On the road

This week and next week I’m on the road. Literally. I’m in a moving vehicle rolling down I-10 toward Willcox, Arizona. We’re on our third day in the van, after long days of travel, an hour or two outside our destination for a week of pre-season test and tune.

When I’m not on “Yes, Chef!” duties with Chris and the race program prep, I’ll be blowing out the cobwebs on my own motorcycle life after a long winter with a few days on track myself and I am so excited to put the winter’s work into practice.

My husband owns a motorcycle engine / performance motorcycle build shop, and I handle sponsorship, marketing and IT. I’m also increasingly enjoying being “hands” in the shop — when he needs four instead of two, I can take direction and ask questions and I’m learning a lot. Findings: I’m useless at lifting heavy things without hurting myself. But I’m really enjoying the tangible nature of it all — that when Chris talks about how things work or work together I can imagine the pictures of the inner workings I can’t see. My mental pictures are wrong — I have a solid grasp on the anatomy of a Suzuki SV650 motor at this point, but the anatomy I imagine when Chris describes the innards of a brake master cylinder are purely imaginary. I don’t have to take it apart to imagine how it works. It’s brain exercise I don’t remember having done before and I like it.

We splurged on a warm bed and a hot shower for the night last night and Gibson had her evening and morning walks in the desert.

She’s quite excited by the existence of lizards.

She settles in wherever we are given a little time — day one in the van every rattle and bump triggered her littlebig fear systems. Two days later we’re rolling down a bumpy road and she’s soundly asleep in her bed with the banging and clanging of metal all around her. Where we go calmly, she adapts.

But she’s puzzled by our walks in a place with no grass. She doesn’t know where she’s supposed to poop, without it.

She’s adapting — when nature calls, nature calls — but she’s visibly uncomfortable.

this little wild animal, tender footed in the desert.

And watching her struggle and adapt gave me feelings of empathy, and compassion. What a life she lives with us — so many challenges and new experiences for a little rescue dog who’s afraid of everything in the world except motorcycles (we were meant to be together, I think).

And those feelings of empathy and compassion extended to myself.

Change is hard. And moving through new environments: we can’t be expected to be experts at things that we’re doing for the first time, no matter what our perfectionist tendencies or inner critics say.

I’m navigating some change myself right now, and there is a lot of long, slow exhaling happening over here to calm my nervous system. I’m trying to give myself grace both for the feelings I’m feeling, and the steps I’m taking, knowing that there is going to be a whole lot of perfectly imperfect being human in all of this.

And a lot of asking for help. I’m asking friends, I’m asking Chris, I’m asking service providers for help — I’m getting really honest with myself about needing help, and about not being able to do it all alone. That’s been a fiction of my life — that I have to do it / that I have to do it alone — and I know it’s not true. I watch in the big and small ways that we’re all doing this dance together so we may as well get used to getting close and being uncomfortable and

letting go of the illusion of control that flying solo brings.

So that’s it for this (late) issue (I lost track of days)(and I plan to do it again next week too).