Finding Neutral

I am in Old Fort, North Carolina in a pretty little house deep in the woods. I've been here since February 2nd. There is a creek flowing through the property and not another house in sight. The signs on the trail I run say Bear Sanctuary. Of course they do.

My hair was on fire when I arrived. It's day 21, though, and I think I'm on to something. Only I can prevent hair fires, right? My hair is a little singed, but the smoke is clearing. 

I came here to find neutral. And then to feel for first. To get still and to focus and to listen and to find a perfect relationship between clutch, shift, brake and throttle. What I'm finding instead is there's no perfect relationship between anything. 

There have been a lot of curves in the road this year - and it's been a bumpy ride. I'm in the woods to take a closer look at what makes my days feel so out of control and how this head-fire began in the first place. I want to figure out if maybe I can find the courage to lift both feet off the ground, twist the throttle gently with intention, look up, hang on and GO.

Let's ride.

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My first motorcycle was a 2003 Softail Deluxe, and we called her Miami. My dad found her for me somewhere in the middle part of Florida. (I never remember the towns in the middle part of Florida.) She'd been loved. She'd been ridden hard. She had a past, a few scars and a million stories I'd never know. The scrape on her front fender gave her character and street cred. She had a weathered black leather seat and sun-hardened saddlebags, a metal studded hip pack and a gorgeous teal, white and chrome color palette. She was pretty, badass, and way cooler than me.

The first week I flew down to Florida to learn to ride her, I'd been an M-card-carrying member for nearly a year. Having passed the rider course at Doc's Harley Davidson in St Louis, Missouri, I'd earned my "motorcycle" endorsement and wore it proudly on my driver's license. The Buels we rode in class were mere dirt bikes compared to her. Those trainers were the little baby brothers of this bike, and they may as well have had training wheels and knee pads for as simple and basic as they were compared with this gorgeous beast. 

I loved flashing my M around town, and couldn't wait to tuck my license into the little leather pouch on Miami's gas tank, but when I went out to the garage to admire the work my dad had done to soften the bags and to polish up the chrome just for me I mostly just stared - not really believing she was mine and not for a minute believing I could get her down the driveway, let alone off on the cool biker chick adventures I'd imagined.

So my dad pulled her down the driveway for me. He parked her on the street in front of his house after I convinced him that thumping nervously over the little dip between his driveway and the pristine asphalt street would most likely cause me to lay her down immediately, or to lurch her directly across the street, through the regulation height bermuda grass lawn and into his neighbor's living room.

My parents lived in a lovely little gated community, where you had to know a code to enter, and only after passing a memory test were you granted access to tool around a perfectly still pond that reflected sunsets and egrets and sported an adorable gazebo straight out of a Bride magazine photo shoot. There were rules here, and as much as my dad complained about following them and prided himself a rebel rule-breaker, my sister and I knew he liked the uniformity of it all and that the standardization of lawn heights and limited pre-approved paint schemes were what made it such a pretty place to live.

My dad is a corporate pilot, a highly respected flight instructor and a really good teacher. He's given countless students the gift of flight, and his kids an adventurous spirit and wind under our wings to take off in whatever direction suited each of us. When he taught me to drive our brown family station wagon at fifteen, he set his mug of coffee pointedly on the dash and advised me not to spill a drop of it. I think he carried a clip board, too - perhaps just to look official, but it worked. He taught me to drive stick in my first car - a 1975 yellow and white Toyota Celica with painted sunglass beach scene on the front plate - the same way. That mug of coffee was the reason I could be designated driver on any given night out for years to come no matter who had driven us to the hellcat parents-out-of-town parties, and why today I can keep any passenger's head from bobbing as we pick up speed on any given road trip or city street.

My lesson that first morning with Miami was very simple: find neutral. 

His instructions: ride around the neighborhood, stop at every driveway. Pause. Take a breath. Look around. Then go. To the next driveway.

Downshift, brake, find neutral, plant your foot, settle. Wait for pretend traffic, for the light, for the moment to go - then look around, shift into first, release the brake as you apply some gas as you lift then plant your left foot on the plate, and go.

To the next driveway.

Then the next driveway. And the next. 

What he wanted me to do was get the feel of my bike. Become one with it. Breathe with it. Practice starting and stopping safely. Then starting and stopping safely again. 

But to do this I would need to find neutral.

That's it. Find neutral.

We were out there for hours, Miami and I, and we terrorized the neighborhood. Biker chick and her brand new baby grumbled into town like a couple of badasses over and over again, one mailbox at a time. And every single time I stopped and tried to put her in neutral before putting my foot down on the street, I'd pass the N on the up then the down then the up then the down as Miami huffed out a disgusted sigh, rolled her eyes, teetered around, her clutch engaged, a nervous twitchy girl on top trying to stay upright. She'd been patient at first. But this was ridiculous.

I gripped her clutch til my hand ached - concentrating - lifting, pushing, lifting, pushing, trying to find exactly the right amount of pressure to maneuver my heavy harley-booted foot through the gears but I'd fly right past neutral to second or third every time. Then I'd try and click back down to the elusive sweet spot, and fly right by it to first again. My left shin muscles ached. My left hand throbbed. I was failing and flailing and stalling.

I could not find neutral. 

So I rolled home in a shame spiral - one driveway at a time, defeatedly skipping the changing of gears part, and I parked her in the street for my dad to pull her back into the garage. I turned her off in first so that no-one else would witness the circus style balancing act I'd performed in front of every single driveway in Lakeside Manor. Miami was relieved to avoid further shame. 

With her engine cut and kickstand down, I squeezed her clutch, mashed and maneuvered her gears til I finally lit up the N, and I pulled my useless cinderblock boot back over my bike and headed inside, face blazing hot, hair on fire.