Within a year of getting my first motorcycle, I found out about RIDE Motorcycle Club through Amy, a woman in my writer’s group. Her husband Michael is the first person I met from RIDE, the first of many friends who love to ride motorcycles. One of the things that drew me to the ride club is the people- they are very welcoming and supportive. With their openness and eagerness about riding, it was a good fit. I experienced this support in another place in my life as well- in my writer’s group. For over 4 years, Amy and I met with two others each week to read, write and talk about books, writing and life. It is with those four women that I learned to trust that my pen could find a way to sort through my thoughts.
One of the things I liked best about the RIDE club when I joined was that I was encouraged to ask questions. Ken is our local RIDE coordinator. I had regular contact with him because of his weekly email newsletters detailing our scheduled rides for the month. His newsletters were a sort of North Star, guiding me through my early riding experiences. They often open with a story about a ride which he parallels with something happening in his life. More than once, I responded to his musings with questions about riding. His responses were always helpful. RIDE encourages all kinds of riding, on all kinds of bikes and, as is the nature of a group united in a common love, we often ride together. When I was first riding, I worried that I would hold people back because I preferred a slower pace. Ken encouraged me to join the weekly rides and reassured me the group would accommodate me.
After a three year hiatus, Amy and I are writing together again, this time with Jen. Just as with Ken, it is how these two are showing up for themselves and their lives, and how they express it in their writing that is guiding me in my writing life. We send each other our latest pieces a day ahead then meet up to discuss them with one another. Our writing styles are very different. We each have our own voice, our own manner. Yet we each write from a place of deep feeling. I share pieces with them that I won’t yet share with others. I trust them and where their writing is leading them. And I trust my own writing process because of them.
It is RIDE who taught me how to ride safely in a group. They taught me there are different skills needed for riding alone versus with a group. I like riding in a group. I like the ride while alone, too. They are very different experiences.
When riding alone, I don’t have to think about any other riders, what they want or need and where they are in relationship to me. I ride where I want to, at the speed I’m comfortable with, for as long I feel like riding. With RIDE, our routes are often pre-planned at a set pace for a set time with arranged stops. When I ride alone, I’m unencumbered and unfettered by others wishes, needs and problems. While in a group, I feel supported, encouraged and protected. When riding alone, I’m responsible for ensuring a safe ride, monitoring the road and the driving conditions. I revel in the solitude. I rely on my own resources when there is a problem with the bike. I gain courage and resiliency. While in a group, we signal each other to point out road hazards and share the same remarkable view with each other. And if something goes wrong on a group ride, there are others to help sort it all out, help everyone get home safe.
It’s easy for me to see as I write this, that I’m not preferential to one type of riding over another. Both are important to me, both are essential. There are times I need to clear my head and focus on me, keep it simple and straightforward. And then there are times when the feel of the group, riding staggered through curves and straightaways, holds me together and grounds me.
In much the same way, my writing life is being served by both writing alone and with others. Before I send pieces to Amy and Jen, it’s just me with my words. I write regularly for both long and short periods. After a time, a few phrases jump out at me and I decide to play with them, explore their origins and see what else will come when I write from the place those first thoughts initiated. Sometimes when I sit down to write I am disappointed and a sad voice flows onto the page in the form of an essay about unrequited love. On another day, I am filled with memories of my father’s death and begin writing only to discover a poem that links the details of his passing with my career as a nurse. Writing is powerful for me. Through it, I communicate the truth of my experience and transform it at the same time. When I read the poem about my father’s death it pulls me back to that day, nearly three years ago now, with such fierce detail I’m in his hospital room again, at his bedside with my family. What’s different though, is that somehow, the sorrow has deepened into a recognition of the universality of grief. I’m no longer lost in the memories, but I am united with others who’ve experienced a similar loss. My solitary journey has been transformed into a shared journey.
At the heart of all my travels, whether on a bike or with my pen, are those unifying forces, the communion with others in shared experiences. There is the recognition that while we are all here on our own journey, it is somehow reflected in each other’s and so it is that I am connected as if by a thread from one to another- to Ken and all the RIDE club members, to Amy and Jen. And it is these people and the thread woven between us that informs my life and enriches it. And so it is, that all of the traveling I’ve done on my own has also been with them.
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