The source of my new peace.
Tag Archives: Harley
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
Blues of Life
At 39, I’m at the half-way point in my life…if I’m lucky. Don’t tell me the best is behind me. There is much I want to do.
Recently I’ve been hit with reality that the youth of my days have passed, evidence in my friends and family. A once vibrant young beautiful West Virginian princess, Little Man’s mother is now heavier in weight, slower yet working harder than ever now witnessing the onset of stress related health problems. It saddens me she is not healthy, I still love her and like many others, I don’t want her to pass before me. I couldn’t stand the experience.
Not loving her in the same way, I just didn’t take time to consider how I would see life change through others. My response is sobering hesitation. It’s obvious, with my head down, I’ve been too distracted. Now, I realize 39 years have passed me by. What do I have to show for it?
What I have is my son. Friends and some family. And, my health. Finally, I have recovered my health again. I have the new business. A source of independence and perhaps a steady income.
Jojo, don’t you understand, I bet everything on you and Little Man? Don’t you know I had a plan? Almost ten years (8 yrs) of my life has been in pursuit of you following that plan. What have those years done to you? Where have you gone? Why the silence? What did I do? What didn’t I do? Starting a new improved life with you was the intent. About to turn 25, where your life has only begun, you were my reason. What we learned about each other on the Harley was enough for me to make a choice to find you again.
From the moment I chose to pursue you, resistance was all I saw, never knowing it would take me this long. My motivation was to meet you and create a new life continuing from where we left off. Not living in the past, just continuing on a path showing you all the things I had learned enjoying something new even special together. The rides on the bike may have been good, what I was about to show you, no ride could have compared.
Where did you go?
Why didn’t you let me share life with you?
You’ve been overcome by my past, now unrecognizable, you’ve forgotten what I have to give.
Just an image of something so much greater, I am not the source of what is bad in this world. Despite what the past may show, it was never me. You try walking that path.
With this second chance in life, I’m going to take it, don’t want to waste it.
Where did you go?
Did you even really love me then?
Knowing you must go, letting you go sets us both free.
Knowing that leaves me alone. Empty. Saddened. Dark. Lost. Hurt. Missing you. Wanting you. Needing you. Silence.
Not looking for a simple woman for companionship. It’s you I want. Without, I will do without.
When did you stop believing I could?
Where did you go?
Still love you now
What I write is for you to read. I write to you, show me a sign.
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.
Only Once
Not the first love lost.
First one loved.
First thing thought is last thing lost.
Last one loved
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.
Related articles
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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.
On Course v.2
What is one supposed to do? Found her smiling, eager to spend more time with you. Everyday riding your motorcycle, nine months together swiftly passes by. You do it wrong. Time and responsibilities force you to leave. She stopped smiling. Was it because you approached her, or because you chose to leave? You won’t know that answer.
Without saying it face to face, you would soon return. At 16, she is too young, messages written in code encouraging her not to quit on you leaves you in limbo. On with her life she goes, yet not once did thoughts of her leave your mind. Still wanting to find her, you move on, plotting the course of a new life to intersect with hers. Obstacles soon force you off course far greater than yourself beyond your control. Sometimes six months at a time, you’re taken away farther from her. No matter what is, failing to navigate close enough showing how serious you’ve become disrupts the efforts. Months go by, years pass by no closer have you become.
Silence. For almost a year her silence is deafening. What motivates is loud and clear, the experiences of her, images play and replay reminding how good her presence is, leaving you to want more. Instantly, naming off a hundred details why you love her. Her eyes, her laughter, tears of joy and sorrow, intelligence, boundless energy, radiating attractiveness…
Memories are all you have…you drive on.
Yet to be married…she pushes you further. No matter how many storms on the horizon…
Still on course.
Even if alone, I move forward.
What would you do?
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.
Fulva Drive
One simple dance be shared. Gracefully time slows.
In these eyes dreamt, genuine…beauty captured.
Back and forth, held close rhythmic breaths, where else be in awe.
No matter what becomes. Here, I will be.
Prepare To Cross Over
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
Wrong Timing
I can’t do the talk. I can’t do a love song like the way it was meant to be. I can’t do everything but I’ll do anything for you. All I do is miss you and the way we used to be. All I do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme. (Dire Straits)
Jojo was a good strong woman then, she’s only better now. Only once did I watch her cry. Then a second time. A third time too many. The first was not because of me. The others were. I just don’t understand why. Was it when I approached her? Did I do it wrong or was I wrong? Where did I fuck it all up? We didn’t have an argument or yell at each other. It was time pulling us apart from each other. To the point we didn’t say a word.
