2024 and a New Chapter

We were gathered around a table in the bar of The Clyde, in Carlton, on a warm Friday afternoon. It was the weekly gathering of friends: retired philosophers, some of whom had taught me, and some of whom I had later taught alongside. By now I was no longer in teaching, instead I was developing a private practice as a philosophical counsellor--the first example in this country?--and was taking a lunch break from seeing clients on Lygon Street. We had a lot in common besides philosophy: we were ex-seminarians (or an ex-monk in my case), we were all from working-class families in rural north-western Victoria, and we all loved motorcycles. In fact, you have already met Peter Drum on this blog, posing astride his Kawasaki W650...perchance outside The Clyde. Peter also has a Tiger Moth aeroplane, and this is me with his Model A on a very drenched New Year's Eve:

Why is this scene coming to mind now? Because of Brian, who has since died. He was talking about when he gave up his BSA motorcycle, after a nasty spill. He then mused on how his wife later said: "You know, I think you gave up too much when you gave up that motorcycle." After a paude, Brian then--with both a fear away look and a glint in his eye--exclaimed "What a paragon of a woman!" We lost ourselves in fits of laughter. Brian was a very funny man, and yet those words, "You gave up too much when you gave up that motorcycle," have in the last year gradually slid, ever so subtely, into my mind's ear. It was from the periphery at first, but then it became a clear longing, and eventually an ache. I had given up too much. But of what? The thing, formless and nameless, invisible yet fundamental, present and captured in those memories of a cold, winter day out east, of blurred ferns and silver glinting on the wet road, or out west in a wholly different country, spreading myself across wheat fields and ancient pines as my struggling old bike pushed northwards into the desert. It has been almost a decade since my last post. Naturally much has happened. I will be brief, but will tell you the story in its relevant essentials. From touring 40,000km a year for a decade, heading out every weekend no matter the weather, I had begun to slow down. One morning, commuting through Melbourne, I crashed my W650 on a wet tram track. I was taken to the hospital with severe pain in my neck. I was fine, if sore, but also quite shaken. Despite the shop repairs, the bike never felt the same. I sold it to a friend. That left me with the Royal Enfield, and I continued my trips around Victoria and Tasmania:

During this time I developed also a strong interest in cycling, riding daily plus taking some long trips, for example from Lancefield to Maldon via these same steep hills on which I loved to motorcycle. Plus I deepened my interest in electric bicycles which had begun years before, when we still used car batteries and lycra cyclists became angry when they encountered us. Now I had lithium-ion. Below is an English-made Pashley with a 250w mid-drive motor that I fitted. This photo was taken on a trip to Warburton:

Here's a photo from a ride that began at Castlemaine, across to almost the border with South Australia, and then up to NSW:

I was still playing about with bikes, including borrowing and riding various machines from friends:

However, as I say, I had slowed down in terms of riding. Then came December 2016. While on a motorcycle trip around Tasmania something happened, a terrible experience. It was not related to motorcycling, but it both shattered me, and became a fulcrum, a turning point in the following years with respect to a lot of inward and outward change. For one thing, I got out of Melbourne. I had moved to the city at 17 to pursue a career in music, but my heart has always been in the bush and I longed to return. So in 2018 I pulled all my money together, and even sold my motorcycle, to buy a house in Maryborough, Victoria.

Living in inner-city Melbourne all my adult life, and favouring passion over pay in my work, had led to me despairing of ever owning a home. Hence I had not been saving for a house. It was a sudden decision and a scramble, which became heightened after I signed the contract for the house, subject to bank approval, and the bank went from wanting a 5% deposit to a 20% deposit. It cleaned me out. I moved two hours away with no car and a few hundred dollars to my name. Fortunately, a friend offered me a station wagon on a payment plan, which served also as my accommodation for the half of the week that I worked in Melbourne. And while my family are not flush with cash, my father gifted me $2000 to get a start on things. As further good fortune, everything in the house worked, so I could simply focus on saving. This became an exuberant time. A motorcycling friend who I have since lost touch with, but who has appeared variously on this blog, bought a house during the same week in Ballarat, an hour south of here. He too had given up on the dream, and carried the force of that old despair into this new chapter. A song by The Peep Temple became during those months a drunken anthem for our excitement, and we would sing along in joy: "I have ghosts in my walls and in my pockets...but at least I own my house!"

By living very frugally I managed to get in such a position that I could consider it prudent, given my distance from work, to buy a back-up vehicle. A cheap motorcycle was the obvious choice. I gave myself a budget of $2000, including on road costs. I found this Yamaha V-Star 250 for $1800.

