Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

May 18, 2006

Dark

Had some bad news yesterday, and was feeling mopey and down, and not sleepy, and my husband was still at work. And neither of us, it ensued, had had dinner. So I suggested that I go over and we could get burgers, and that’s how it went.

There is something surprisingly freeing about riding solo at night. I’m tired, but not too tired to ride, and there’s not much point trying to sleep with a restless soul, and I didn’t want to just sit and mope. So I got on the bike and set out into the empty, quiet streets, the only real sound the roar of my Beast, and the world picked out in shadows and amber.

I wonder why the lights stay on red, though. I stopped at a lot of empty intersections.

We had our burger, and hung out. Silicon Valley working sucks when you have to still be working at three in the morning (the time of writing). And then I went home, enjoying the familiarity of the road; it is harder on strange roads, as my night vision gets worse by the day, but 237 is fairly well lit…though it’s nothing compared to the bright lights of British freeways–or should I say motorways?

At night it feels even more like flying, isolated in the bubble of light you cast into the black, peaceful, almost surreal as the rest of the Valley sleeps, unaware of the small person on the big bike, roaring through the night. All troubles are left behind, all woes and cares forgotten, and I think that at least a little, the person who died is honoured by this dance.