Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Laura Phase 1

I found it very difficult to think of something to write about. An experience rich in sensory information. It really shouldn’t be that hard, we use our senses constantly. They are never turned off. But I have still for some reason had difficulty pin pointing a specific experience.

What I have eventually come up with has many of the senses involved. The experience of riding a motorbike.

Growing up my Dad would go off every so often on a Sunday afternoon with his friends for a bike ride. I never got to go with him coz my Mum said it was too dangerous. I always thought it looked so much fun, I asked every time to go but was never allowed. Until one day in the September of my final year of school. I was given permission to ride with my Dad.

It was a beautiful Spring day, warm and fresh. The bike was uncovered with a swoosh of the silver cover. The bike gleamed in perfection. Breaks polished to a chrome shine, the body white, blue and red buffed clean. My Dad wheeled it out of the dark cold garage where it had been sitting, waiting to be set free like an animal in a cage for month now.

With the specific sound of the Suzuki engine, the high pitched first ticks as it tries to start and then the low thundering sound when it pulled through, the pike started, roaring away.

I pulled on my leather gloves, that were too short in the finger length, and my helmet, that was so old it scratched my face and stung when I put it on. The helmet muffled the noise of the bike a lot, it made it sound like I had cotton wool in my ears and that everything was further away than it actually was. Before we took off my Dad turned to me and yelled to me, I could barely hear it but he said ‘Hold on tight and remember to lean with the bike.’ At that I hopped on the back of the bike and we were away, down the street, twisting and turning and then eventually onto the freeway and the open road.

Although it was a warm day being on the back of the bike was freezing. Going to fast we split through the air, pushing it around us, making it move out of our way and it bit back making me so cold it stang wherever skin was bare.

We eventually got to some road where we were surrounded by bush. The sunlight streaming through the trees was so beautiful. It took my breath away. When the shadows passed over me it was instantly even colder and I clung to my father even tighter trying to keep my precious warmth, we would then burst back into the sunlight and get bathed in warmth for a split second before the feeling of the cold wind returned.

This last stretch of the road was also much more fun because it had more twists and turns. We raced around hair pin corners at top speeds leaning the bike over, I felt only inches from the ground. I felt like I was free, able to do anything.

Eventually we got to our destination, the Yarra Glen water resovoir, where we took in the view and the sun for a while before eventually leaving again for our high speed trip home.

1 Comments:

Blogger Malte Wagenfeld said...

Hi Laura

A really fantastic story - recollection which is clearly ingrained in your memory. It might be worth digging a bit deeper as to why some objects / forms of travel are so much richer than others - how much fun would have tis trip have been had you sat in the back of a Commodore rather than a Suzuki bike?

Also what made this experience so rich? Is it possible to separate the various components or is it only meaningful as a whole?

How about the other s parts of phase 1?

2/5 (incomplete)

Cheers Malte

1:07 pm  

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