The V-Star was great fun. I have never sought great power in my bikes, and it could do most things perfectly well, with the exception of losing speed on hills. But then some things happened. Two things, to be precise. In the decades prior, I had ridden all over Victoria, in all conditions and at all hours, and had never crashed outside of the city. Around this region, however, there are kangaroos in numbers I have not seen elsewhere. Even today, I slow to 70kph through forests at night, and have had many near misses, as well as colliding with the creatures. Most people here have stories to tell of such collisions. Indeed it is a piece of local lore that if ever you become lost in the bush, follow a kangaroo, for very soon it will lead you into the middle of the road! Well, on the way back from Rheola I hit a kangaroo at highway speed. My left foot still aches, five years later. Fortunately I kept the bike upright. Then, a mere couple of months later, the same happened again. This time it was night, in the short stretch of higher speed between Carisbrook and Maryborough. I collided with the animal on the front right of my bike, and felt the continued impact across the right of my body, which quickly hurt like hell. In the collision my headlight was smashed off, blinding me, and my trajectory through me off the road. I only knew this because the surface below me changed; I could not see a thing. I grabbed the brakes but started fishtailing in the gravel, while still at high speed. One's mind can move incredibly fast in such moments, and as I considered the choice between just rolling to a stop but risking hitting a pole while still at speed--I had no idea what was in front of me--or risking the brakes again and probably going down, I chose the first. I was lucky.

In the weeks that followed, I found that I had really lost my mojo. I just couldn't relax on the bike, even in the middle of the day riding through open fields. I sold it and bought a 1980s ute. In time I took up drumming again, having stopped when I was 19, and like many musicians this meant I became more protective of the health of my hands and limbs.

As I counsellor, in recent years I have seen more clients with chronic pain, and the emotional misery and despair, including suicidal despair, that I hear confessed in all its dimensions week in and out, has changed the way I feel about risks. I dont want that! Motorcycling became something I used to do. And so I have not ridden for five years. And yet, there's a danger in doing some things, but also in not doing them. For example, there's a danger in staying in an unhappy job or relationship, and a danger in not leaving. I have a good life. I am more happy than I have ever been in my life. During Spring and Summer I play multiple gigs every weekend. I make a moderate but adequate living as a philosophical counsellor, working from home over Zoom. I spend my spare time reading and writing. I have a great relationship that is now half a decade old, with a deeply intelligent, empathetic, and talent woman, and we share many similar passions and ways of being. And yet, something has been missing. Life is good, secure...safe. I've become comfortable. And soft. This of course is the usual answer. But there is something more that is missing, something beyond mere adventure and the virtues associated with it. There is an aliveness that's missing. An aliveness of a distinct kind, which comes from flying through the wind, cold and grey, or golden and blanketing. Which comes from lying down into the forces that push back as you corner at speed. That which is life when you forget yourself and your seperateness and become the sun, the heat, the landscape. I decided that, while I need to have parameters to avoid more of those highway collisions, yet I still need motorcycling in my life. Like last when I bought the V-Star, I am in a frugal situation, although of a different kind. Last year I paid my house off, which is wonderful, but it meant starting again in terms of savings. As a kind of history repeating, last month I gave myself a budget of $2000, and found a motorcycle for $1800. And so I bought a 1997 Honda CB250, with 23,000km on the clock. This example is in very good condition. Despite the low kilometers, and probably because of the age, the previous owner had opened up the engine, top to bottom, to satisfy his mechanical care, and he refreshed the top end while there. The bike came with a box of top quality consumables, such as a chain and sprockets. As promised by the previous owner, the motor purrs and runs perfectly, and the bike rides beautifully. For my own interest I have lined up a spare engine for $200, which I intend to dismantle and refresh, with the help of a friend who also rides. After all, I now own two sheds, full of good tools and much bench space. This is the life! some people would consider a 250cc below them, or practically too underpowered. I don't have much respect for the former attitude, which is typical in motorcycling, but I can respect the latter. In my case, however, some of my favourite 500cc bikes have topped out at 80 or 90kph, whether through inability to safely go faster, or discomfort with going faster. This CB is a full bike in my world. When necessarily it can easily get to 100kph, even if it lacks power there, but it invites me to do 80kph, winding contemplatively through the forest roads and open fields, and that is perfect for me. My new riding style will be different to the old. No more long days which mean getting caught out at dusk, or returning after dark. But that's the beauty of where I live. It used to take an hour of commuting out of Melbourne to begin the real ride. Now I am in the midst of riding country. I pull out of my gate and turn right onto secondary sealed roads leading to other towns, or left and into the bush, on good dirt roads which lead also to other towns. I live in the land of contemplative motorcycling. And so I begin my next chapter.

I'm back!

It's been almost a decade since my last post. And five years since I last owned a motorcycle. I have felt of late that I gave up too much, when I gave up riding. Today I bought this:

More to come....