Quelling The Kaleidoscope

Her thoughts gave her motion sickness. They reminded her of the roomful of black track, her father forced her to watch when she was a child, that had tiny cars, of all colors, racing about.

Some of the small, shiny, toys would travel the same path continually, never deviating from their steady pace, others would gather speed until they threw themselves from the track and rolled across the hardwood floors, only to crash into the nearest wall, marring the paint of the base moulding. 

The electrical smell of the track and the cars combined was also present in the deluge of the reality of events tumbling about with things that could be, and things that could have been, they were racing around the lobes of her brain and crashing into her skull. The lingering memory of the long ago odor only made the fog in her head more heavy and dense.

One thought could not be separated from another, and they became a gigantic mass, just as the cars would eventually have done, had her father not deliberately slowed their pace, and carefully re-positioned them on the track he had painstakingly pieced together.

She had always hated when she heard him call her name to watch the swirling cars, they hurt her head, they made her dizzy and the smell, along with the movement, sickened her stomach.

The movement of the thoughts was no different. It had to be their combination that left her feeling once more like a child. There were so many, ranging from intense anger, hurt, and the deepest pain of all pains, to fear, abandonment, joy, excitement, and physical agony. They all were heaped into one massive form that could not be divided.

Most of the feelings, on their own, with the exception of the abandonment and soul piercing pain, would have been easy enough to separate into containers and dealt with in their own time, but there was no time. Each had to be dealt with together, as a whole as soon as possible, or the ship would go down.

As the thoughts collided she kept glancing at the amber colored bottles, filled with a myriad of concoctions, that lay in groups around the room, and wondered which would quell the noise, and which would stop it for eternity, and she was determined to decide which option she would choose.

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The Guardian Bell

I caught a glimpse of it as soon as I pulled into the driveway this morning. A Guardian Bell, I have on my Harley, was dangling slightly below the weather proof cover that protects one of the loves of my life, my Heritage Softail. 

I always yearn to ride, but today caught me by surprise. It's December and cold rain is falling, so riding isn't that appealing, and I have a million details to attend to before embarking on my journey.  So many events have been swirling, like a tornado winding its way through my life, in recent months, that riding has been on the back burner. I've ridden some, but missed some major rallies due to unseen circumstances.

While I still was able to attend "bike nights" in the area, what I long for are more long trips. I had one planned for September that would have taken me down the entire Oregon and California coastlines, back up to hit Vegas for a few days, and on to catch the end of Street Vibrations before heading home to Portland.

I sat in the car for the longest time remembering trips past, and envisioning those yet to come. Yeah, I'm a chick, but the sound of pipes, the feel of the wind, and the biker bond is embedded deeply within my soul.

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