Freedom - I LOVE SAND
Written July 6, 2021
I love sand…I might just get this tattooed on my body.
As I finished up my motorcycle training on Saturday the last drill we practiced was riding a couple hundred feet in a sand wash. After explaining the drill, the pot-bellied instructor looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Repeat after me, I LOVE SAND!”
I replied, “I LOVE SAND!”
He then said, “To get to your long-term goal, you will need to feel this from your soul.” No other student got this unique directive. I kind of wanted to cry, sand scared me.
I grew up riding motorcycles on the dirt trails and logging roads of the Pacific Northwest until I was 13. As a young girl I’d get up before school and ride my dirt bike next to my Dad as he ran the trails. Handling the bike as the dew drenched vegetation soaked my clothes was the sunrise kisses that fed my soul. I still recall trying to manage the weight of the bike with my little body being tossed every direction as I rode the line of slow next to my Dad in his Nikes.
Once I got a little bigger and a few years older, I was allowed to go on the trails behind the family lake cabin in northern Idaho on our weekends at the lake. The coolest part in my memory is the self-agency I was gifted, riding through the trees with my cousins on their dirt bikes, afternoon explorers on the hot mountainous trails while the parents sat lakeside. It would be several decades later, as I raised my own kids, that full appreciation for this gift was felt. I was allowed to mess up and figure it out on my own, no adult to answer the questions…how to start my bike once it died, what happened when one of us took a wrong turn, how to jump start a bike going downhill when the kick start didn’t work. Gifts…all of it gifts. Most of my summers until I was 13 were spent at the lake, in a boat, on a dirt bike, around a campfire and sleeping under the stars.
When riding motorcycles, my Dad taught me – long pants, long sleeve tops, real shoes, helmet, stay aware, look ahead and avoid sand if possible. It is difficult to ride through sand as it grabs the tires. Here in southern California, and especially in the desert in Baja, there is a lot of sand stretches to ride through. Good lord, I pick interesting goals.
I knew the instructor was right…to meet my long-term goal, I would have to sit with my fears around riding in sand and develop a proficiency in this skill. I listened intently to his advice…wide turn down into the wash, add throttle, weight on back tire, feather clutch, counterbalance with weight to ‘steer’. My three passes in the wash were shit. I stopped on first pass to gather my mind. I was in too high of a gear on second pass as down shifting while standing and riding through sand just didn’t want to happen. I crashed on third pass, it was wimpy, no good story to share on that one. Yet there was a moment, in my second pass, that I floated. For a brief amount of time I felt that proficiency, it was fleeting, but it was felt. In those couple of seconds, I danced in the world of … I LOVE SAND.
Incredible people come to me with goals to lose weight, gain energy, sleep better, love deeper, find their why and reach for more fulfillment in their life. Every conversation I hold with them is an honor, guiding and supporting as we co-create the path toward their desires. My expertise helps them find their figurative float, operating from an internal inspiration and trust, even at times among stops and crashes.
That figurative float, what that means to you, that is freedom. Letting go of limits we have carried for decades, built to protect us and keep us safe until we are ready to go further. Perhaps it is time to follow the path of most allowance. Go...
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