The first time I fell in love with the idea of motorcycles was a few years ago when I rented a movie called One Week. It was a low budget indie film set in Canada. A younger middle aged guy is diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. His bleak prognosis spurs the spontaneous purchase of a 1973 Norton Commando and a western road trip.
I just recently rewatched the movie, and it is very reminiscent of a long format youtube video of someone’s soul searching adventure, complete with fantastical phrases and knowing narration. It’s an enjoyable film, but you can receive better visuals and wondrous inspiration from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
There is something special about the magic of western Canada and the freedom of open road, and motorcycles rounded that romanticism completely.
It wasn’t until I started dating a mechanic passionate about cars and bikes that the tucked away dream of cross country bike trips resurfaced as a possibility instead of a watery dream. Terry, our ’93 Nissan pickup taught me the joy of driving a manual transmission, and Eric bought me gloves to go along with my pricey, highly rated, helmet.
I dropped the bike on my first practice ride, breaking off the gear shift and landing in a heap of guilt, embarrassment and shame. I was ready to swear off riding until I could afford to buy my own bike, but Eric wouldn’t have any of my self loathing. After a twenty dollar fix on his own bike, he came back from Wenatchee with a 96′ Honda Shadow, an aqua colored cruiser low to the ground and perfect for a beginner.
Since then I have driven infinite circles in our yard, hit third gear on the gravel roads by our house, and narrowed down which kidney I’ll sell to buy my jacket. It’s taken a few times, but I feel pretty confident with an engine between my thighs and the prospect of winding roads ahead of me.
Washington state “requires” a 16 hour licensing class to get your endorsement. Technically, it isn’t a requirement, but it may as well be with the difficulty it takes to get a permit. After this weekend, I will have that special letter M and the freedom of a full gas tank in a Pacific Northwest fall.
That delightful recipe is only the beginning of new exploration, the broad range of opportunities sprawled on an empty page.
I imagine a young woman, crisp leather jacket clinging to her uncertain shoulders. Early mornings are on the verge of too cold, and the nagging reminder of daily life is a constant pull home. She escapes anyway, fumbling with the shifter and irritating the engine with rough transitions of the clutch, but it’s hard to care when the miles roll by. Winding roads through quaint towns and cliff side sea breezes tug in the opposite direction.
She’s riding without absolutes, no promise of perfection or nagging reminder of circumstance. Time is nothing more than the rise and fall of the sun, and sometimes, when she passes strangers in those quaint little towns, there is a moment where her hair whips around her helmet.
It’s the in between timing, where she hasn’t screwed up the clutch, and her hips find comfort in the seat. The engine revs smoothly, and her shoulders relax. A passerby mouths a comment, appraising the shade of a woman.
“What a babe,” They muse, “Biker babe’s are so damn cool.”
It was just recently brought to my attention that people read my blog. (Thank you so much. I appreciate you immensely!) Why this came as a surprise to me, I don’t know as the intent of this public space is to share my writing and create community, but when my gym partner (Hi Erin!) made a comment during our lifting session, I was hit with this strange moment of two world’s collide.
An online presence is easy to curate. I am choosing which parts of myself to share. The real world is a slightly less curated sense of self, and when one meets the other, it can be a little unnerving and a lot weird. The birth of this article is a (tough) love letter to my friends and family, and all the friends and family of any writer out there because if you have a relationship with a writer, there are five things you need to know.
1. You will see yourself in our writing, at least once.
Get over it now because writer’s take inspiration from everything in their lives, including the people that go along with it. You might not realize that the heroine/villain of your friend’s upcoming novel is a dramatized version of you. The new blog post alluding to a nameless friend with an unfortunate circumstance might be you, but don’t stress.
2. We will never tell you if we wrote about you. (So don’t ask.)
If you value our friendship at all, you’ll respect this cardinal rule of writer relationships. Taking inspiration from your best or worst qualities is only part of our creative process, and I promise we will never try to encapsulate your complete persona in a character. It would be impossible to capture the complexities of the people we love most, but your expansive personality is perfect inspiration. It is one of the reasons we love you.
