Motorcycles I’ve Loved: A Memoir
by Lily Brooks-Dalton
When the word “memoir” and female get mentioned in the same sentence, many people run as fast as possible hoping to avoid drowning in a sea of someone else’s sorrow. Lily Brooks-Dalton’s memoir is the antithesis of this. She’s a badass twenty something whose journey with leather and motorcycles began as a kid, with her dad’s dirt bike.
However, she doesn’t take a real interest in motorbikes until her twenties.
Brooks-Dalton returns home to America after living in Australia with her boyfriend Thor, and finds her life unsettling and lacking direction.
A friend is looking to buy a motorbike, and they are pouring over pics of possibilities when she comes across a photo and asks
“But – where does the passenger sit?”
“They don’t” he replied, and from that moment on I knew, without a doubt – I didn’t want to be a passenger on someone else’s motorcycle.
I wanted to be the one riding that motherfucker.
Brooks-Dalton uses physics to explain both the mechanics of a motorcycle and her transformation as she learns about how motorcycles work, how to ride, repair and maintain them herself.
“Riding that ridge between reason and recklessness, stillness and speed, is the first, maybe the most important, thing I learned about motorcycles.”
She discovers that riding is a kind of meditation, where she cannot worry about the past, because she has to focus on controlling its power.
“On a motorcycle, I learned to let go of the vast uncertainty and focus instead on what is in front of me: the surface of the road and the curve of it, the vehicles in front and behind, the wind and the rain and the wildlife peeking out of the grass. There are times when I struggle to manage every last detail as it whips pat me, to hold on to past and present and future simultaneously, but they’re not mine to understand, or control. I have to remind myself, again and again, that only this is mine: this moment, this heartbeat, this decision.”
Ultimately Brooks-Dalton goes on a solo road trip, where she discovers more about herself than she could have imagined.
“A motorcycle is a vehicle of change, after all. It puts the wheels beneath a midlife crisis, or a coming-of-age saga, or even just the discovery of something new, something you didn’t realize was there. It provides the means to cross over, to transition, or to revitalize; motorcycles are self-discovery’s favorite vehicle.”
I expect this book will inspire a whole generation of young women to take a road trip of their own.
To find out more about Lily and her forthcoming novel, “Good Morning, Midnight” follow her on the following social media sites
https://www.instagram.com/p/ri3kkHsrqQ/?taken-by=lilybrooksdalton
http://www.lilybrooksdalton.com
https://www.facebook.com/lilybrooksdalton