Learning How to be Uncomfortable
This past December, I was feeling a bit sorry for myself as my husband rode his motorcycle through Mexico, having a marvelous time. He had been down there for a month when I decided: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. So I hopped a flight to Cancun with a bag full of camping gear and my helmet in hand. He met me at the airport and off we went to swim in cenotes and camp on the beach. (There is one advantage to arriving at a cenote late in the day: We had it entirely to ourselves.)
I never would have imagined myself riding motorcycles. Last summer, when Andrew and I started taking trips together, it wasn’t just a matter of getting used to a new sensation and a new way of traveling. It was a bit of an identity crisis. Who am I, this person in motorcycle gear letting my husband drive me around the West on a giant dual-sport bike? I thought I was a pasty, not-so-adventurous, feminist, East Coast, liberal-leaning academic type? Not that those are necessarily mutually exclusive…
Travel always has something to teach you. And I find that some of the best learning comes from being uncomfortable—and that includes, sometimes, stepping out of what you think of as your identity. Motorcycle riding, particularly when you are riding on the back, is pretty much one big festival of discomfort. You’re either hot or cold, scared or bored, bracing against the wind or tolerating the rain.
There are also, of course, glorious moments—riding along a forgotten coast; cruising through a tiny village as flocks of teenage boys stare, mesmerized; smelling the scents change as the landscape morphs from pine forests to hayfields to wildflower meadows; feeling the temperature drop as you crest a high mountain pass. You are much less removed from the world on a bike than in a car—not just in terms of the weather and the scenery but also your relationship to other people, who tend to feel much more comfortable coming up and talking to you. It’s as if you are dropped, full immersion, right into life, with no protective armor.
We experienced amazing things on this trip—ancient ruins, deserted beaches, jungles packed with monkeys, forests of Joshua trees, as well as hideous cities snarled with traffic. But I wonder if other than the memories, the most lasting thing is the insight that emerges from sitting with discomfort. Here I am, I’m hot. Here I am, I’m cold. Here I am, I’m completely not in control. Here I am, I’m totally, gloriously alive.