When Suzee was in the recovery ward at the hospital, and our days full of hope and gratitude, we talked a lot about having a new lease on life. How life was to short and uncertain not to be lived to its fullest. About the changes we would make, not the least of which was to just have more fun. For me, talking about having more fun included my desire to ride a motorcycle again.
To be clear, I knew that a motorcycle was totally impractical in New York City. Going for a ride meant stop-and-go traffic, crazy drivers, and awful road conditions. There was nowhere to park other than public garages, which were prohibitively expensive, and who knew what would happen there. Any "nice ride" would require hours of highway travel before hitting the open back roads. For these reasons and more I'd sold my little BMW F650 before moving to the city.
However, being a rider (never a "biker", for me it was about riding, not the machine) was part of my identity. I'd gone years where a bike was my only transportation. I missed it. Suzee understood this, often retelling the stories of how happy she'd seen me with the F650, and told me to "just do it".
I'm not sure I would have gotten a bike while in the city had things turned out differently. It was unlikely that Suzee would have ridden in the city, either on the back of my bike or on her own, and I didn't want to spend weekends apart and there was plenty to do. It's more likely that I'd have lobbied to move out of the city prior to purchasing a bike. Then Suzee passed away and my life seemed empty of all purpose and full of grief.
Getting a motorcycle would not make me happy. I don't think "happy" was possible any time soon considering my loss. Rather, for me, riding is an affirmation of life. Riding is living in the now and overcoming adversity and fear.
And yes, for me, there was always a healthy fear when riding. My father died as a result of a motorcycle accident. I'd seen family and friends get hurt. I'd been in a few accidents myself over the years. I understood the danger of riding a motorcycle. But choosing to not ride would not make me immortal.
While I believed it was important to plan for the long term, it was equally important to live for the day, not to put life on hold for a someday that may never come. Ultimately it’s a very personal decision, one that logically may never make much sense to anyone else. For me, it was just time to ride again.
