Vivid

Psychological? Physiological? Something more? Nothing?

Much to the chagrin of a semi-hangover headache my Harley chugs to an early morning start. As her carbureted 1200 CCs warms up and my head thumps in synchronicity, I put my helmet and gear on.

As with fishing, in my opinion, a bad day riding is better that good day doing many other things.

Backing her out of the driveway two songs by Nickelback seem to be occupying the idle parts of my brain. Never Again and If Today Was Your Last Day. It is not out of the norm for songs to tumble around the idle parts of my brain as I ride.

Accelerating to highway speed on I95 toward Vegas there is something out of synch; something out of the norm. Not bad; not good; just different. Automatic danger and situation analysis kicks in. Tires are OK; bike is manuvering fine; accelleration and braking good; no cage is entering into my space.

Like some unseen hand ringing a bell, my helmet starts vibrating. Vision blurred, the apparent wind wipes my mind of everything save keeping rubber on asphalt. Slowing to about 50 it stops but we are now a traffic hazzard. I accellerate to 65 where the buzzing is acceptable.

Head throbbing, fifteen minutes later I pull into the parking lot at work. Helmet off, there is something different. Colors are popping into my visual cortex. Curves, angles, reflections, refractions seem to be alive. Red cars are RED. Yellow and white parking markers are YELLOW and WHITE. Things are different.

Not a side effect of anything determinable, several weeks later it is still here. Colors are still popping, sounds now seem to have infinite depth. It almost seems as if the universe has become more vivid.

Is this how things really are and my muddled mind had been filtering? Did my senses get jostled and wake from a long sleep? Perhaps there is more depth to everything and we simply ignore it, chosing the more hum-drum, day-in-day-out slogging of life.

Fantastic doesn't even describe it. I need to ride.