Biker – Kana's Chronicles

Go, Go, Glow

Posted on July 6, 2018 by Kana Smith

Red Bike Red House — Red bike at the Red House (my AA home group)

I joked in a post last year that “you never see a motorcycle parked outside a psychiatrist’s office,” but last week that’s exactly where I parked my bike. So okay—riding a motorcycle doesn’t actually cancel out my need for mental-health meds, but it sure does put a grin on my face. A manager said this week that I’ve been glowing since I started showing up to work with helmet in hand.

We made the decision a few months ago to trade in my BMW1200 for a smaller, lighter bike, so I’m the tickled new owner of a shiny red Yamaha V-Star 650. The Beemer (beauty though it was, and as sweet as my hubby was to buy it for me) was just too much bike for this Rookie Rider. I never got over being scared of the bike, and I never “graduated” to riding by myself. Jon tailed after me like a security blanket every time I took it out, and it felt like a big production every time. I was starting to associate a feeling of dread with pulling on my motorcycle boots, which is never how I’d felt about riding before!

So we posted the BMW on Craigslist this spring, and I was sitting with a friend when a text came in inquiring about it. I apologized for interrupting our conversation to respond, and explained the situation… Whereupon she asked me if I were looking for a bike! She’s a missionary in Thailand, just back in the states to visit her daughters, and her bike has been in storage for a few years. Not running—but hey, I’m married to a mechanic. Long story short, we trailered this bike home from her storage a week later.

I came home from work the next day to find her stripped to her frame, and my kitchen counter strewn with bike-bits. Mr. Mechanic worked his magic, and days later I was testing her out, up and down the rows of our RV park. Days later we had her registered and I took her out on the road. Days later, after Jon had followed me to church and work, I went to work by myself. Days later I was pulling up across town in front of my AA home group. With a shit-eating grin beneath the helmet.

I’m still a rookie, but I’m riding now! To work. To AA. To the dentist. To church. To Starbucks. And yes, to the psychiatrist.

Yesterday we hit triple-digit temperatures, and the parking-lot pavement still radiated heat when I came out of Home Depot at ten p.m. The first breath of cool air I’d felt all day was the wind on my face at fifty miles an hour riding home under the moon. I’m just about ready to bet it wasn’t my lights or my reflective gear that made me visible as I rode. I’m pretty sure it was my GLOW.

bike Emmett

Lists

Drawing up a gratitude list

Posted on November 4, 2017November 5, 2017 by Kana Smith

November is a popular month for gratitude, given the holiday that’s named for the emotion, but my motivation this year is a little different. I’m grateful that October is over! “Isn’t that the same thing as being-in-November?” you ask reasonably. Well, not precisely.

The thing is, almost every major Drama, Trauma, and Tragedy in my life has happened in an October–leaving me with a superstitious fear of a “cursed” month. Add in the fact that those events (ranging from loss of a job to loss of a spouse, from severe complications of childbirth to last year’s vacation in a psych ward) have left me with a lot of unpleasant “anniversaries” in October–and it’s just a rough month.

I literally spent the month praying that I could get to November 1 without anything awful happening–aware that if I did, it would be the first time in about a decade.

It happened! I broke the streak and got all the way through October without an Awful Event of any kind. I’m very nearly giddy over it. And helping with that reaction is the fact that I got my mental-health meds adjusted a couple weeks ago, after realizing I was on a downward slide toward Depression. I’m emerging from the haze of lethargy and indifference and feeling increasingly like ME again. (Witness the fact that I’m back here writing again–a silent blog is a danger sign with me.)

All that said… I’ve been on a sketching-kick, specifically a gratitude list. So although I’m usually one to express myself with words, today I’m offering my “gratitude album.”

I’m grateful for the man who married me. His voice puts a smile on my face, and his laugh lights my world. He has loved me (and prayed me) through some of my worst. It’s a joy and an honor to be “Mrs. Smith.”

I’m grateful for a job that keeps me challenged and interested, and where there’s room for growth.

I love RV-living, and our cozy little home. I’m grateful to live so comfortably!

