Why do I do this?

 In my relatively short 4 years of riding on the street, I've logged around 35,000 miles, give or take a bit. Nothing really noteworthy, but not too bad I guess, when you factor in working full time and being oncall every couple of weeks.

There's a saying among motorcyclists that there are two types of riders - those who have crashed, and those who haven't yet. I've crashed twice now, a fairly mild lowside due to me locking up the front wheel around 30MPH, and one serious collision with a deer at 70MPH. Each time I cheated death and serious injury. Each time I was eager to get back on and ride again.

 Some friends don't really understand the draw, while others would do and have done the same as I did. We cover ourselves in leather and abrasion resistant textiles, and gladly straddle a few hundred pounds of aluminum, steel, and an internal combustion engine, with several flammable gallons of unleaded gasoline between our legs. Why, people ask, why take that risk? When you know the statistics, and there are perfectly good cars to be driven, why chance the bad weather, the bad drivers, the fates?

 For a long time, I didn't really have a very good answer for this. "Why?" bounced around in my head from time to time, like a question with an answer you knew but just couldn't quite put into words. After my own two accidents, friend's accidents, and the deaths of people I admire in the long distance riding community, I struggled to find the words to understand the answer.

 Recently, a friend of mine observed that while doing yardwork, he was able to calm his mind, look inward, and reflect on life's lessons and experiences. He asked on Facebook - "what other activities are meditative?"

 I quickly typed a short comment about riding, but then paused before clicking submit. Suddenly, the "Why" started becoming more clear, and I started typing.

 Motorcycle riding - not just commuting to work, but actual 'getting out on the road for at least a couple of hours' riding - for me, is unbelievably relaxing and meditative. It's so effective that my wife will actually tell me that I need to get out and go for a ride when she sees that I need it.

 There's something about being open to the world and the elements that strips away everything that doesn't really matter. With music playing through noise isolating earplugs, the world is no longer black and white and right or wrong.

 It's vivid green and bright sky blue, it's the fiery colors of leaves in the fall and pastel painted meadows as far as you can see when the wildflowers bloom, it's the smell of cut hay or grass in summertime, the scent of plowed earth.

 It's the temperature change from the mountain top to the valley below, the smell and feel of rain, a set of high-beams piercing the night's darkness because what's ahead of you is all that matters now, and the reminder that sometimes we really are as free as we allow ourselves to be. It's shuttered up small towns and cemeteries and the faintest scent of decay that reminds you that in spite of all this, life is woefully short, and we should strive every day to live our lives to the fullest, and love as deeply and as hard as we can, because we are only here for a short time, and no one knows when their time is up.