My Sundays are hysterically choreographed when I ride with the Sons of Kauai, which is most every Sunday, barring a hurricane or tsunami. We are not talking about the threat of serious weather either, we’d have to be in the midst 100 mph winds to not roll out Flaming Lips for the ritual ride.
Six days each week, I get up, with my daily routines of a Zen sit, yoga practice, followed by a run, but they are suspended on this special day of the week. It’s like giving myself a gold star for being so compulsive. I kind of hang out extra long, because my body clock wouldn’t ever think of delaying its sudden eye opening, never granting sleep any longer than five hours. I linger on the computer a little extra and listen to more music than usual, with nothing but time.
I have been back from Tuscany for nearly two weeks, still figuring out what to do with the experience, wanting to find a place for it. I knew that restarting my writing life back on Kauai was going to take some time. Honestly, I get nervous about feeling self-indulgent, the hint of it will slow me down. God help me, I even used Instagram on this trip because I wanted to get people’s attention and have them go to my page. Aside from having no idea what to write about after that, I needed to take a brief, wordless hibernation from the attention I inflicted on myself.
This Sunday, I became conscious of time around 8AM and starting getting serious about things like my smoothie and swallowing a series of capsules, loaded with herbal dynamite, guaranteed to deliver immortality. Wardrobe selection always anchors the morning regimen. I selected a pair of jeans for half the uniform, t shirt being the other and then I smelled it. The anointed denims were exhaling the scent of lavender. I instantly felt weightless, shutting my eyes, as my senses flew away to Tuscany, leaving my mind behind to account for it all.
Part of my stay in Tuscany was at an extraordinary hotel, called Castello di Casole, which you can Google if you like. The place meticulously caters to a high-end clientele and amenities are abundant. I try and come back from any trip with as little laundry as possible. I handed a plastic bag with my laundry to the room service person and went about my business. I took one of my road trips on that day with my Renault and when I returned, I stopped at the desk to make sure the laundry would find me before I left the next morning.
I opened the door to my room and immediately noticed an open, very stylish, whicker case, sitting on the edge of the bed. Next to it was a neatly stacked pile of wooden hangers, holding jeans and some shirts, each one sitting perfectly in a plastic sheath. As i approached these treasures, I smelled lavender and instantly nosed my way to a little satchel, carefully propped up in a corner of the whicker case, along with my individually packaged t shirts.
So much of what I experienced in Tuscany was magical to me. I don’t want to let it go, allowing it become a blurred memory, so I have to fold it into my life going forward. When the lavender jean epiphany took place, I realized that when I get on my bike and ride into today, all the memories of my time away will keep me company and the bike will help me understand.
This Sunday morning was beautiful and we decided to ride north to Hanalei. Lavender is a lingering aroma, attaching itself to you and it was close by on the way up. Krishna Das was chanting Hare Krishna endlessly on my bike stereo, but I was smiling, feeling serenaded by a blessing. Roxy Music slipped in with Avalon and music was my magic carpet ride for the rest of the day.
I wanted to make a connection between the experience of riding and the significance of Larry’s Adventura d’Italia. There is a purity of the moment when you ride a motorcycle on a masterpiece of a Sunday morning on Kauai. Cruising north, looking at Sleeping Giant, as you dip down into Anahola, is when it hit me. My lavender memories and the motorcycle are cousins in my family of feelings.
My time in Tuscany was a neckless of priceless moments, each one capturing my full attention. Morning and night, I looked out on the perfectly rounded, green hills, one folding into the next. Off in the distance, always on the highest hill, there are villages, like glowing, ancient jewels, sitting perfectly still. Even the occasional gas station or clusters of industry, couldn’t shake the feeling that I was visiting a time long before me. The people I met were doing the Italian Aloha, seasoned with an animated disposition and a kind of graceful way of navigating the dance floor of this timeless place. The scenes and circumstances changed daily, but I always knew where I was, conscious of feeling incredibly privileged to be experiencing such a banquet of feelings.
There are moments on a motorcycle that feel perfect and I swear there are no words and riding this Sunday heading to Pinetrees was one of them. The lavender memory of Tuscany was with me on this ride and I felt it become part of who I am, wordlessly folding into me like its hills.
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