3. Sometimes writing is more important than you.
Just like any passion project or financially stable career, the job must come first sometimes. This is no exception to the writer. It might be even more prominent in the lives of creatives as we literally must create for the sake of our sanities. If I’m in the throes of word flow, I might not leave my house. If we cancel on you, please don’t take it personally. The runner’s high won’t last forever, and we have to take advantage when the moment strikes.
4. If there is down time, we will probably be writing.
We are hanging out at your place for a movie? There will be a laptop/notebook spread open before us while the tip tap scratch of pen to page creates an unwarranted background track to the film. It doesn’t mean we aren’t completely invested in the time we get to spend together. It just means that the words are near, and we must get them out while we can.
Family dinner? Our heads will be bent over a laptop until dinner is served, and mom wordlessly promises to chuck the damned electronics out of the house if you don’t bring your sorry butt back to earth and engage with the family.
5. We want you to read our writing, but we love and value your opinion, so be kind to our sensitive little souls when you offer criticism.
You are our support network when we feel like we are wasting our time and energies on work that will never be realized, will never amount to anything more than a blog post on the internet, viewed five times by our aunt who believes in us wholeheartedly.
We need your inspiring life choices, your tough love advice and your emphatic reminders that we shouldn’t stop pursuing this all consuming need to reach people through the art of word.
Don’t let a silly thing like story inspiration keep you from being the wonderful people we need in our lives, but don’t be surprised if we text you in the middle of the night asking permission to publish a nameless version of that fart that was a shart story. That one was just too good to pass up.
Harsh sunlight speared over the mountain, washing the campsite in aggressive lines. The campfire had been burning my exposed shins for nearly half an hour, and my stomach gurgles had grown worrisome. Canned beef chili with wild rice was probably a bad call, but I managed to dig a proper cat hole in time.
Yawning, I squint out towards the Alpine lake, catching the glimpse of orange nestled between the trees. During the night, my hammock rocked in the wind. If I closed my eyes, I could have been on a rocky boat at sea. Sleep evaded those first few hours into the night, the howling wind another harsh attribute.
Woodsy camp fire is crackling as I sip my second cup of bitter instant coffee, and I reminisce over the incredible weightlessness of my poop the night before. It makes me think of all the subpar things that befriend the backpacking process.
A smile tugs at my lips as my thoughts bounce between these wonderful things. The morning light cuts through the night chill, and instant coffee tastes better than the finest espresso. Smoke clings to my hair, and the smell of fire lingers long after I’ve extinguished her flames. I swayed with the wind as she sang me to sleep, the moon guiding my slip into dreams, and I have never been more satisfied by empty bowels.
Perspective is the true god of happiness, and the simplest of things become the greatest joys when you’re life is condensed to an overnight pack and a gorgeous view.
The PCT is a wildly popular thru hike in the United States that spans 2,650 miles from the Mexico border to the Canada border. The following story shows father and daughter as they gain a very brief introduction to part of the PCT found in Washington near Snoqualmie Pass.
It was early when I scrambled out of the house, a mental checklist running through my caffeine deprived brain. I made my way to the nearest Starbucks, narrowly focused on a 24 ounce coffee, black no sugar, and only mildly concerned with picking up my dad. Once sufficient breakfast provisioning had been purchased, we hit the road, google maps prompting the three and a half hour ride ahead.
Dad and I fell into a heavy pattern of conversation, thoughts on life, success and purpose eating away at the miles. The sky, once bright and sunny, darkened on our approach, the mountains disappearing into thick clouds, but we were undeterred. The Kendall Katwalk trail was calling to us, and we were not going to disappoint.
There’s this feeling that is really hard to put into words. It happens a few miles into a trail, when the land swallows you and the skies open to a simpler perspective. I don’t know what it is exactly. I just know that I love it.
