Mornings like this make you want to fill your lungs with air. Back when I was "Lupus Solitarum" (Lone Wolf for all you non-Latin types) I would crave days like these. It rained all day yesterday; hard rain, big rain, cold rain. It washed the earth clean. The roads are clean, the trees are green even the road signs are glowing.

When I was riding the rain never really bugged me. It did make me tired though. I had to be careful with a fully (read over) laden motorcycle. I had been caught out a few times when the heavy back end wanted to swap places with the front. So you really have to look ahead, plan the route, watch for cars, deer, potholes.
But I always knew that when the rain stopped and the sun came out it would be a great day.

I would get up early, five am and be out of the campsite an hour later. The next few hours, until the sun made the earth a sauna, were golden. I loved the mist that hung in the forests and the dripping of the rain from the leaves. I especially loved it when the wind stirred the leaves and a little rain shower would descend to the earth. Like my own private rain storm.

The trees and grass would be washed clean and stretching their limbs and blades to the sky. They would be so green it would hurt your eyes. The road was still damp with two dry lines running in each lane. The birds would be out singing their hearts out. These were the mornings to live for.

I would not even hear the bike or the tires on the asphalt. It would be like floating four feet from the ground the world rushing by in a mad green blur. There was always so much oxygen in the air you felt drugged by it. Every flower was infusing the air with it’s sent, a wild cacophony of perfume.

Today was like that, driving into work in my little, old car. But it was not the same. It was like belong reminded of a really great dream that you woke up from. I could remember every detail so clearly but knowing that it was not here, was not now. Boxed in my vehicle, bound by the clock, I knew the moment would not last the morning, just the 12.3 kilometers to the parking lot.

Am I glad I took those journeys, had those adventures? Yes. Am I resentful of my life and what it has become? No. But I do miss the morning when you want to fill your lungs with air and float along a ribbon of asphalt till the sun turned the Earth into a sauna, that’s all.