And So It Begins, Men and Motorcycles, Summer 1997

 It's July. The middle of July, after the summer rains have ended. The weather is hot and the sky is hard and blue for days on end. The northwest summer has arrived and I find myself flying up the road in my sky blue car to meet a man in Anacortes, four hours away from Olympia, Washington. He has a motorcycle and he has been riding on it somewhere in the west for the past two weeks. He is my best friend and I miss him. Somehow, I have convinced myself that is a good thing to do and it will be fun, but there is a part of me in here huddled in the back of my head somewhere screaming behind my eyes saying, "Big Mistake! Turn around and go home you idiot!"

But I don't go home, there isn't much home left to go. The ruins of a marriage to a man who stepped out of it a long time ago for someone else wait behind me. We both agree, I will finally give up and move out of my husband's house as soon as I can save up enough money. It has taken me years to figure it out, sometimes you can love someone but love is not enough. My friend B. explained that concept to me and it took awhile for it to sink in but she was right. So here I am with nothing much left to lose and a lot of mixed up feelings in my head and heart.

Aida is on my car tape player, Elton John's lusty version and it is great to listen to while I rocket up the freeway. It's close to sunset, about 9:00 p.m. and there are deer on the verge of the freeway, beautiful but a scary sight on an interstate. I finally slow up, leave the free and find the motel where we are to meet. It's not a palace but it's not a rat bag flea trap either. I see a big black Harley out front as I get out of my car. He hasn't been here too long because I can hear the engine clinking as the metal cools, those little pops and pings you get from things contracting after a long hot day. He comes out of the room and sees me and I am just flooded with the worst mix of feelings. I feel like a shy five year old. I am all but rubbing my toe on the parking lot asphalt, suddenly bashful.

He grins from one ear to the next, he looks like a racoon with a fierce tan across his cheekbones and forehead, but where his sunglasses masked his eyes there is shockingly white skin. It makes me laugh to see him in this sort of mask and we hug awkwardly. I drag my stuff inside and we settle down on the bed to talk and watch television in dual confusion, exploratory and tentative with each other. I am not comfortable here and I am feeling awkward and a little spooked. Will I have to fight this guy off? How well do I know him after ten years of friendship? He's never even kissed me, and here we are in a motel, for crissakes. I think this is beyond tacky and I desperately wonder what was I thinking when I agreed to this trip but I keep my mouth shut and ride the feelings. I feel like a real cheeseball when I try to explain somehow that I am not into the whole rip his clothes off and rip my clothes off and get all sweaty thing. This man is a gentleman, I can tell he had high hopes and expectations too, riding around the west alone thinking about his dream girl waiting for him in a motel when he got back, but he doesn't press the issue and we finally fall asleep. I'm tense and in full pajama regalia and  about as snuggly as a fence post, but I finally drift off. We roust ourselves out in the morning and pack up, walking down the road to find espresso in the warm sunny morning, smacked now and then by a cool breeze that runs it's fingers inside my sweater and through my hair.

The car and the bike caravan together out to the ferry boat landing and I park in the long term parking, leaving my little blue car and taking just my back pack and the helmet I am handed. I crawl up on the back of the bike and we roll down the road to the long lines of cars waiting to embark for the San Juan Islands. I am swaggering a little in my boots, shades and helmet perched up behind him in his leathers on this big, big black Harley. People look at us with envy and respect, it's different on a bike. You are not invisible anymore and I wonder why?

Rolling on to the boat we haul around to the sunny side, settling in for a long breezy ride out through the beautiful islands, past Shaw and Lopez and Upright Head, where nuns in wimples from the priory on the island are taking time out from herding sheep and instead running the dock. It makes me laugh to see them in habits and safety vests tossing hawsers and directing traffic. A good omen for this beautiful day. Finally putting in at Orcas we climb on the bike and hurtle off first before the herds of waiting cars. Throttle wide open and roaring up the hill and around the corners. It's cold! In and out of the trees and the meadows, my nose is assaulted with smells and I go from shivering under the evergreens to basking in the sunny meadows as we going sailing through twisty corners and fly past struggling bicyclists burdened like pack animals on their way to campgrounds.

Somewhere on the outskirts of Doe Bay, it happens. I can literally feel myself re-inflating. I feel like a squashed beach ball with a new patch. I am ready to shout for joy but settle for pounding him on the back, this girl is NOT DEAD! She's in here, ten years of hell fall off the back and I am filled with bubbles of sun and happiness and peace and hope. I feel like I could float right off the back of the bike except my teeth are chattering so hard they pretty much counterbalance the bubbly feeling allowing me to crawl off the back and up the stairs of the B and B.

My first Bed and Breakfast, the Kangaroo House. Kangaroo house is run by a couple of terminally cheerful retired US Forest service rangers. The rooms are Victorian and charming, each one is different and has a girl's name. Our room is right next to the bathroom which is rather handy, and I feel smug until about ten o'clock that night when some huge fatty goes in and lets loose with the remnants of his dinner and we get to hear it all through the paper thin bathroom wall. This is so teenage potty humor hilarious and mortifying that we both roll on the floor with tears in our eyes, hands over our mouths trying not to laugh out loud at the hideous sounds emanating from the window and through the wall.