I have this distinct memory of being seventeen. It doesn’t have a vivid setting or a catalogued scent, but the restlessness is something I’ll always carry with me. Feeling is a cataclysmic event when you’re seventeen, and my desire to experience the world paralleled an obsession.
I had already been introduced to the woods while snuggled in my mother’s womb. My childhood was filled with camping trips and traipsing through the trees, but when you’re playground is the conservative hills of southern Georgia, the introduction to mother nature feels less like a solid handshake and more like a tentative wave.
We were four hours from the Smokey’s and almost five from the Appalachians, but that didn’t stop my dad from hauling me and my sister through the trails. Tearful complaints from an exhausted three and seven year old merged into a euphoric gratitude. Just like a father never intends to introduce their daughter to the interesting boy next door, I don’t think my father intended for me to become so enraptured by the possibility of a tall peak.
Grandfather Mountain remains my most treasured trail in the southeast. By the time I was thirteen that 5,945 ft peak was a view unlike any I had ever experienced. The wind threatens to whisk you over the side, but the blanket of green is so plush and inviting, you romanticize the fall.
If I look back on it now, the peak of Grandfather Mountain is only part of the allure. The reward is made sweeter by the numerous cables and ladders needed to reach the summit. Stories of how my father slipped while hiking in winter add a little spice. The rush of adrenaline I experience every time I cross the section where cable snagged his ankle, suspending him in open air until his buddy could free him, only fuels that hitch of excitement.
Family trips to Maine and Washington opened my eyes to further possibility. It was the first time I saw real mountains, peaks that disappeared into the clouds and required special equipment to summit. I was a conduit to this current of exploration. I needed to see and do everything.
When I brought this deep seated love affair to my parent’s attention, I was rewarded with the sobering reminder that I was a young small female. I had little money and no means to reach these grand destinations in Nepal, Peru and Senegal. There was value in the religion of nature, but it was reserved for Sunday worship and the occasional holiday service.
My love affair was buried with placated tones and empty promises, but on my twenty-first birthday, she was resurrected, like the dusty box of momentos my mom kept in the attic. This all consuming idea of time lost had wrapped me so tightly. I was sure my life wouldn’t be very long. I needed to experience everything before it was too late.
I had never imagined that I would be sitting on a jumpseat, my new dress tied expertly, my makeup flawless and my hair neatly pulled away from my pleasant expression, France the final destination. Paris was a magical place like no other, and the flight was a whirlwind introduction to a lifestyle I had never experienced.
My aching feet and dizzying jet lag were forgotten nuances as I peered out of my hotel room, the Eiffel Tower beckoning me with the same giddiness I had felt in the mountains. My very first trip as a flight attendant was the best trip I ever had. I’m still unsure if it was the romanticized idea of a bike tour in Paris or the potential life laid out before me, but I was never able to replicate the magic of that layover.
When you read of poignant turns in a person’s life, they’re often swathed in this air of heightened drama, but reality has a slower ease of poisonous tendencies. There is an unawareness, like in a slow decompression. There might be signs that you’re losing oxygen, but you don’t realize the danger until the masks drop from the ceiling and the plane rapidly descends.
It started with a lousy passenger. It could have been several men from any number of flights as it happened often, a nonchalant rub, a derogatory tone or a lilting jibe. The flirtations from pilots old enough to be my grandfather were innocent compared to the daily condescension of serving certain passengers.
I cannot pinpoint the moment it happened. It’s like falling asleep, and we rarely remember the moment we slip into dreams. Time is a disjointed thing when your life revolves around a plane schedule. I became a commuter when I moved from the southeast to the pacific northwest. Finally close enough to real mountains and making money to fund my lofty adventures, I felt a renewed sense of excitement, but when the mountains called, I rarely got the chance to answer.