I’m grateful for Vertical Church, and my church-family.

I’m grateful that I grew a pair of bright, vibrant, good-hearted people. (Readers, too.)

I’m grateful for modern medicine, and my mental-health meds!

I’m grateful for COFFEE!

I’m grateful to live in Idaho.

I’m grateful for my Ma, who has continued to love me no matter what.

I’m grateful for my teddy bear, Toots, who has been a comfort for more than four decades. (Here with Jon, who sewed Toots an Army outfit.)

I’m grateful for Open Adoption, and that the boy-I-grew has such a fabulous family.

I’m grateful for BOOKS!

I’m grateful to have my driver’s license back, and for the car Jon bought me when I got it back. I so appreciate being able to drive myself to appointments and work rather than hiking everywhere.

I’m grateful for open roads and motorcycles.

I’m grateful to be Sober! This is my owl-sticky-note marking my favorite page of the Big Book. “If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through.”

I’m grateful for my health. Crohn’s Disease has been in remission for 16 years, and I’m healthier than I deserve to be, given my alcoholism. God is good.

I’m grateful for my great Sis, who shares many of my memories (and quite a few of my quirks). And a grand welcome this week to her new daughter!

I admit it–I’m grateful for my iPhone.

I’m grateful for challenges–like learning to ride.

I’m grateful for seaside vacations!

I’m grateful for a guy who fixes things… and builds things, and COOKS things!

I’m grateful for FUN!

The back of Jon’s helmet is a reminder for the road-of-life… I’m grateful that God has ALWAYS had my back.

Travel

Eels on the Highway and Other Adventures

Posted on July 13, 2017 by Kana Smith

Yesterday we took the motorcycle in the opposite direction up the Coastal Highway, heading north through Depoe Bay and Lincoln City, enjoying long stretches of beach views and cliffside oceanfront. And we’re glad we did it yesterday instead of today, because a friend just sent us a video posted by the Depoe Bay Fire Department—the aftermath this afternoon of an overturned truck full of eels! (Hagfish, actually—alternatively and accurately known as “slime eels.”) I’m pretty sure slime eels would be a traction-hazard on a motorcycle… Fortunately it’s all cleaned up now, because we’re planning one last jaunt to Depoe Bay tomorrow for another bowl of the world’s best clam chowder at Gracie’s Sea Hag… No hagfish-interference, we hope.

Today’s adventure didn’t involve any eels… And though it also didn’t end up involving the elusive salmon for which we had licenses, this sailboat-skipper was SO happy to be out on the water! I didn’t care at all that the boat had no sails, or that we had no salmon—I was just purely joyful with the motion of the water under us, the waves and the wake and the wind…

We gathered with a half-dozen other fishermen at the dock of Reel Deep Charters at 5:30 this morning, and motored out through barely-lit mist under the bay’s iconic bridge and past the jetties.

And though the salmon didn’t cooperate, the crabs did. We dropped crab pots on the way out, and Jon hauled in our pair on the way back—hundred-pound pots with about 20 dungeness crabs each! We limited at twelve apiece, which is a LOT of fresh crab.

We got our catch cooked and cleaned at the dock (our cast iron Dutch oven doesn’t begin to have the capacity for 24 crabs!) and we spent a couple hours this afternoon at our campsite picnic table, cracking crab claws (and taking “tastes”)… Crab dipped in garlic-butter for lunch, and crab-salad sandwiches for dinner!

We rounded out the day with a shell-collecting walk on the beach, and here I am, blogging again at the campfire. Feeling utterly Blessed to be enjoying the week we’re having.

Travel

Enthusiasms

Posted on July 11, 2017July 11, 2017 by Kana Smith

I love little kids’ enthusiasm for motorcycles, maybe because it so closely mirrors my own. Yesterday we were walking along Newport’s waterfront district, each of us with a helmet in one hand and a mocha from the Surf Shop in the other, when a little guy grabbed his mother’s hand and piped loudly, “Look, Mommy! Motorcycle-guys!” Back at camp a gaggle of youngsters approached our site to ask if they could look at the bike, and the youngest informed us gravely that the reason he has to grow up is so he can get a motorcycle.

