TRAVERSE Issue 17 - April 2020 | Page 68

stroke, perhaps even self-injury. These were the worst of times. Instead she’d found me and herself in the ‘bomb’ moment. Our lives would never be the same again. Bonnie had already stepped into the breakthrough but she knew I had to walk through on my own. I’d just take the first step. There we stood, renewed yet facing a giant. Our lives were pointless in the context of the purpose for which we believed we were born. And while every intuitive inkling pointed away from what we knew we had to do, it mattered little. We knew we lived in a world that was even affecting our very intuition. All we knew was motorcycles … the most counterin- tuitive invention ever put on Earth. It steers right to go left. It requires throttle when the line screams brake! It is a ‘dangerous death machine’ by majority account. It is a life-giving companion. Damn! We love motorcycles. So, what did we decide to do? Live completely by counterintuition as it relates to the gears and cogs spinning that make up the way of today's world. Our days of work, buy, sleep repeat were done. We’d decided to leave the Matrix. We knew life would be a lot harder. We knew we’d lose friends, security, and would end up in junky clothing. It didn’t matter. We’d seen too much to go back. Weeping in the dirt, we decided that day that the rest of our days would be spent fully alive or rather, sprinting in that direction. Carrying a message of hope is how we would begin rewriting our story in the hope of inspiring others that no matter the current line, plot or characters, they could change their story too. Hence, Story Moto ADV. And so, here we now stood with the realisation that it takes a special breed to do or desire living in such a way that many would call hellish. Living in dirt, eating dirt, smashing bugs with your face, slicing through cold, heat, rain and 1000 inherent dangers with the knowledge that you possibly might have to fall asleep in the dirt; ex- hausted, bleeding, aching and, smirking with the knowl- edge that you will have to do it all again tomorrow. Think about that for a second. Whether doing it or wanting to do it, you and me, we are a little off kilter. And I guess that’s where we are headed, we know there is a better way for us. The question of possibility was off the table. We’ve seen that all is possible, against all odds, not only in our TRAVERSE 68