Long Island part I ...by... Lilly Dan

Long Island part I

sitting behind him. On the bike. The light change to red, and he breaks into a stand still, I kiss his back, I don't even know if he can feel my kiss through the fabric of his motorcycle jacket, but I kiss him anyway. Just cause his back is there and my lips are there and there's nothing to do but wait for the light to change again so we can go on riding. Slowly, every time we take the bike out, I'm getting more and more used to it, more practiced in it and I enjoy it more. When I just started riding with him, I felt as if I were in the passenger sit in a car, passive, just sitting there, on the way from one place to another. Slowly I'm starting to realize how, though I don't have an active part in making the bike move or navigating the course, my body motion, posture, are effecting the flow of the ride and are effected by it. I learn to shift my ass back when he speeds up so he could lean forward, and to role back, closer to him, when he slows down, for more stability. I learn to straighten my back every once in a while cause I tend to curl it and to hold more with my thighs and not just my arms. I learn to hold my hands around him, it a way that would keep me stable and secure but not hurt my wrists after half an hour if riding as it did in the first few rides I went on.

The BQE is heavy with traffic, even though it's about noon, parts of the roads are under construction, and it's slowing the whole flow of cars down, I've never been on the road in that direction - into queens instead of into brooklyn and as the road expand and the houses and buildings turn to a large cemetery and then a large area of industrial buildings I totally loose myself in the changes of scenery and just hold on to the bike and look at the billboards and highway signs and traffic.

We are heading to Long Island to some bike store, and then we head out to the beach, we stand by the motorcycle putting on our helmets and checking the map for the root we were to take, when some guy, getting out of the bike store looks at us and say "Good to see some people riding british bikes" he tells us about his 78' Northon and how he couldn't get it started the other day and had to bring it to the shop. He asks are were we are heading and give us direction to Jones beach and fire island. I can't even tell where all those places are, never being that far out of New York, but he nods and ask for more directions and there, having some destination in mind, we go on the bike again.

The road is all open, and he rides fast, probably faster then I ever went on the motorcycle before, it feels good, the wind from our ride, the air feels cool but nice. For a moment, I'm sorry I didn't wear a sweatshirt under the bikers leather jacket, but then i realize, I actually enjoy that coldness, the wind all around me, I arch my back and let the wind penetrate through my jacket collar and into my chest and betty till I feel like I'm riding the wind as much as I'm riding the bike, like it's touching all my body and going through me. The road is beautiful, I'm thinking back on a conversation between 2 people I heard a few weeks ago, about going upstate to see the leafs change in fall. And how though I knew it was supposed to be beautiful and I have seen photos of places in autumn and brown red trees, it looks totally different then the way I imagined it.

There are many types of trees along the road, I try to recognize them, to name them in my mind as my brain - too amazed by the beauty of it and trying to rationalize it, to make it comprehensible, already write an imaginary blog entry about it in my head - I realize that I have no idea what are all those trees are called, since I've never seen any of them before. Some of them are evergreens, dark dusky green and thorny, and then, some of the other trees are lighter shades of vivid greens, light grassy greens with small soft leafs, that are in different stages of metamorphosis into there naked winter phase. some of those leafs are light yellow fruity colors, some of them are sweet warm sun yellows, some are brown and crackly, some are beautiful crimsons and dark reds. in between, by the road, there are some low bushes with either leafs or fruits in vivid blazing red. and other bushes with dusky cold yellow leafs and branches that looks almost white, and behind them, willows or birches in gray silver shades and golden leafs. I'm amazed at the variety of colors, of all the different stages of the season change all at once.

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