Yesterday afternoon we took the bike for a long run down Coastal Highway 101—a wonderfully winding road weaving along the ocean’s edge with spectacular views of waves, cliffs, beaches, bridges… it’s the kind of road for which motorcycles are made!

We stopped at the Sea Lion caves to stretch our legs and use the facilities, but declined to pay the exorbitant price tag to go gape at the animals. We’ve been doing pretty well with wildlife sightings on our own. Not long after we pulled out of that stop, a shadow caught my eye and I looked straight up (another advantage of bikes—the unimpeded view) at the underside of an eagle winging right over us with an auk in its talons!

Earlier in the morning we clambered out on the rocks below the lighthouse cliffs, poking around in the tide pools and admiring the low-tide look at marine life. It’s not the high season for whale migration past this coastline, so imagine our delighted surprise when a pair of gray whales surfaced just off our rocks, spouted, flicked their tails at us, and sank again… and three more times. (And I’m laughing to think that our excitement at spotting whales sounded an awful lot like that waterfront tyke’s excitement at spotting us… I guess “motorcycle guys” are a wildlife category in our own way.)

There’s something so much more satisfying about finding the critters in their actual habitat—I do enjoy the Oregon Coast Aquarium, but the real ocean is exponentially more amazing. And along those lines… Today was DIVE day!

Jon and I each have a lot of diving under our belts, but (thanks in part to my horrendous head-cold during last year’s visit to the coast) we hadn’t yet been diving together. “We’ll see how tough you really are,” he grinned at me this morning, over my pile of thick neoprene wetsuit, gloves, booties, and hood stacked on the dive-shop counter. As everyone seems to feel obliged to point out to us when we mention our dive plans, the water here on the Oregon Coast is cold.

But oh so worth it. Our camp clothesline is festioned tonight with wetsuits and dive gear, and I’ve added a new memory of gliding hand-in-hand with Jon under the green water, fish darting away from us as we swam.

The South Beach fish market beckoned just before the turnout to our campground, luring us in for fresh-caught fish and chips… and now we’re decompressing (literally, if you know diving) by the campfire. That’s a lot of enthusiasms indulged in the space of a couple days. My body is exhausted from surf and current—we’ll sleep well tonight!

Travel

Reframing

Posted on July 8, 2017July 9, 2017 by Kana Smith

The first glimpse of ocean is a spiritual moment, every time.

We made it as far as Bend, Oregon, last night before calling it quits and settling into a motel that was unquestionably clean, but quite questionably decorated… We walked this morning to a small diner for COFFEE (and ok, breakfast) and then hit the mountain roads to the coast and arrived at our Newport campground around lunchtime.

After offloading the motorcycle from its trailer, we got camp set up with semi-military precision (Jon being the “military ” half of that equation, and me being the “semi”)… And then we took out the bike!

Newport’s bridge is iconic to this area like the Golden Gate is to San Francisco, and I’ve always loved driving across it. But oh my gosh! It’s amazing how different the crossing is on a bike!

In a car or truck your view is constricted and framed, but on the bike you have the full 360 view at once—not to mention the unimpeded soundtrack and the full smell of ocean air. The marina of sailboats, the channel out to sea, the gulls, the returning fishing boats, the overarching green bridge structure—its all so much “closer” when you’re on a motorcycle. I tried to take a photo, but realized the photo has the same limitations as a windshield—only a fraction fits in the frame. So I have to leave this one to words.

I love experiencing something familiar in an entirely new way. Reframing an experience by losing the frame.

Work & Job, Writing

Learning Curves

Posted on June 27, 2017June 30, 2017 by Kana Smith

Home Depot bucket Sitting in a “town hall meeting” of Home Depot employees last week, several of us broached the subject of training with our store manager, Jeremy. The Home Depot offers some incredibly structured online training modules (I’m especially grateful for the interactive “Cashier’s College” that helped me weather my first days at the register!) but several of us felt our on-the-ground training had been rather haphazard. Invited to critique our experiences as employees, we gave voice to what we saw as gaps in the training process.

