The source of my new peace.
Tag Archives: Harley Davidson
Chet Baker – Alone Together
She is on my mind.
This woman simply won’t allow me to break through her resistance. No matter how hard I try, my words have failed. Coming across pathetic, I’m unable to get her attention. If only she took risk.
Damn…I want to ride the bike again with Jojo. Time with her was brief yet simple, not a care in the world… just the wind in our face and roads leading nowhere. We were just alone yet together, how I want the bike and Jojo again.
Chet Baker – Alone Together, posted with vodpod
If she were here
Blue skies ocean’s side sharing unforeseen.
Led on journeys afar… not ready to stop.
Didn’t believe, moved on now forgotten…searching for a sign.
Wish you were here, posted with vodpod
Should I Fall Behind
Harley ride, warm Florida nights, wind in our face, silent smiles.
Blue jeans, black shirt, tanned skin, arms wrapped around pressed close.
Dark skies, stars shine white moon on high, Spectre flies by.
Bright white head light, pine trees rise in the distant.
Panhandle asphalt, parallel ocean flowed deeper into night.
Warrior life no longer a threat, more at ease I became.
Becoming closer wanting our time to be true, we’ve fallen… too far behind.
If I Should Fall Behind – Bruce Springsteen & T…, posted with vodpod
Miles Davis Blue in Green
Softails and Bridges
Long brunette, smooth tanned, black shirt, boots and your finger tips lit the world.
Harley together, days and nights, alive again.
I fell in love.
Every bridge since burned. Storms.
On again, never again
When alone I feel nothing. With Jojo, I feel life all around me.
With Jojo I felt the greatest, she brought the best in me.
Jojo felt like taking life by the horns and going for the ride of my life.
Riding for hours at a time with her holding on is like no other. Being 14 years older and going nowhere good, steering the Softail Deuce in and out of traffic or down some backwoods path leading back to the shoreline, I was the one in control.
She was too young for me or herself.
Didn’t she want me to?
Memories at night have the speedometer highlighted in orange with the needle pushing past seventy.
As Jojo held me tight, with feet floating in the air on the foot-pegs, the “V” twin-engine hummed like a fine oiled machine between my legs. Within the piercing bright white headlight, the world would approach as we made our way to no where in particular. With asphalt passing beneath our feet, we were just with each other. All night long into the early morning, riding. The past is not what I want. Not even the same motorcycle. What I want is for the light in her not to burn out.
Tell me she will respond wanting me again.
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The Pursuit
It’s been eight years since I last saw her. A year and half since we last exchanged emails. Every month an email or two, even a letter sent, never receiving a response. Refusing to quit, efforts at communicating are tireless where only hope she will respond. Faith, one of these days she will change her mind saying how well she is doing and how she will try once again.
After all this time, not a day has passed without a thought about her. She’s in thoughts when I lay to sleep throughout my dreams and when I first wake. Everywhere, her images carried through the worst of times and best of moments. She’s not a fleeting thought. The opposite. Jojo has become seared within the mind leaving a deep image guiding this course.
Needing to find her again. Everyday, simply want to hear her voice, see her eyes even receive a response telling me she hasn’t forgotten
.
I go alone
- No matter how far and removed I become, I will travel this journey.
This personal journey has been long even exhausting. Repeatedly questioned myself. At the end of the day, no matter how much time has passed, what people say or how much resistance is faced…the drive remains. She’s that important. She means that much.
Bike that did it all
This 2003 100th Anniversary Edition Harley Davidson Softail Deuce did it all. The very source of peace and so much conflict afterwards. My bike shared with Jojo for over nine months and 4,500 miles of riding together.
Day, night, morning or afternoon, in the surprise rain showers to blazing sun. By the Gulf Coast ocean front, to Sea Side, from Pensacola to Panama City and Destin, so many days and hours we shared on this bike. From the last ride I shared with Jojo, I sold this bike and never rode a motorcycle again. Call it grieving, call it what you want. Without this bike, Jojo and I never would have learned about each other the way we did.
