Asphalt Ocean

by Melissa
(Vancouver, BC Canada)

Alone on the Asphalt Ocean

Alone on the Asphalt Ocean

I love to be all alone on the highway, not a single soul in sight, just me and the roar of the bike and my thoughts. I do my best thinking out there all alone on the asphalt ocean, just a tiny dot on the horizon as I drift my way to my better tomorrows and try to outrun the ghosts of yesterdays once again. As much as we all would like to think we live a life of no regrets, there are always things that you would change if you could go back in time. There are always things we would like to think we will never do again. There are things that we would like to try differently. There is nowhere better than out on the road, all alone, to think these things through.

If you can’t stand to be all alone, even for short stretches, then you are probably not fit company for anyone else either. You should try it yourself sometime and see how you like it. The sound of nothing but your memories, your dreams and your thoughts set to the backbeat rhythm of your engine and nothing more. If you can’t the answer to what is troubling you in the clicking of the passing miles, then the answer is not really there, is it?

I have hopped on my bike when I was angry, when I was sad and when I was overwhelmingly happy. What I have found once I got started was an inner peace, a return to calm that made everything make sense again. Should I break up with the guy everyone else thinks is so perfect for me? A few hours on the bike told me my answer. If I broke up with him, why does the hurt still feel so raw? Again, the bike and the road beckoned and the answer was crystal clear. Someone wants to publish my words? Hello, road, I have good news…

It is not that I feel so completely in control when I am on my bike, just that I feel so much less out of control. I do not deign to think that I am communing with a higher power, although it might be in the still, quiet of the deserted highway that I can actually listen if I was. Maybe that is the way that I channel the spirit, the way that many people channel the spirit of whatever pushes them - in the quiet moments of their lives, not in the forced conversations but in the impromptu sessions when they are at their most vulnerable and when they are most apt to listen.