When you are raised alongside the gurgle of a creek bed, the rush of wind through the trees as you bound up a mountainside, those cravings are always in the back of your mind, like an addict consumed with their next hit. They heal the broken bits and soothe life’s unanswered questions, a salve I’ve only ever found in the woods.
I wanted to kill myself when I was fourteen. Like most teenagers, I struggled with self hatred and the misconception of what it means to be alive. Consistent physical exertion helped me out of it the first time, the depression that runs like a life blood from the women on my dad’s side of the family.
December was different. It had been months since I numbed myself to the dehumanizing experience of flight attendant work. While consumers envision romantic ideals of luxurious layovers and free flights around the globe, the reality is incredibly lonely. Exhaustion eventually becomes your constant state of being. Detachment follows as a necessary tool for survival, responsibility for the happiness of hundreds an impossible job description.
I was based in Salt Lake City, but I only saw the mountains in passing. A glimpse of snow capped peaks from the wide windows of the airport, or as the dying light illuminated their grandeur before I hung curtains through my car windows, slipping into my sleeping bag for a restless night, only to wake the next day and slide into the airport, giving more of myself to people who would never be satisfied.
I didn’t recognize myself anymore, this shell of a creature who changed masks as the passenger and coworker demanded, this frumpy person who spent all her time flying to base, shuttling passengers and trying desperately to staunch the split stitches of a years old wound. There was solace behind closed doors and self sabotage, pretending everything was fine when I had to wipe the crumbs from my chest and switch to the girlfriend, sister, daughter facade.
Suicide has been my family’s companion to depression. My grandmother had multiple attempts, and my great grandmother succeeded. My sister attempted, and it had been my silent lover for longer than I cared to admit. I was drowning in a forced existence, and I was so tired of trying. The clock became a constant companion, waiting for the days to end, sleeping and hoping I wouldn’t have to wake.
The blur of faces and hateful expressions were louder than the occasional kindness, and longing for better had been snuffed out by a hushed desire. No one noticed that I was bleeding from an internal wound. Passengers remained obliviously locked in their own worlds, and my off days were so few, friends and family never looked long enough to see.
Several sprinkled encounters on the trail sparked a remembered joy. The local trails only a thirty minute drive from Salt Lake City airport lifted my chin as I cried sitting by a creekside. They held my hand when I shuffled my feet ever closer to the sheer drop below, a whispered reminder that they would be waiting for me, no matter how I chose.
A lot of flight attendants live out of base, renting rooms or beds from places called crash pads. Salt Lake City winters are powdered white, but the nights dip into the cold single degrees Fahrenheit. I couldn’t afford a crash pad or continual hotel stay, so I slept in my car. A no nonsense senior momma with a southern drawl found out, and in the span of two minutes, I had the spare key to her condo and open door welcome whenever I needed.
I was sitting in her condo on New Year’s Eve, on call over the holiday, restricted by the potential pull to the airport and the dangerous roads outside. Sitting on the floor in the darkened space, I couldn’t remember the promises of the mountains. The downturn of my spiraling thoughts left no room for the electric fire that ignited from a gorgeous peak.
I wrote a suicide note, silent tears tracking down my cheeks, unable to feel anything but a bone deep exhaustion. I was so tired of living a lonely existence, tired of slipping on a mask for passengers that groped and belittled me. I called the support service offered by my employer, a panic attack rising in my chest as the phone rang. She stayed on the phone with me until I could breathe again, and I cried myself to sleep.
My flight attendant friend flew into Salt Lake City two days later. She arranged an entire weekend for us, complete with coffee dates and sunrise hikes. It was the first time I told someone how deep I was buried. With hot coffee in hand, tendrils of steam rising into the frigid morning air, we climbed, our feet crunching against the frozen ground.
We sat with our shoulders touching, our noses numb and our tongues burning. Pastel colors of pink, yellow and orange swirled across a foggy grey sky, and the scent of snow cooled the air. Sitting on that peak, I realized that I didn’t really want to die, but I couldn’t continue existing the way I was.