Jeremy is a master at the positive spin, and he proved as much in the town hall meeting. While he acknowledged the concern and validated our experiences, he also spun our critique into a pep-talk of a learning-moment. “Well, it IS a do-it-yourself store,” he said with a laugh, after acknowledging our concerns, and sharing the challenges inherent in employee training—“and sometimes that do-it-yourself culture will apply to learning too.” He talked like a teacher, speaking of Pushed Learning (like the online modules that are “served up” to the learner) contrasted with Pulled Learning (when you seek out the new knowledge for yourself).

Essentially he was inviting us to consider whether we’re content with limiting ourselves to what gets served up on a platter, or whether we want to take charge of our own experience. I came away feeling inspired to demonstrate that I AM invested in my own learning.

An orange-apron learning-journey… saying goodbye to the Garden register

It was a timely pep-talk for me, because I’m embarking on a whole new learning-journey with my move from cashiering to the Service Desk. While I’m excited about the move, I’m all too aware that it’s a steep learning curve. There’s a whole new (complex) computer system and a load of new procedures and services for me to master before I’ll be effective there.

All in all, it’s the perfect time for me to feel inspired.

I applied some of the same attitude to last weekend’s three-day motorcycle class. The classroom segments were definitely “pushed learning,” but the range practice required more. No one is guaranteed a completion card just by taking the course—in fact, several students failed the skills testing—but I can happily report that my completion card will be in the mail this week, and I can officially add the motorcycle endorsement to my license when it arrives.

In order to accomplish that, I had to get past the step-by-step verbal instructions being shouted to us and feel the bike. Stopping. Swerving. Weaving. Cornering. (This is a venue where the “learning curves” are literal curves!) Continue reading “Learning Curves” →

Today's File

On Physics and Fear

Posted on May 24, 2017May 24, 2017 by Kana Smith

Our next door neighbor is learning to play guitar. I know this because his open screen door wasn’t far from our open bedroom window at nine o’clock last night. As he worked his way through the opening chords of “Smoke on the Water” (over and over and over and over and over) I consoled myself with the fact that it couldn’t go on indefinitely, because he IS still learning. Meaning he probably doesn’t have the finger calluses yet, and he’d have to quit after a bit.

I can sympathize, because my “motorcycle muscles” are also feeling the effects of unaccustomed use. Well, let me be more accurate. My learning-the-motorcycle-muscles are feeling it. I recognize that on some level I was still trying to “muscle” the bike into staying upright, even though the bike can do just fine on its own, thank you very much. I may behave at some moments as if I’m holding up the bike with my arms, but of course that’s not what’s happening.

The bike will stay upright pretty much on its own when it’s in motion—basic physics takes care of that. And the faster you’re going, the easier that is. (It’s counter-intuitive, I know—but if you think about balancing a bicycle at next-to-nothing speed, you know how much harder that is than staying balanced when you’re pedaling down the street. Same principle.) Given that I haven’t yet graduated out of first gear on the motorcycle, I’m learning to control the bike at its most difficult speed.

My own “newbie” lack-of-confidence was my worst enemy before yesterday. I’ve been rather too aware that there’s a (literal) tipping-point, and if the bike’s center of gravity crosses it, I don’t have the muscle to hold it up. Yet I also know the rest of the physics involved, and the fact that the bike is designed to stay upright when you ride it! Truly, all I need to do is trust the bike (trust the physics) and not indulge in any herky-jerky reactions to my own fears. And therein lies the challenge. Some moments I’d been letting my fear drive—and Fear is not a skilled driver.

Trust is the antithesis of Fear. By the end of yesterday evening’s session I wasn’t tensing for every corner anymore, and that’s huge improvement. I was not just “managing to turn” the bike—I was turning it more tightly, and pretty precisely on the path I set for myself. More improvement.

Strange as it might seem, I actually think that those improvements happened because one of my fears got realized, early in the riding session. (Bless his heart, Jon would go to the grave without telling this to anyone… But I find it useful to stay REAL here, so I’ll tell on myself.) Continue reading “On Physics and Fear” →