The Experience v.2
The ride. When performed right, the ride becomes another level of thought. The true ride is when your motorcycle becomes the well oiled piece of industrial art it was meant to be. While on distant roads far away or near home, your bike reaches a rhythm state or pattern on the road, specifically a back road in the middle of nowhere. Much preferred over interstate or major highways, it’s here where these rides define the meaning of your bike. The experience resembles how relaxed you get near an ocean or perhaps when you play golf. Alone doing what you love. At the whim of the environment no matter what the weather is, one way or another, you find yourself immersed in what nature throws at you.
Something as simple as noise dictates how well your motorcycle ride goes. The wind. In your face, covering your eyes. Without protection, your eyes flood with tears, yet, flowing past your ears, the rush of the noise is only topped by two things. The throaty sound of it’s chrome engine combined with the hacked off split exhaust pipes without baffles. Together, they bark out orders pleading you to find more asphalt. Even the feel of the pavement moving below your feet, leaves a sensation of a steady vibration putting you at ease at one point, on a high the next moment. The smells of the sweet fuels and toxic fumes mixed with the pine forests you breach onto salt water in the air near the beaches you by-pass. It’s your sight capturing the entire ride in the roads in front of you plus catching every detail of trees passing by to your left crossing through your right side, finally those in your mirrors left behind.
Once you get the repeated patterns of traffic down, speed fluctuates with your mood. If you are at peace, you cruise. If you are filled with angst about the days gone by or she never calls, kick your bike into fourth then fifth gear going from seventy into eighty hang on for the ride. Or, simply relax and enjoy a wide open road alone crisscrossing a far off mountain pass or distant desert valley.
It’s here the ride becomes the very reason you chose to climb on the bike that day, or every day for that matter.
Rain showers and slick highways depress you. No matter if at home or work, every day you find yourself daydreaming about the next ride. It all comes down to your very source of peace. Letting the bike do the work while all you do is hold on for what’s next, steering with the chrome handle bars accelerating with your right hand.
With the twist of your grip, the bike opens up as you force more fuel into the pistons speeding the bike up faster. Your searching for that next bend in the road, hunting for the way of new beginnings. The feeling of the experience is what your motorcycle is all about. The rush of power unleashed beneath your feet is like no other. The ONLY thing making your bike better…is the beauty sitting right behind you hanging on you enjoying the same ride.
Together, the bike, the ride and this woman are the simple things in your life. It’s your experience.
2011 Triumph Daytona 675r
I feel a change coming on, something new at new times. Since I’ve recovered health and a new life, most disagree that a sport bike is called for. For over two years, in the back of my mind has developed thoughts of switching from a cruiser like my old Harley to a new refined sport bike. This bike, avoided in the past because from the beginning I’m made for the Harley experience, camaraderie and lifestyle. I feel right riding alone or with a few friends. To read more…click here: 2011 Triumph Daytona 675r
Defiance
To love is defiance. Go against the grain, opposite of the world around you. Call it being stuck or too focused, I don’t care. It is what it is. She’s on my mind everyday all day. These thoughts are motivating one moment, down right upsetting the next. Meaning I find myself wanting to talk to her again sharing with her the good things in life. Next, I’m realizing how far removed we are from each other, there appears no chance we will reconnect. Regardless, I choose to take this path. It is my decision to want to have feelings for Jojo. More than once I’ve tried to give up, naturally within myself is something that refuses to quit.
Knowing she is not married yet is nothing less than inspiring. There is a chance. A chance for anything in this world. Why so many people have gone off and pursued things in this world that were impossible to others. I knew from the beginning it would be next to impossible to retrieve a new relationship with Jojo. The odds were stacked against me. Had I chosen to stay with her, she would have witnessed me as a married man try to start a life with her. Later, in the worst of times with Jojo, she would have seen me as less of a man lacking loyalty. The effort would have failed.
Tell me not to want her. Tell me to go away, to return to my home and start a new life. I will tell you in return to piss off and take the high road. My intent was to recover remnants of a past life with a purpose to recover my son and build a better life with someone new. Someone who earned my trust and respect. Someone, at the end of the day, I simply fell for.