There is merit to a biological obligation to live, but there is a deeper yearning that some crave. Planted like a seed in the early days of exploring wooded backyards and mountainous trails. It is a desire to feel the broad scope of everything the journey has to offer. It’s Grandfather Mountain’s rickety ladders and tedious cables, the rush of adrenaline as you glimpse the ground below. It’s realizing that the ultimate destination is death, and the point is to enjoy the view while we can.
I flew for three years, and the romanticized ideals of a jet setting life filled with luxurious destinations is a far cry from the reality of an exhausting and thankless lifestyle. With one foot fighting for home stability and the other struggling to embrace the perks of the job, there was never enough time to experience any part fully.
The flight attendant lifestyle taught me so many things, moments that still pop up now, six months after I quit.
People are fallible. Every human being out there is just trying to do their best, and sometimes they fail. A little compassion goes a long way.
Daily habits are important. If you are unable to craft the daily lifestyle habits that make you a happy healthy person, you will suffer, and everyone around you will suffer for it as well.
Compassion fatigue is real. In the customer service industry, and the flight attendant sub genre in particular, there is an expectation to give and give because the customer is the top priority. If you are never taking a moment to breathe and refill your own reserves, you will break. Remember, you are only human too.
Life is too short for indifference. The overwhelming lack of emotion is the most debilitating thing about depression, but the truth was that I didn’t really want to die. I just didn’t want to exist in a world of slow moving obligatory grey, and you don’t have to.
Life is hard. It always will be, but the joy is in figuring it out. Carve out an intentional space of fulfillment that defines what it means to be healthy for you. Wellness is not a one size fits all protocol, and half the fun is finding your version of it. I’m on the other side of a really bad time, and I can easily say that the experience is worth it. Life is a joy, a wild ride of ups and downs but I’m feeling all of it fully, even if I’m no longer in the sky.
National Suicide Prevention Hotline (24hr Availability) Call 1-800-273-8255
My partner, Eric, and I took a road trip to the Olympic peninsula for my birthday. We kept it pretty simple, booked an airbnb, brought a daypack and hiking boots. We planned to keep it low key, walk on the beach and do a day hike at the Hoh National forest. After a quick bathroom break, we got on the trail and like any good couple does, we started in on various controversial topics: politics, sex, life purpose and what it means to be human.
The Hoh Rainforest is an immersion into a Paleolithic era. Drooping moss clings to thick trees, and the air is reminiscent of thick southern summers. The river peeks through the trees as the trail winds further, and I’m caught in this powerful sense of gratitude, a physical churn of wonder at the human experience.
I vocalize this romanticized ideal to Eric, and he replies with a nonchalant shrug. I imagine I narrowed my eyes at him, a look of incredulous intrigue on my face. It makes me wonder how the cogs in his brain turn and what he must think of the floral symbolism that runs through mine. This drug that keeps pulling me back to wild places, the humbling grandeur of nature contrasted with Eric’s quiet indifference and simple joy. I am a scream from the mountaintops, and he is the trail itself, continuously moving a quiet contented step.
After I convinced myself that I wasn’t dating an emotionless sociopath, our conversation veered from romanticized moments to clones and the definition of humanity. With the emergence of head transplants and artificial intelligence capable of beating a four time world poker tour champion, the question becomes even more intriguing.
We take a short detour from the main trail, and I dip my fingers into the rushing river. The cold water laps at my skin, The hot sun and warm air have me smiling as I inhale, and I remember what being alive truly feels like.
Eric has this look that speaks louder than his voice ever does. It’s a slight narrowing of his attentive eyes and tight line of his lips. I’m unable to stand still when he lights me with that stare. It means he sees something that he doesn’t know how to vocalize without making me feel bad, but honestly, it just makes me feel ignorant. I see that look often as we continue this route of conversation.
Well, to answer if clones are human, you have to answer what makes a person human, and what if Artificial Intelligence merges into a reality where human consciousness can be downloaded into an artificial body? Again, that leads us back to what makes us human.
