by Stuart Kirk
When Spring arrived in mid-March, the pandemic of coronavirus was gripping the United States at the speed of a MotoGP racer. Cities, counties and then entire states restricted movement. Each week increased sickness, and fear spread across the globe. Social distancing, which normally suggested an unfriendly person, morphed overnight into a public health mandate, changing the behavior of a usually boisterous populace. Businesses closed and heartbreaking layoffs of millions of employees ensued within a week. The national economy went into seizure. Schools closed. Retirement investments tanked. Only health care facilities with their heroic medical staffs remained open to confront the pandemic, and unfathomably often without having suitable personal protective equipment.
Our lives changed in March, unlike any other month in our lifetimes. As I finish this article in mid-April, the infection and death rates continue to soar. The US alone now has nearly a million people who are known to be infected and over 54,000 deaths, more than any other country, with no end in sight. Airlines are grounded; much public transportation has halted; the photos of normally congested urban streets and highways are eerily empty.
To use prison lingo, we are all on lock down, confined alone or with our partner and children to our apartment or house. We venture outside only for food or medicine wearing makeshift masks and Harbor Freight rubber gloves. Long neglected to-do lists of house and yard tasks now provide a respite from boredom and offer a feeble sense of accomplishment. Claustrophobia is becoming our shared ailment.
We worry about our extended families, particularly those of us with parents, children, or grandchildren living far away. I have siblings, children and grandchildren a thousand miles away. Many of my local friends are also distant from family. Even long-distance driving, which would necessitate staying in motels and eating in restaurants (if they were still open) is a risky adventure. The restrictions on travel have physically separated families in a time of crisis. An emotional doom has settled everywhere. Normalcy has vanished.
Yet, in this foreboding moment, we motorcyclists possess a salve for our souls. What many non-riders have viewed as a dangerous pastime, appears to us, or at least to me, as a break from confinement that offers an emotional respite, a small bid for freedom, which now may be less risky than going to a crowded supermarket. Although, I can certainly appreciate that many riders choose not to ride, fearing a mishap that might send them to an already overburdened health care system.
Completely encased in protective gear, conforming to edicts for social distancing, immersed in isolation, I enter my garage, get on my motorcycle, and rumble down the driveway, immediately engulfed by an altered state of mind that focuses only on the road ahead and an escape to an unpopulated, undetermined destination. The despair of the pandemic recedes in my rear view mirror. The roads in northern New Mexico, usually sparsely traveled, are now deserted, offering solace to the rider and refuge from the unprecedented crisis. Riding is not a solution to the pandemic, but it is medicine for my soul. Some of my riding buddies feel the same way.
The familiar small villages we pass though are now ghost towns. A few days ago, I rode with my friend Miguel through the long-defunct mining town of Madrid, which over the decades has morphed into a crowded, artist community with shops, cafes and coffee houses, bars and ice cream vendors. This week, as we rode south on Highway 14 through Madrid there wasn’t a single business open, no cars were parked in front of any shop, no people were walking the streets, and not a cup of coffee was available anywhere. It was unfathomable only a month ago; now it’s a desolate scene from a sci-fi movie. I suspect this vacancy is becoming common throughout the country, or will be soon.
The man-made landscape is shuttered and abandoned. My rides can’t avoid the despair, but they also nurture my appreciation of the beauty of the countryside: the stately evergreen forests, the dry arroyos with their century-old juniper and pinon pine trees, craggy colorful canyons, and majestic rock mesas which have stood silently for millennia watching civilizations come and go. As I sit astride my RT, alone on a meandering road amidst nature’s majesty, I’m still able to rescue a sense of being in control of my fate, of being safe-if just for an hour or so-from the scary calamity descending on us. For me, and perhaps for many of you, there is a hint of salvation in a contemplative ride in serene surroundings, offering sanctuary in a troubled world.
This is how I will endure, by riding through the pandemic.
Stuart A Kirk, confined in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is the author of Revved!: Obsessions of a Midlife Motorcyclist (available on Amazon) and other essays about motorcycling. A retired professor, he has many academic books and articles that you undoubtedly won’t want to read.