Winter in the Golden Triangle

Having ridden a lot, a motorcyclist will develop a connection with certain places.  He or she will set down, to coin an oxymoron, transient roots.  The nature of such a place gets its reality from the rider's imagination as much as from the geographical location.  It is an experience: the flash of light, of bursts of green in winter, explosions of colours in spring, golden grasses in summer. In every season there is light.  Glorious light.  As riders we become elemental as we pass through those shafts of light illuminating both the seasons and that particular moment on the road.  We are air, gravity, electricity, and pure reflection.

My reflection today turned to the goodness of living, as I sped along those single-lane roads and dirt tracks.  Cynicism, bitterness, despair - these are enemies awaiting us in daily life, trying slowly and surreptitiously to seep into the soul.  Motorcycling can purify the soul by reconnecting it with places where it has its transient roots, its places of nourishment.  At least, it does that for me.

And so today I rode through that which I call - often on this blog - The Golden Triangle.  Now is the last fortnight of winter, and it was sunny.  Sunlit, winter days are magical out here.   

I took my proper camera but the battery was flat, which is disappointing because my phone did not capture the striking vibrancy of the green.  Nonetheless....

A good six hours spent in quiet joy.  I took this book (below) with me, though in the end I did not stop to read.  I wanted to savour the day by spending every moment in motion. There is plenty of time for reading at home, indoors.  It was good to carry this book with me though.  It seemed at home in this place with each - the place, and the things in the book - enlivening my sense of the other. It is good to be alive.