“Coming Alive“, was originally published in RoadRUNNER Motorcycle Touring & Travel.

Motorcycle Meditation ?
?Don?t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.? ?Howard Thurman
I like the mental exercise of thinking and writing about the ways in which motorcycling has made me come alive. Riding started for me as an exercise in redirecting pain from a loss. It has become so much more and has been a conduit of change that has allowed me to become more rounded and open?and to seek challenge rather than retreat from it.
On a thousand mile solo round-trip to visit my sister, something changed in me; and when I got back, I wasn?t the same person I was when I left. I came back feeling I had something to say that wouldn?t be contained. I didn?t know how, but I knew I?d start giving it voice in one way or another; and just a few short years later, I find myself writing this column for my favorite riding magazine. I always think of this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: ?Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.? I think a lot of us, maybe all of us, go through a similar experience. Sometimes it?s the first ride, other times it?s a long, solo ride; but in either case, being alone inside your own head (I?ve referred to it as a meditation of sorts) has a tendency to allow things to settle, for priorities to realign, and for true des...