Scooter in the Sticks

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

Scooter Minimalism

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Vespa GTS scooter in a farm landscape
Gazing at life.

Simple Riding Experience

It’s difficult to not be swept up in the idea of simplicity when riding a Vespa scooter.  Or think life will magically improve if it wasn’t so complicated.  When I’m riding, my cares and concerns seem to magically evaporate in the wind.  But however sturdy that illusion, I know it’s not true. The cares and concerns are there waiting when I return.  And the man I was when I departed returns as well.

Still, there may be something to that dream of simplicity, a sort of scooter minimalism.

Civilians don’t understand. Once they complete their admonishments of catastrophe and death when referring to scooters and motorcycles, I sometimes wonder if they’re envious on some level, harboring a secret yearning for the simplicity that they think two wheels represents.  Regardless of how insane or dangerous they might think riding is, they sense what seems to them like a life without care or concern.

As I stared down the valley, past my Vespa, it’s easy to embrace that dream.

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The Joy of Less

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Cover of The Joy of Less by Francine JayI’m no minimalist.  I’m haunted by stuff.

Francine Jay’s book The Joy of Less describes how stuff can weigh you down.  Her advice to imagine all your possessions being chained to your waist makes me think of Jacob Marley’s ghost in A Christmas Carol weighed down by the mess he crafted in life.  I’ve spent a lifetime trying to sort out my relationship with stuff.  Jay’s book offers a glimmer of hope that things can change.

If you’re wrestling with your own stuff, check out the book…  The Joy of Less.

Vespa GTS scooter on rural roadRiding the Vespa scooter is an exercise in simplicity of which I’m reminded each time I’m on the road.  Last week on the way to work I considered my two-wheeled needs against my two-wheeled desires.  Desire has led me down dark paths and left me strangled by things I don’t need or want.  I don’t need anything other than the Vespa right now.  More stuff never got me anywhere. Recognizing desire for what it is may save my soul.  Or at least many dollars…

misty landscapeI only have a vague idea of what minimalism might be in my life.  Visually, I’ve always been drawn to scenes like this that I saw last week during my ride to work — empty places constructed of simple elements of shape, color and texture.  With lots of stuff in my space, at home and at work, nothing is simple.  I’m faced with a scream of chaotic material.

Vespa GTS scooter and Mt. Nittany in the rainRain can wash the world clean — in a figurative sense at least.  Noise and activity is scaled back as a large part of daily living retreats toward shelter.  On the road I’m left with the scooter and my thoughts.  Sitting in my office I look around and see all the things that require attention — if only to throw them away.  Postpone for a day and the collection grows.

foggy, misty landscape near Linden Hall, PennsylvaniaIs it a coincidence so few people appear in my photographs?  Or in my life?  There was a time when I would self-identify as shy.  Or anti-social.  Now I recognize a strong need to be alone; with my thoughts.  Not that I’m a deep thinker, but if I allow my thoughts to become as cluttered as the spaces around me, I’ll lose my mind.  It will become, as a friend likes to describe things gone awry, a shit show.

Shit show.

Vespa GTS scooter on the roadI don’t know what’s ahead.  I’ve shed my Leica rangefinder camera system.  A mountain of photography books will be next along with clothes and shoes that should have been disposed of years ago.  Tools and gadgets and a host of camping and backpacking gear silently await a similar fate.

Francine Jay lit a fuse with her book.  Finally, after all these years, maybe there is some freedom on the road ahead.