JOURNAL

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I grew up in a family of boys.

I have four sons. Two brothers. My dad has three brothers. His dad had six.

And nearly every man in my family rode motorcycles.

My grandfather rode. My dad rode. My uncles rode. My brothers rode. Now my sons ride too.

Some of my earliest memories are from the back of my father’s motorcycle somewhere in the mountains of western Washington. I remember straddling the gas tank, barely hanging on, listening to the engine climb through the gears as we disappeared into the canyons.

Long before I was old enough to ride, I was already obsessed with motorcycles. My parents told me I would sit on my dad’s bike for hours in the garage pretending to shift gears and rev the engine. Our neighbor would occasionally come over and ask my dad, half joking and half irritated, “Can you please make him stop?”

My dad would just smile.

“No,” he’d say. “He’s not hurting anything.”

In first grade, my father started a tradition that shaped the rest of my life. Every summer he would unfold a map of the United States across the kitchen table and tell me to point somewhere.

Anywhere.

I’d put my finger down on a place I’d never heard of, and he would say, “Alright. Let’s go.”

Then we’d climb onto his motorcycle and ride there.

At the time, I didn’t understand how unusual that kind of upbringing was.

I remember my uncle picking me up from kindergarten on his motorcycle one afternoon. As I climbed on the back wearing a helmet that looked too large for my head, I could feel the attention from the adults standing nearby. Some looked concerned. Some looked judgmental.

I remember my uncle laughing as he twisted the throttle and pulled away from the curb, almost defiantly, as if the sound of the engine itself pushed back against the world.

To the people around us, motorcycles looked dangerous or irresponsible.

To us, they meant freedom.

Years later, after a skiing accident left me badly injured, a doctor told me I might never walk again.

A close friend built a wheelchair ramp onto my house so I could get in and out more easily. Sometimes I would wheel myself into the garage, transfer from the chair onto my motorcycle, and just sit there in silence with my hands on the bars.

I would imagine the engine revving.

Imagine shifting gears.

Imagine moving forward again.

It was during those quiet moments in the garage that I realized I wasn’t ready to give up walking.

Not yet.

A few years later, I flew down to visit my parents in Florida during a season of life when I was carrying a different kind of pain. I remember laying on the couch, exhausted and miserable, not wanting to do much of anything.

My dad looked at me and said, “I know what you need.”

He tossed me the keys to his motorcycle.

I stood up, walked barefoot into the garage, started the bike, and disappeared down the road.

Later, he showed me this picture  he had taken as I pulled away. I think for him it felt like watching his little boy ride motorcycles in the backyard again.

And for me, it felt exactly the same.

There is something healing about motorcycles that most people will never fully understand.

And honestly, I’m alright with that.

I think some people assume riding is about escape. They think we’re trying to get away from responsibility, from work, from family, from life itself.

But I’ve never believed that.

I think riding returns us to something.

Something quieter.

Something older.

Something honest.

I think it reminds us who we are underneath all the noise.

And I believe it makes us better when we come home.