Way back all my families rode motorcycles.  I can remember my daddy riding my whole childhood.  Just a few times he took me around on the front in a too big helmet squeezed between his knees on the gas tank.  Gran says it was just a reasonable mode of transportation for someone like him but I imagine for him it was about going fast and being free from the strings of life.  Daddy did everything fast.

1fast

: moving or able to move quickly

: happening quickly : taking a short amount of time

: operating quickly

Merriam Webster

He was barely 19 when I was born.  It took me until FOREVER to be able to outrun him and by then he was sicker than ever so it doesn’t really count.  He ate so fast that food would fly everywhere.  Guys, everywhere.  Makes sense he would choose screaming through life on two wheels.  Daddy taught me to ride my first bike when I was 4.  It was a yellow Indian with training wheels and a number 1 on its side.  He would stand behind me on the training wheels, my tiny hands under his sausage fingers on the throttle.  I like to go fast too.  I remember a few stories about my heavy hand from before I even have too many memories.  Over the years I have had a few big girl bikes of my very own and I still like to go fast, so fast that I had to upgrade my first grown up cycle almost as soon as I bought it.  Top speed was 93 mph.  Not fast.  So fast that I used my motorcycle endorsement on my license to chat my way out of the last speeding ticket I was due in my car.  Turns out the officer rides.  Lucky me.

Mr. W   just bought me the newest ride.  She is a beauty, Suzuki S83.  A stunner in a sharp black and the sparkly chrome that this princess dreams of.  A perfectly proportioned hourglass with a little more in the back than the front and a curve in the middle that fits just right.  4 strokes and 535.7 pounds of delish.  It might have been enough just to call her mine as beautiful as she is.  Oh so beautiful.  You know what I mean.  1400 cc’s of fast…but here’s the thing, that kind of fast wasn’t the first place she took me.  This time when I wrapped my own sausage fingers around the handlebars it just happened in a softer, stronger, bolder and slower way.  I love the throaty rumble as she shows her appreciation for the gas.  Not just sitting but becoming a part of her.  Not just popping the clutch as quick as I can through the gears so I can hurry up and wait at the stop sign, and not to GET somewhere.  Not the prickle of fear and adrenaline and hardness that says, “Not so fast”.  No, this time it was fast enough.  Fast enough just to be a part of her and to be carried on this strong and elegant ride through the beauty of this day.  This day that the Lord made just for me.  Psalm 118:24.

For me and her to enjoy in this breath.  Not the next one or even the one before but just for

This. Fast. Right. Here.

1fast

a :  firmly fixed <roots fast in the ground>

b :  tightly shut <the drawers were fast>

c :  adhering firmly

d :  not easily freed : stuck <a ball fast in the mouth of the cannon>

e : stable <movable items were made fast to the deck>

Merriam Webster

Last year I learned about liminal space.

liminal

[ ˈlimənl ]

ADJECTIVE technical

of or relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.

occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.

Oxford Dictionaries · © Oxford University Press

The space between the space.  A divine and perfectly planned hesitation where heavenly magic can happen.  Last year I learned about liminal space but this year, this year He used her to share it with me.  Nowhere else to be and nothing else to do.  Breeze wrapping all around me in the perfect lovely blanket with sunshine streaming through the greenness of this magical place I get to live.  And breathe.  And love. And Be. Just Be.  For the first time, not looking for the next thing or fussing about the last thing, but enjoying the right now.   The space between the space.  How he would have grinned to see us girls.  Me and her.  My sweet Daddy did everything fast.  He even got to Heaven fast.  For a minute just her and I and the breeze and the sunshine and the greenness and this wonder if Daddy ever had this fast.  This liminal kind of fast.  And the speed of the next thought because even when I think about him he’s fast and the realization that he likely never noticed the liminal without the growing pain of the next or the last.  Ever.  And just as fast as the sad creeps up she whisks me away from there.  1400 cc’s fast of whisking on to the next Daddy wonder that he is with Him.  Forever.  And we are back in the breeze and the sunshine and the greenness and the liminal.  Slowed.  Enough.  Just for me.  Fast.