Harley and Me Read Online Free Page A

Dad is much the same. Very weak. Hardly able to stand, much less walk. I speak to him and tell him I love him. I don’t mention that I’m learning to ride a motorcycle this weekend, that I’ve chosen to do this rash and perilous thing rather than come visit.
    And now my brief moment of triumph has been replaced by shame.
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    I believe on some level I am a legitimate risk taker. But I don’t feel proud of that fact. People generally associate risk taker with irrationality and impulsiveness, terms I don’t think apply to me, someone regarded by family and friends as cautious and reserved. So who are these risk takers? Am I really one of them?
    Risk takers have brains and bodies adapted with an enhanced capacity for dopamine reuptake: Our brains respond more strongly to that chemical than other people’s brains. We seek out risk because we experience a more intense and pleasurable response to dopamine than other people. Risk takers are speculated to carry what’s called the risk gene, or D4DR, the fourth dopamine receptor gene on the eleventh chromosome, a gene mutation that functions primarily in the limbic portion of the brain. Although one study showed this gene is responsible for only 10 percent of human risk-taking behavior, I feel both indicted and explained by it. I know, without really knowing, that I have this gene.
    Risk takes many forms. Surgeons, for example, report the same kind of adrenaline surge during an operation that skydivers and other extreme athletes experience. Musicians, too, are familiar with the flood of euphoric chemicals while performing though no one’s life is on the line. Even day-to-day choices like quitting an unrewarding job can rejuvenate a life and instill a sense of excitement. These choices are metabolized in the body with the same rush as jumping out of a plane. Scientists on the cutting edge of discovery regularly risk professional ridicule and humiliation in pursuit of complex research problems. They understand the “exposure” of announcing a breakthrough finding today that may be rejected and possibly mocked tomorrow. Charles Darwin waited twenty years after he developed his theory of natural selection before he finally published The Origin of Species . He understood the controversial nature of his findings. The gamble of going public with the suggestion that humans descended from apes was enormous. In fact, in some settings, it still is today.
    Undoubtedly the risk Darwin felt was greater than my experience coming out as a biker chick in suburban Los Angeles at ageforty-eight. Still, my feeling of vulnerability and exposure may not be any less intimidating.
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    A month after I pass the motorcycle safety class, I receive my M1 endorsement from the DMV on my driver’s license. A month after that, death arrives. After sitting by my father’s bedside for a week, going home at night to grab a few hours’ sleep, praying for his peaceful passing, feeling awe and frustration at how the body hangs on by its cracked and bloodied fingernails long after the spirit has begged for rest, I get the call at 5:00 AM .
    I drive, numb, to his home in Thousand Oaks. I bathe his lifeless body with the help of the hospice nurse, startled at how small and shrunken he has become, this man who in life both adored and terrified me, reduced now to a cooling, fleshy bag of bones. When the mortuary men put him on the gurney, I ask them to wait a few minutes while I touch his face, hold his hand, whisper my good-bye.
    The next day, I walk into the Harley dealership and buy myself a two-year-old all-black Sportster Iron 883 motorcycle. An example of grief made manifest? Absolutely. It is also a fullhearted embrace of life.

•      CHAPTER TWO      •
    IZZY, MY LOVE

    One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again