This is the way I understand things. Just tell me I’m not off in my own mind creating this sense of drive for each other. I felt it. I felt all of it and more and wanted more of it.
On the final night I spent all night writing my last words to Jojo. I left her behind a message telling her not to give up on me. What I couldn’t say to her face, I was forced to write in that letter. It was everything I simply couldn’t say. Telling her that no matter how long it takes to not once ever quit. As I wrote that note, I saw that approaching storm on the damned horizon. I was fucked from the beginning. No matter what happened, I wanted her to know that I had to leave. When I did, when the timing was better, I would find her again. What I could not tell her was how I had to first end the failed marriage I had with her good friend. Little Man’s mother. At no time did Jojo ask me to do anything like that. It was me. All me. At the time of that note, I made my choice to find Jojo again. The pursuit just wasn’t the right time.
The pursuit for Jojo continued through emails after emails month after month. It appeared after each email, I only got worse. Then it became a year, and another year. Jail, hospital after another, six months here, a few there. Before I knew it six, seven and now eight years have passed me by. My son grew older, so did Jojo and myself. However we all grew years apart. The two most important things in my life could not be brought together with me.
After experiencing Jojo the way I did, I wanted to give the same thing back to her. I wanted and still want to share things with her where life is mutual. Where we both give and take from each other without saying a word.
Green Day – Boulevard of Broken Dream
Not a “woah be me” song. Just a great song by a band that broke punk into mainstream music. I think you will relate to the lyrics and enjoy this song. When I say they broke punk into popular music, I’m not referring to punk who stayed punk or punk who started punk. By no means is this considered a punk song. Green Day just originated as punk. Regardless, Green Day, just like Metallica went viral if you would and took their genre to the public making it big leaving a great impact on music.
This song reminds me of what it’s like to have friends and family drop like flies while you pursue what you are after. Failing throws curve balls at you, yet, just before the dawn is the darkest hour. When life is so damned frustrating, just when it is about to expire, that is when it starts and the good comes around. Simply put, no matter what you never fucking quit.
Green Day – Boulevard of Broken Dream [Official…, posted with vodpod
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.
Can’t You See?
Allow me time to collect thoughts. This way I won’t publish less than the best in posts. For now, I’m doing what I said I would do. Let things go and move on.Well I’m here to tell you how that is easier said than done.I’m just going to sit back and enjoy this classic tune from a great 70′s band called Marshall Tucker Band with their song “Can’t you see.”
Listen to the lyrics and try to understand how this is going to be harder then it appears. I will kick back tonight and relax thinking until I sleep.
Allow a man time!
Peace
Prepare to Crossover
Can’t You See?, posted with vodpod
All I ever wanted
How is one supposed to get a woman like this out of your mind. It’s impossible to walk away from Jojo. Let it go and move on in your life. You are 14 years older than her, she’s too young. Going after her will take you backwards. That’s what they all say. All I can do is raise my hand and flip the finger.
All I Ever Wanted, posted with vodpod
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.
Whisper me well
Image via Wikipedia
Oceans and lakes. Morning looks a certain way on the water. Gulf of Mexico. The southern experience. No matter if Northwest Florida, Alabama, Mississippi even Louisiana. Sunrise on a new day opens with smells of grasses and pines even salts of the ocean mixed with sounds of life coming alive. Birds flying chirping making sense only to themselves.
Her name was….I called her Jojo.
Looked up to the woman I married, she begged to watch our son. For over seven years watched her grow. Returning home from war, I became a single man and found Jojo a new woman.
Six months with the Emerald Coast to our side we rode the bike hours after hour every day always leading to the nights. The time spent with Jojo felt right The experience of her was remarkably renewed. The motorcycle was new yet felt as if we had ridden for years. With Jojo, once again I became a man. The thing is, I don’t know if she loved me.
Tripped me over spinning off in a direction never expected. Must be trapped in what was then, for now, she wants no more. Why was the thought of finding Jojo so damned possible?
Torn
How is she doing this to me? How have I come this far, after eight whole years and still have such a strong desire for her? Doesn’t she understand what I was up against? I only chose to walk away with one intent. To find her again.
I cannot help myself. Stuck over this woman, I‘m left confused. She may never had wanted me. I’m left with memories she wanted me. On that Harley together, we rode alone for so many miles. I came to know everything about her left to want her. It felt mutual. I felt her want me. Where have I gone wrong?
