Field
Notes.

Traveling by motorcycle is different from riding in a car. Inside a car, you pass through the world. On a motorcycle, you become part of it.

You feel the road beneath you, the elements around you, and every change in the air. A difference of only a few degrees can make you regret your clothing choices. A foul scent carried on the wind quickly reveals that the dead animal beside the highway was an unfortunate skunk that never completed its crossing. Its acrid final protest fills your nostrils—but only briefly. Soon, it is swept away and replaced by crisp mountain air filtered through towering ponderosa pines.

Across the long straightaways, the motorcycle’s exhaust accompanies you with a steady, low rumble. In the hills and canyons, as you accelerate out of a turn, that rumble becomes a roar echoing from the canyon walls.

Riding can sometimes feel like an assault on the senses. Yet within that intensity is an unmatched freedom—a carefree spirit found only when the machine, the road, and the rider begin moving as one.

Crossing the vast valleys and basins of Nevada’s high desert, an image takes shape in my mind.

A lone motorcyclist travels across a windswept valley, surrounded by distant mountain ranges. The pavement stretches endlessly before him. Behind him lies another range already crossed; ahead, another waiting to be conquered.

With every mile he puts between them, he thinks less about the demons that accompany him.

The sun begins its descent as the motorcycle carries on. The rider’s shadow stretches across the pavement, growing longer as the bright yellow sun deepens into a fiery orange sphere resting low against the horizon.

The demons cast shadows of their own.

Unseen by the rider, they begin to tear themselves free from his lengthening silhouette. The relentless desert wind pulls them loose, one after another. They stream out behind him, nightmarish figures with claws extended, desperately grasping at the leather of his vest.

One by one, their claws lose their hold.

The demons fall away and are left behind in the gathering darkness. Still they give chase, unwilling to surrender what they once possessed.

The rider remains unaware of the pursuit. His thoughts are somewhere else entirely.

He thinks about love. He thinks about the woman he loves—and the quiet miracle that she inexplicably loves him in return.

He thinks about his children. He remembers the lessons he tried to give them and feels pride for the people they have become.

He thinks about friends, both new and old, who know pieces of his story—the good and the bad—and choose to remain faithful companions.

These are the thoughts occupying his mind. Not the demons trailing behind him.

The sun finally disappears beyond the mountains. The rider’s long shadow, his iron horse, and the pursuing darkness briefly become one.

Forgotten for the moment, a solitary demon releases a lonely shriek into the night. Its cry is swallowed by the motorcycle’s exhaust and the roar of the wind.

The rider hears nothing.

He continues toward the distant mountains, carried onward by the road and lost in thoughts of far better memories.