Had I…ah, the past doesn’t matter much. Only for the lessons learned will the past matter. That’s exactly what I’m trying to convey, is how if I had done anything different, I would have compromised myself and everything I believed in. Going after my son first is, was and will always be the right thing. Had I not done that, I would not be here typing. Instead, I would be dust dissolved in some far off waters or found crumbling in mud within some hidden dump. If a pistol to the temple or dextromethrophane to the kidney did not take me, the great man above would have found a way.
All I can relate her to is … beauty. Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. When you experience Jojo, you will certainly feel the same way. You want to be a part of her and share something with her. She is dynamic, alive and a giving woman who carries herself with confidence. Being so attractive, she’s confidently able to walk everywhere with her head held high.
This woman is that impressive…she would endure rides on the bike for over 12 hours. Not complaining or whining wanting to go home or stop. She wanted to live life to the fullest. To the point, I taught her how to ride the Harley on her own. Watching her learn was amusing and fun. She took control of the bike, let out a shriek scream and went with it. On that abandoned runway, she commanded that 600lb bike and took off pushing through the gears where the transmission begged to be shifted higher and higher.
For now, rarely when I look up do I see women who capture my attention and set off the internal fire of attraction. If they are attractive, then they lack personality, even intelligence and humor. Or, too dramatic, whine even judge others.
I don’t know, they simply are not this woman. The woman I”ve chosen to love, respect and pursue.
Wicked Me
Falling in love with Jojo came slow yet fast and unexpected. Six months with her on the motorcycle made me regain sanity and peace of mind. Compensating for loss, I chose to overlook how wrong it was. To this day, despite all the shame and despair, I don’t care. She was and is genuine never meaning harm against my failed marriage. She was real. Ever since I look at no women the same, yet waiting for Jojo.”What a wicked thing you say, you never felt this way. What a wicked thing to do, make me fall in love with you.”
Chris Isaak – Wicked Game, posted with vodpod
War, PTSD and Metallica Unforgiven 3
Returning to America alone from war in Kandahar, Afghanistan and Iraq found me home without a house and family welcoming me home. Six months remaining in the military. throughout the days and nights, I became resentful of everyone I had worked for. Angry for failing to take care of my family, both accepting responsibility yet blaming others, I became furious at my ex-wife for choosing to leave and putting me in a position I would have to decide on the mission or my family. Angry at her because our marriage was about to fall apart anyway. She took my son with her.
Choosing to get away, I spent my days and nights purposely avoiding work, riding my motorcycle for up to 12-16 hours at a time. I didn’t care, no one else cared.
Riding along the gulf coast of Florida, I met the new Jojo. By accident, unexpectedly, at 16, the new Jojo grew and matured while I was away to welcome me home. To be brief, over those six months we rode together everyday and night…
To read more, please click here: War, PTSD and Metallica Unforgiven 3.
Ride of my own
In time, my search and hunt for Jojo may come to an end. What I must do is take care of myself. Next to Jojo, the bike was that source of peace of mind. Parked to sit alone, the bike is alive no matter day or night. Waiting and ridden full throttle cruising and relaxed. The hum of the engine sets the tone and pattern of the moment. A continuous rhythm felt throughout your entire body. Putting one at ease.
It’s time to find my bike again. Sold eight years ago soon after the last ride with Jojo, I’m now feeling the bike call me. Brilliant black with shiny silver like chrome threaded throughout the bike, once in my possession I’m ready. Until my son grows enough released and moved out on his own, on my motorcycle I take a journey or ride of my own. It’s here that I’m ready and willing to ride across the entire country. The bike leading me back to this woman until one day I return to my final home.
The Bike
The motorcycle was a 2003 Harley Davidson Softail Deuce. A black bike with the 100th Anniversary stripe along the sides of the fuel tank. New pipes were installed where the baffles were removed to make the engine sound twice a throaty and loud. You could hear us coming from a mile away. The bike rode low to the ground where while you were riding you could rest your heals on the front foot pegs for a more comfortable ride. The rear wheel was solid aluminum with a fat tire approximately 150cm wide.
The front fork was the traditional Softail thin fork with a skinny tire resting in between. It came with an electronic alarm and auto start. I bought it brand new and only had it for two years where I put approximately 6,000 miles on it. A seriously low amount of miles for that long, but I had my reasons. At least 4,000 of those miles were with Jojo.