It’s hard to discuss humanity without spiritual undertones, and I personally believe that my consciousness makes me the personal brand of Jordan that I am. Not my body, but the processes of my brain and all the ramblings that happen because of it. Call it a soul or call it consciousness, but that is what I believe. Eric is of a different mindset, lamenting that being human is both a mind body connection. In essence, there is a loss of humanity without the flesh of the body.
Eric is the most realistic person I have ever met, a direct contrast to my idealism, but he is also one of the kindest people I have ever met with a genuine desire to help those he can and work hard to help those he can’t. His liberal view on politics and people juxtapose the scientific realism with which he views the world. Spirituality and higher consciousness hold little merit, and when prompted about his purpose in life, he responded with “biological obligation.”
As a passionate creative with interest in eastern medicine and open to broad spirituality, this was an impossible pill to swallow. It’s still lodged in my throat, causing all kinds of discomfort. How could you possibly motivate your experience on the dispassionate notion of biological obligation?
By this point, we had reached our turn around point, seeing as most of the trails on the Olympic Peninsula are either .6 miles or 60 miles, we had to make our own day hike with 3 miles in and 3 miles out. Moisture beaded across my skin, soaking through my shirt, and Eric had taken to giving me that look again.
“Agree to disagree?” I acquiesced, aware that today was not the day for winning existential arguments.
We made our way back to the trail head, easily meandering over fallen logs and gnarled roots. It was a busy summer day, and we passed several groups with a smile and a well wish for a good day. I was haphazard in my gestures, the majority of my brain busy digesting this notion of humanity and life purpose.
What if Eric’s right, and there is no reason to exist? That could be a liberating notion to some people, but maybe he’s only half right. Maybe there is no one size fits all. Maybe nothing changes if I were to disappear forever, but life should be viewed through both a macro and micro lens. The power to decide is a singular choice, and humanity, purpose, joy, they are all dependent on what you choose to believe.
For me, that’s the vibrancy of an overgrown trail and a beautiful view.
There are so many places to see, people to meet and stories to experience, and I just want to share them all.
As pretentious as an Alice in Wonderland quote makes my introduction, I’ve decided to include it anyway because I like the story of how Lewis Carroll wrote the book, and it alludes to my obsession with voice.
Who is jspringerwrites?
Jordan Springer, female, 25
owned business at 18
flight attendant for 3 years
open-minded realist
Storytelling through the development or unearthing of characters is why I became a writer. Whether it’s noticing the character arc of a fantastical heroine or diving deeper into the gritty truth of an adventure athlete, I enjoy peeling back the layers of people and the human experience.
I was born in the southeast, about an hour south of Atlanta, Georgia. Growing up, I was introduced to the outdoors through weekend roadtrips to the Smoky’s and Appalachians. Our church was every trail my dad could roam in that miraculous two day span. Camping, hiking, mountain biking and white water rafting were all part of my childhood, but in the southeast, the mountains are mere shadows of what awaits out west.
Growing up, I aligned myself with adventurer titles. We went mountain biking last weekend. Yes, of course I’ve been camping. Hiking is my favorite thing! I’m kind of a dirt bag. We get lost in the mountains all the time.
I hadn’t known how truly I was kidding myself until I became a flight attendant and moved to Salt Lake City for a few months. I brought my bike, thinking I would mountain bike on the few off days I had. The trail had been rated medium, and I didn’t even make it past the first hundred meters without walking my bike.
I currently live in Spokane, Washington, another treasure trove of adventure surrounding me on all sides. Banff National Park, Olympic National Park, Glacier National Park and the Idaho Panhandle are just a few of the magnificent places I’ve only begun to explore. While I’ve spent my entire childhood covered it dirt, pedaling to outrun thunderstorms and getting lost on trails, I am only just beginning to explore true peaks, and I hope you stick around to unearth the stories of people and place just waiting to be told.
jspringerwrites 