Falling apart torn by the choices I had to make. My son called me waiting for me. A married man in a failed relationship.
A warrior in time of war, I was about to walk away from my men who would return to battle without me. They were my son’s and brothers. To not join them made me worthless.
Then, Jojo had me captivated. 
However, she was too young. I couldn’t put this gorgeous woman in a position I would disrupt her life. On course for greatness, had I stayed with Jojo, I would have held her back. I had to give it time. Get my life in order again. Gone too many times had torn apart my life. Everything I had built with blood, sweat and tears was coming apart. The consequences of my travels and choices returned to haunt me. Deep within my mind was an approaching emotional storm that would nearly destroy me.
Pushed and pulled in so many directions, life as I knew it fell apart. Can’t you see I nearly lost my mind?
A mere kid at that time needing to be a man forced to make choices I didn’t want. Faced far worse in battle, now with life back home in peace, I was torn. At that time, I was not a man, instead a mere boy. I had to leave to find myself. Only then would I be able to search for Jojo.
Hoping I was giving her a reason to not quit on me. Her eyes. Looked at her lips and wanted to move closer to her, I wanted to bring her near me leaning forward to embrace her kissing her for the first time. Giving her the reason to wait for me.
After eight years of conflict away from Jojo, the time has come. Must find her again, everyday she tears at me never leaving my mind, memories and thoughts. Day or night, throughout my journey she remains. It’s not working. My efforts fail. She refuses to respond. She’s gone.
Scars and Burns
While growing up, I seemed to have collected scars and burns from all sorts of events. This wasn’t a hobby, instead, it was the reality of my existence. These marks on my body were signs I neither followed the rules or heeded the ways of those who went before me. Perhaps, I chose a new path they feared to explore leaving me with the life long signs of achievement. Or, they were reminders I didn’t pay attention. Regardless, scars and burns are symbols of our past journeys, successes and failures.
One night, when Jojo boarded the Harley, she threw her leg over the seat and mounted the bike where her jeans raised up revealing her right calf. Without a thought, her leg came down onto the shiny silver exhaust pipe where instantly the pipe seared her skin forever burning Jojo leaving behind a symbol of the rides on her body. To this day I’m not certain what that symbolizes to Jojo, whether those rides were a success or failure.
What I do know is how the choices I made when getting closer to Jojo turned out to be the best decisions I could have made. Had I chosen to grow intimate with her, I would have lost her. How do I show this woman that she is the only woman in the world that matters. I do it by leaving with the intent to return to find her again. I was too young and immature at that time. Yes, I was older than her, yet I was immature and simply not ready. Choosing to stay and grow intimate would have scarred her for life leaving me behind in purgatory. What needed to happen was I had to leave her, then, return, only when I was better prepared and had learned to become a man. My travels had taken me too many places and had seen too many things I couldn’t describe. To the point I had lost track of who I had become. A father, a leader, a husband, a lover or nothing?
Looking back, I believe it took a man to make the choice I made. It would take me seven years to learn I was a good man and not what I feared deep within. Jojo was the reason I made those choices, next to little man, she became my reason for existence. The time spent with Jojo became my scar burned deep within my heart teaching me how love of any kind within our short life should never be taken for granted.
The ride.
When I’m alone I feel nothing. When I’m with Jojo, I feel greatness all around me. When I was with Jojo I felt the greatest, she brought out the best in me. She made me feel like taking life by the horns and going for the ride of my life.
We would ride for hours at a time with her holding on exchanging conversations or silence. I would tell myself that I would make all of this right. I was 14 years older and going no where good. Steering the Softail Deuce in and out of traffic or down some backwoods path leading back to the shoreline, memories have me seeing the speedometer highlighted in orange as the needle pushed passed sixty going to seventy. I was the one in control. She was too young for me or herself.
As Jojo held me tight, with my feet floating in the air on the footpegs, the twin engine hummed like a fine oiled machine between my legs. Within the piercing bright white headlight, the world would approach us as we made our way to no where in particular. As the road passed beneath our feet, we were just being with each other all night long into the early morning, riding.
Seaside
No matter where you found us on the gulf coast, we could be alone riding along the Pensacola National Seashore, or mixed within the heavy traffic of Highway 98 heading towards Fort Walton Beach and Destin. What really gave a sense of travel taking us away from everything was 
hiding on the motorcycle late at night inside the pine trees, shorelines and hidden cottages of Seaside.
