When the weather goes to rainy gray and outdoor activity is limited to running from the car to the door and back with collars turned up and hats pulled down, Seasonal Affective Disorder is a very real downer that moves in like a big-assed rain cloud ruining your psychic picnic. I suffer from S.A.D. but mine hits during the brightest part of the summer, when the movie season typically grinds to a painful slow crawl. I get depressed about having to lie, borrow money, and dodge landlords until the rains hit. So, as the sun sets on prime motorcycling weather, I’m trying to ignore the few sunrays that are left, while appeasing the wolves at the gate. It’s enough to send to Gandhi on a killing spree.
For my odd psyche, there is a certain peace that comes with the winter rains. Someone (maybe Tom Robbins?) once said of the NW climate, “The weather outside matches my internal climate.” I stir to consciousness in my bed watching hissing droplets bounce off the roof out my window, as my cat gently pulls my hand into his chest with clingy claws and licks the hair on my knuckles. Coffee tastes better and the weight of the winter comforter might as well be shackles for the difficulty it causes me getting out of bed. The rains mean I can go into my garage and not purposely ignore my motorcycle, who is listing on her sidestand wondering why it’s been weeks since she roared. I can tell her it’s raining, not that I’m too busy for her.
When it comes to trying to turn the lemon rains of winter into lemonade, nothing works like the memory of 107 Middle-of-nowhere-Wyoming degrees.
<begin self-indulgent riding story>
I had been riding all day trying to make it to Sheridan, WY to rendezvous with a buddy coming in from Illinois. The day bore the kind of heat so intense I had to soak my T-shirt at every rest stop faucet, and after 10 minutes of riding, not only was it dry, it was stiff from minerals. I was drinking a liter of water an hour and knew it wasn’t enough, but the water at the rest stops was only good for soaking shirts. It was the worst part of the afternoon, when the heat apexed and my mood and humor bottomed out. I pulled into a gas station for fuel and after gassing up, headed inside the western motif store/restaurant for food and more water. This was reservation country. The Native Americans seemed pretty detached from the white folk who mingled around--the whites not knowing the difference between this tourist trap and the real west.
There is a thing that happens when you spend a lot of time in the saddle and cover a lot of geography. A hardening of manner prevails, combined with a sharpening of reflexes that comes from dealing with the hailstorm of rocks, tire parts, and weather hurling over the windscreen into your face. Many people wonder what kind of cognitive slippage makes one consider this a vacation. The answer is that traveling by motorcycle peels away the layers of codependence. After a few weeks of living on the road, you do not give a shit who you offend or frighten. There is freedom in that—a release, if you will, that constitutes a real vacation. In reality, the tough-guy crap is quickly traded for ambassadorship when someone asks about the bike, the ride, or wants to tell you about the Harley they rode after the war—any war. You count on these drivers not to kill you, so you are nice to them.
But this day there was heat. I was feeling antisocial. In the booth in front of me was a native man and his wife, both with skin toughened by years of sun, speaking their native language. The white folk were staring like the Indians were some sort of museum display. I was minding my own business looking at a map while I splattered it with mayo. The Indian man with the leather face looked over at me with a, “Hey?”
I was not in the mood to interact with anyone. So I silently looked up at him.
“Where ya from?” sez he.
Oh, great. Now all the sweaty tourists were looking at me, too.
“Oregon.”
He took off the hat he was wearing and showed me it was from the Pendleton Roundup.
“I rode in the Round Up more years than I care to admit.”
“Nice country out there.” Now, let me get back to my damn sandwich and map.
“Where you headin’?”
I closed my map with a little too much drama and looked at him, then at the shifting crowd waiting for my answer.
“Tryin’ to get to Sheridan for the night.”
Beat.
“I’m gonna tell you where to stay there.”
Lucky me.
“There’s the main drag. I forget what it’s called. But there’s a hotel on it. It’s white, I think.”
“That narrows it right down.”
“Now, hold on. You’ll know it when you see it. Ya know why?”
The suspense was killing me.
“Because there’s a big white limo in front of it.”
The crowd chuckled. I was hoping this was the punch line.
“And why the hell should I stay there?”
“Because the folks there (he looked around the restaurant) AIN’T WHITE.”
The crowd of eavesdroppers quickly cleared its collective throats and found somewhere else to look. I laughed. My strain of native blood is pretty lean, but I’ve had more than a couple people pick me out of a crowd. The old guy winked at me.
“They’re good Indians.”
With a water-soaked T-shirt, full gas tank, and stabilized blood sugar, I hit the road. In a few hours I was in Sheridan and met my buddy who had arrived only 15 miraculous minutes earlier from as far east as I had come west. We feasted at a Chinese buffet and I told him we needed to find this certain motel. One of the reasons Monte and I travel so well together is he doesn’t need a lot of convincing. We pulled up next to a rather unimpressive establishment graced with a seemingly inappropriate limousine. Shortly after I stepped inside, Monte could hear me laughing all the way out in the parking lot. The “Good Indians” were East Indians, not Native Americans. The old guy set me up hundreds of miles ago even though he’d never see the punch line.
<end self-indulgent riding story>
My cat goes to sleep with a furry sigh and his claws retract from my skin. Slowly I take my hand back and slip out of bed. I’m thinking: the weather sucks. I’ll write something about a summer ride. Maybe I’ll put it in the Other Stuff section. People might get a smile and a memory of their own summer joy. And it might help them forget about those beautiful leaves we will all soon have to slop out of our gutters.
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