I THINK I FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO LOOK AT A MOUNTAIN

I just got home from four days riding an adventure motorcycle through Oregon with two friends.

We rode logging roads through the Cascades.

Camped beside a river.

Crossed over to the Pacific Ocean.

Walked cold beaches.

Ate chicken fried steak in a small-town bar.

Camped beside a high mountain lake.

Built fires.

Drank instant coffee.

And eventually wandered our way home through sprawling ranch country outside Sisters.

It was spectacular.

And I think I finally figured out how to look at a mountain.

First, I forgot my tent poles.

Not forgot them, exactly.

That would imply I knew they weren't with me.

I confidently carried a tent several hours into the Oregon wilderness before discovering I had apparently packed an expensive mesh nylon blanket.

Fortunately, I'd thrown a hammock into my gear.

So I strung it between two trees and slept there instead.

And it was wonderful.

The moon followed the ridge line above our little forest gulley for several hours, illuminating the trees with this impossibly bright, enchanting white light.

I slept deeply.

In the morning, I realized I might actually prefer hammock camping when the weather allows it.

One mistake had accidentally taught me how to carry less shit.

There's probably a metaphor in there.

Actually, there are going to be several.

Apologies in advance.

I'm still a novice off-road motorcycle rider.

I'm riding a 2013 BMW F800GS.

It’s a marvelous machine right up until the moment gravity gets involved, at which point it becomes approximately the weight of a mature rhinoceros.

On my first real adventure ride, I dumped it on a trail within the first thirty minutes.

That turned out to be useful.

I wasn't seriously hurt, but the experience permanently removed any desire I might have had to impress anybody with my motorcycle skills.

One of the guys I ride with sometimes rides with other guys who come from a completely different culture.

Who's up first?

Who's packed first?

Who's fastest?

Who's riding the hardest?

Who's got the best equipment?

Who's capable of doing something sufficiently dangerous that everyone else has to acknowledge how capable he is?

Men can turn absolutely anything into a dick-measuring contest.

Apparently even camping.

I’ve discovered that I am interested in something else.

I like waking up slowly.

I like building another fire in the morning.

I like drinking coffee while I pack.

I like getting the bags situated correctly on the motorcycle.

Charging batteries.

Taking pictures.

Giving shit to my comrades.

Getting it back from them.

Looking around.

Being there.

I don't want to race out of a beautiful place just because there's another beautiful place on the itinerary.

And when we ride, particularly on gravel, my friends occasionally disappear ahead of me.

Fine.

I'll see you guys at the intersection.

I'm back here chugging along looking at how the stream snakes through the canyon.

I've started thinking of the motorcycle less as a racing machine and more as a safari vehicle for fat tourists.

We're going slowly because everyone deserves to see the giraffe.

The strange thing is, one of my more experienced riding partners seems to be starting to enjoy this pace too.

Maybe adventure doesn't improve when you accelerate it.

Maybe sometimes you just go through it faster.

I've noticed something else changing in me.

For most of my life, spectacular views created a strange feeling I couldn't quite identify.

I'd stand in front of an ocean or mountain range and feel something adjacent to sadness.

Urgency, maybe.

I'd want to experience it more.

I'd want to somehow absorb the entire thing.

Remember this.

Take a picture.

Look harder.

Appreciate this.

‘This is beautiful, damnit! Make sure you’re having an appropriately profound experience!’

Which, as it turns out, is a fantastic way to miss a beautiful view.

Because part of me wasn't standing there.

Part of me was already remembering standing there.

I think I understand the feeling now.

I was trying to preserve experiences before I'd finished having them.

Something has changed in middle age.

Now I can stand in front of something magnificent and feel calm.

I don't need anything from it.

I don't need the mountain to make me feel adventurous.

I don't need the ocean to tell me I'm living correctly.

I don't need to convert the moment into a photograph to prove that I was there or worse, to earn fake internet points.

I can just stand there.

And when you stop asking for something from the view, something extraordinary happens.

The experience finally gets all of you.

Maybe this is one of the strange gifts of getting older.

At 25, Saturdays seem infinitely replaceable.

There will always be another summer.

Another road trip.

Another September.

Another friend.

Another sunrise.

Another chance to call your father.

Another afternoon with your mother.

Another day with your dog.

Another opportunity to tell somebody what they mean to you.

Then somewhere around the middle of life, the math becomes harder to ignore.

Not morbid.

Just true.

The inventory is finite.

There are only so many September mornings beside a lake coming.

The natural response to that realization is urgency.

I have to do everything before I die.

See as many places and things as possible.

Do as many things as you can.

Quickly, gentlemen. Death approaches.

But I'm beginning to think the better response to mortality isn't urgency.

It's attention.

Less of the. . . ‘I need to do everything before I die’.

And more, ‘I'm going to actually be here for the things I do’.

For me, that's a very different life.

Which brings me to pornography. . .

Naturally.

On our way to the coast, we stopped for breakfast at an old dive bar in Sweet Home, Oregon.

The chicken fried steak was exceptional.

The bartender was attractive and funny, and one of my riding companions immediately developed the kind of harmless 45-minute soft crush that exists entirely inside the imagination of a man eating gravy.

But the cultural highlight was in the bathroom.

Mounted above the urinals was an ancient coin-operated ‘adult’ vending machine.

Fifty cents.

The faded decals promised treasures including something called Pandora's Box, illustrated by a cartoon devil with a trident, and another offering called Forbidden Desire, whose marketing department had apparently decided that cartoon breasts required no additional explanation.

I took a picture. Not because it was beautiful or would perform well on social media.

Because it was amazing.

It set in motion five minutes of jokes and laughter over crispy hashbrowns.

And looking at that stupid photograph now brings the entire breakfast back.

That's teaching me something about documenting life too.

The heroic photograph of a motorcycle parked beneath the Cascades matters.

Take it.

But twenty years from now, the photograph that transports you back might be the vending machine.

Because our memories don’t organize our lives like Instagram does.

Memory remembers texture.

Wet gloves.

A friend's laugh.

Cold sand beneath bare feet.

Steam coming off coffee.

The smell of a campfire in the morning.

Mud on your boots.

A bartender in Sweet Home.

The funny thing somebody said while packing the bikes.

The Pacific Ocean unexpectedly reaching far enough up the beach to say hello and get your feet wet.

These aren't interruptions between the important moments.

These are the important moments.

I originally thought buying an adventure motorcycle meant buying a motorcycle.

I don't think that anymore.

I bought access.

Access to forest roads.

Access to places I would otherwise drive past.

Access to otherwise inaccessible campsites beside secluded rivers.

Access to friendships.

Access to solitude.

Access to manageable fear.

Access to competence I haven't developed yet.

Access to Oregon’s hidden treasures.

Access to parts of myself that apparently needed a machine capable of turning off the pavement before they could come out.

And strangely, the motorcycle isn't making me feel alive because it's dangerous.

Danger can certainly wake you up.

But that's not what's happening.

I feel alive because I'm there for it.

And maybe that's what I've been trying to understand about those mountains all these years.

You don't have to capture the moment.

You don't have to maximize it.

You don't have to conquer it.

You don't have to hurry toward the next one.

You don't even have to understand what it means while it's happening.

Sometimes your only job is to notice.

I'm here.

These are my friends.

That's the mountain.

This coffee is hot.

That fire smells incredible.

I don't know how many mornings like this I get.

But I get this one.

And then stay awhile.

Apparently that's the secret.

It only took me half a century to learn how to look at a mountain.