November reflections

Sunday morning. The first of November. It’s 5.54 am and outside the window it’s still pitch black. The thermometer reads 1.2°C. Leaves are scattered across the tarmac, and that familiar urge to go for a motorcycle ride has faded a little.

Not disappeared. Just settled down somewhere, waiting for better days.

I’m sitting here with my morning coffee and catch myself smiling. My thoughts have already set off on a ride. Back to one of those summer mornings when I set off at roughly the same time, only then the thermometer read seventeen degrees and the world looked completely different.

I had no idea where I was going.

And perhaps that was the best part of all.

All I knew was that it was going to be a beautiful day. The roads were there, waiting. Coffee would surely taste wonderful somewhere along the way, perhaps beside a lake I’d never seen before. Someone would probably stop for a chat. And somewhere along the way, I’d most likely turn down a road that hadn’t featured in any plan at all.

And that’s exactly how the day turned out. One of those days that doesn’t need to be extraordinary to become unforgettable.

Now I’m sitting here in the November darkness, looking back. Remembering the bends, the scents, the people and all those little moments whose true value you don’t quite appreciate until afterwards.

It’s strange, really. How a day that began without any particular plan can stay with you for so long.

And perhaps that’s precisely why we need November.

To give us time to remember. To let us feel a little longing. To allow all those miles to sink in and become something more than just numbers on an odometer.

Of course, there’s a certain sadness in putting the motorcycle away. Knowing it will be some time before you once again feel that first breath of morning air inside your helmet. But at the same time, there’s something rather lovely about the anticipation.

Because deep down, I know another morning will come.

A morning when the tarmac is bare again, the air a little warmer and coffee is enjoyed with that same sense of anticipation as before. A morning when you look out of the window and feel that today, today is the day I’m going for a ride.

And suddenly, it’s all there again.

There are roads I’ve never ridden. Bends I’ve yet to take. People I’ve yet to meet. And somewhere up ahead, experiences are waiting that I don’t even know I’m longing for yet.

We don’t always need to know where the road leads. Sometimes it’s enough simply to feel that we’re heading in the right direction.

I take another sip of coffee and look out into the darkness once more.

It’s still 1.2°C. The leaves are still lying on the tarmac, and the motorcycle can carry on sleeping for a while longer.

But that’s all right.

Because even though I don’t know when the next ride will begin, I know it will come.

And I suppose that’s why I still turn the key.