In the afternoon I discover the ultimate Bath Tub. The bathroom at the K House is huge and vaguely western influenced with a lot of knotty pine, brass and ruffly cotton curtains. This tub is the stuff Cleopatra's dreams are made of, this is the tub Miss Kitty of Gunsmoke fame must have lolled in. It has four claw feet, it's about a foot off the floor and I can lay full length in it, up to my ears in warm water and just soak in bliss. It's warm out and warm in and completely wonderful. I soak for an hour until I'm waterlogged. When I get back to our room, he decides to go for a run and I go out on the deck to read.

When he comes back he is visibly upset and I follow him up to the room to try to figure out what has happened to our wonderful weekend. Turns out testosterone  has reared its ugly head again. I don't want to sleep with him and he is not happy. I am not willing to be anyone's fantasy girl ever again, I'm not giving in, I'm not ready for this after ten years of treachery and shifting currents, I don't know how to trust anymore and I'm not even sure I want to remember how. I never promised a sexual fantasy weekend to this man. I thought we were friends and meant the world to each other as friends and I'm standing my ground this time. Maybe it would be easier to just give in and go along; after all I grew up in the sixties and know that going along part way too well. But not this time, this man means too much to me and if he wants just a quick roll in the hay maybe I'm wrong about him.

He is acting like a spoiled brat and I finally have had it with the attitude and pick up one of the big fluffy pillows on the bed and just haul off with everything I've got and clock him upside the head with it. He looks shocked, stunned and then he starts laughing and grabs a pillow of his own. Two grown people are having an epic pillow fight and we fall down laughing and winded when it's over. The air is cleared and we are able to talk about our expectations and I feel better. I am beginning to feel the edges of happy again and recognize it as something that might still be in the world.

In the evening we decide to walk the mile or so to town and dinner. A guy picks us up, a retired air force officer, and we hear his life story on the way downtown. It makes me want to live here too. He dumps us off in front of the fire station and we wander around town until we find a restaurant with a downstairs deck and a large gaggle of locals all lounging and drinking and chatting each other up. We are happy to be here on this patio overlooking a hundred miles of sky blue ocean and pine topped islands that look like god just spilled them out of his pocket on a walk through the joint, like so many bread crumbs. We drink too much hard cider, getting slightly drunk and everything gets way too important and funny.

Somehow we straggle back up the road and past the K house to the little beach at the end of the street. We walk through a neighborhood that looks like a subdivision --only it's on the corner of heaven and paradise, and suddenly get burped onto the tiny rocky beach. It is just sunset. Down the beach to the left is a long dock about a football field away, and on the dock is a black Labrador running up and down and silhouetted against the sky. The sky has suddenly turned into a bad Hawaiian post card and it's streaked with pink and purple and yellow and the clouds down low look like lavender pillows against the water. I can't believe it. I'm sitting on this log, slightly high and it's turned into a cheap romance novel when I wasn't looking. I look over at him and think, I guess I should just get this out of the way, so I kiss him.

It is awful. We are both so out of practice after so many years in broken impersonal marriages. He is one of those fishbowl kissers-- like falling face first into a fish bowl with lips. I sit back, open my eyes and relay the information to him that he is a truly terrible kisser. I am appalled at my sudden need for honesty. Does this mean we are going to be just friends because no electric sparks snap into the sunset and it isn't wonderful the first time? Poor guy, what has he ever done to deserve me? We try again, half laughing, not wonderful but definitely better. We straggle back to the B and B in the dark and fell asleep until the fat guy lets loose, all the fresh air and stress of the dance between us wear us out and we finally fall asleep together, snuggled up, not a fence post in sight.

Sunday, we hop on the bike and spin around the island, me leaning on him with my hands in his pockets, We stop and walk around, holding hands and just loving being together on the bike. We ride the twisty tight steep road up to Mt Constitution,. At the end it spits you out on top of the island. You can climb the WPA built tower and see half of forever including Canada, America and at least three volcanoes on a good day. I am amazed to see Mr and Mrs America stopping us at every turn to ask about the bike and talk about riding. I didn't know until then that there were bikers that weren't bad boys, and everyone loves a Harley. A lady stops to talk to me while I sit on the Dynaglide, waiting for him to come down the hill. She tells me she envies me and as soon as her kids are gone, she is going to hit the road too. I hope she doesn't wait until then; life somehow gets away from us when we aren't looking.

We roll back to the ferry docks, Sunday afternoon, sad to be going back to reality again. We sit on the boat and talk. I tell him something has changed in me and I will never settle for anything less than exactly what I want again. It's like the scene from Pretty Woman when she tells him what she wants. He takes in my list, looks at me and says, "That's all doable." He understands that for me the sexual side of this relationship will be the icing on the cake and I'm not in a hurry. It's like riding on that big fast motorcycle, it's all about the journey, not the destination.

I'm really sad and feeling lost when we part, I have trouble taking my arms back and putting them and me in the car and heading back south. But something has begun on that bike, something special and good and I'll sing along to Aida all the way home. And when I'm there and it's late in the afternoon and I'm all alone, I'll listen for his bike to go roaring past the house on the way to wherever it is he goes, knowing it won't be long until I'm up behind him again waiting to go wherever the road takes us.