imagined adventure, flights of freedom, or provocations of the mind. Just little routine rides through town and country to meet goals and objectives. The Vespa sits alone along Allen Street in State College, Pennsylvania early in the morning before the world awakens and goes about it’s business.
Autumn is racing through the central Pennsylvania forests. I can’t keep track of the passage of time any longer as weeks have become moments. Each ride on the Vespa through the countryside is a small gift as time slows and I can drink in a bit of the world.
This evening I had business in town which required some level of synchronized dancing with the many pedestrians and vehicles still on the road before the witching hour. After some days confined to the four-wheeled cage it feels nearly sublime to ride through the dark and let the night air consume me.
Someone who saw my riding jacket in hard asked me if I was riding this evening and upon confirming their suspicions just nodded their head in conspiratorial agreement to the wisdom of the act.
Riding home in the dark I knew they were already plotting their own escape into their own routine ride.
I’m a morning person. Or at least I used to be. Eyes still spring open automatically at 6:05am regardless of when they closed. The mind is ready but the body has begun to resist the transition from horizontal to vertical, from the dream world to the real world. Riding one morning last week I was reminded how I’m seduced by the morning as I watched the light sweep across the fields as the sun breached the horizon. Fog and mist glows as the day begins and I am grateful to be a witness. I know so many people who can’t remember seeing the sunrise, don’t care actually because the bed offers a greater allure.
Not every Vespa ride unwinds as a quiet, zen-like experience. Some mornings are unwelcome packages of rush, stress and chaotic thinking allowing mere glimpses of the world. A quick stop to drink in the day first and forget about placing the scooter in the picture. A few seconds of freedom before moving on into the noise of the day.
On through the day with a taste of the morning lingering on the lips. Oh, the joy of riding…
On the road early to have breakfast with photographer Frank Armstrong at the Naked Egg Cafe in Pine Grove Mills, Pennsylvania. Grey mist shrouded the valley with a quiet threat of rain. For a few moments I considered the seductive ease of getting into the car rather than pull on protective gear to ride. A moment in the driveway pondering the monochrome sky and the choice was clear.
Frank was on a photographic walkabout starting a couple days in Worcester, Massachusetts. I became part of a small email group of photographers that in the pre-digital era that included Frank and have been friends since.
I associate two words with Frank — photography and Texas. A camera is never out of reach and the Texan sensibility and storytelling is delivered with at Lone Star state drawl. This quick picture was made while waiting for an order of dry toast.
My chair faced the parking lot during breakfast and I noticed how insignificant the Vespa scooter looks amidst a sea of automobiles — a visual reminder of the need to carefully manage myself on the road and the American love affair with cars. I predict this will not change in my lifetime and the Vespa will remain alone in the lot.
Frank is criss-crossing Pennsylvania making photographs on his way to Ohio to visit friends. It’s been awhile since I engaged the kind of serious photography he has been doing for decades.
Gordon Harkins, a photography instructor at Penn State, Paul Ruby, a State College photographer, and Frank Armstrong are all members of the Zoners email group. As much as I look forward to getting together with these guys, I have to say I was feeling glum as I considered the photographic work they are engaged in while my own creative output has spun down to images with my iPhone or point and shoot camera. I’ve been in a multiple year slump. Talking with Frank has me thinking it’s time to work again…
After breakfast everyone went their own way. One stop on the way home to wonder how the summer slipped past so quickly and to think a bit about my own photographic next steps. It’s probably time to abandon film and darkroom work and make a commitment to digital photography and printing. I’ve avoided it for a decade now and the result is I remain frozen in time not making any new work. Ebay here I come…
Frank’s visit this time and the ones in the past all provided some creative kick-in-the-ass though I suspect he didn’t realize it. If you have a moment check out Frank Armstrong’s website to look at the complete collection of work.
The change in light and leaf vibrate in bone and marrow as the dance between earth and sun moves from summer to autumn. An evening laying in the grass on a hill, watching the sun drop towards the horizon, I could watch the clouds swell and dissolve at the end of the day. Watching clouds has no use or purpose save for the nourishment it provides the soul.
Two jet planes move west towards Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit. The sun will be gone in minutes, a dying swan in the sky.
As the seconds pass I sink deeper into the grass and grow more content in witnessing the aerial struggle between light and moisture.
It can be challenging to lay and do nothing other than inspect the slow but relentless changes as a contrail becomes a cloud.
I have to remind myself to take a few minutes to look skyward. Too many sunsets and clouds have passed by without recognition.
In the final moments before the sun drops too far along the horizon the color palette changes.
And finally the light and color fades and only the fall of night remains. Such a small investment of time to watch a minor miracle and asking myself why I don’t do it more often.
Watching clouds.