"When I teach, I teach ... When I ride, I ride"

At a point in my life when I was going through a difficult time and wanted to do something different, I took motorcycle-driving lessons. I later bought myself a motorcycle, but it was old and smoked too much, and I probably rode it a total of three times around the neighborhood before selling it. The hobby was over before it really got started, though I still have a nice helmet and motorcycle gloves sitting on a shelf somewhere.

I liked motorcycles and had recently read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and I was intrigued by the idea of riding a motorcycle feeling like flying, as I remember the author putting it. But I think really taking up motorcycle-riding was a way to challenge a fear I had. This is a realistic, probably overall healthy fear to have (of motorcycles generally, but especially in Houston), but I think it went beyond that. I remember being scared of motorcycles as a kid and not wanting to ride on one with my brother, denying him a chance to ride on some stranger's motorcycle in the small town where we lived in Ohio. When I was in my 20s and talked of getting a motorcycle, people I knew -- family members and in-laws -- said I would kill myself and that I was too much of a klutz to ride a motorcycle. I resented this and wanted to prove them wrong. 

Taking motorcycle-riding lessons was a great experience, and I learned (during the course of instruction) that it's a statistically proven way to be safer when riding a motorcycle. Too many riders just jump on the bike without having any notions of things like countersteering or how to best navigate lanes and road systems designed for passenger cars. Inexperienced riders often don't even know how to brake properly. Moreover, the class was fun and a nice way to do something active and new. 

The motorcycle instructor -- who was straight out of central casting with his small, wire-rim glasses and long braid down his back -- once said during a break, as he was telling some students about his motorcycle and weekending experience, "When I teach, I teach ... when I ride, I ride." As someone who had already spent a few years as an adjunct teacher in the community-college system, this struck me as an interesting if not profound statement, and it stuck with me.

On a rented Kawasaki in Maui in 2004. We drove this all around the western side of the island (with helmets on).

 

Not long ago, I was asked to read poems to a creative writing class at the college where I teach. I worried about selecting the "right" poems; I wanted them to be accomplished poems and worth sharing, but I also didn't necessarily want to expose too much of myself to students who might have me as an instructor at some point. I was worried about the "content" of some of these poems hinting at things too blue or lurid, since I try to be honest -- really honest -- when writing creatively. I try not to think about "audience" until later, as I'm reshaping or considering publishing outlets for what I've written.  I found a couple of poems that were "suitable" enough, and I used my experience to talk to the students about how writers must be honest and how I respected their ability to understand that.

I've thought of the motorcycle-riding teacher's line often over the years in considering the pressures and contradictions of teaching at the college level especially. We want to be intellectual role models and guides when it comes to complex disciplines in the most honest ways that are appropriate for adult learners, but we also want to be role models in general, to help students understand how to take care of themselves and to get along in life as professionals and responsible adults. Writing isn't always about that; it's often about our failures and our doubts, our struggles. It's often about exposing ourselves for the benefit of others. 

We have different versions of ourselves, and we create those identities out of necessity -- for us and for those that we serve. "When I teach, I teach, and when I ride, I ride" could easily be transformed into, "When I teach, I teach, and when I write, I write." The two jobs are different, and though there are certain intersections when one teaches writing especially, it isn't always necessary to disentagle those complications when doing something like serving as a guest speaker for a creative writing class. You've got to give these students, often young writers, credit for at least understanding that writing must be honest. On the other hand, it's also a good idea to write some poems, perhaps, that work better for a general audience, poems you aren't afraid to show your mother -- or your students. 

I no longer have a motorcycle, though I sometimes daydream about buying another one, something like a classic Royal Enfield or a high-end scooter, and I sometimes rent and ride scooters when traveling to places like Cozumel or Key West. I ride pretty well and am pretty safe. Even on a scooter, it sometimes seems a little like I think flying must feel, even more so than sky-diving, which I've done and which feels like, well, falling. When you ride, you're propelled through the air, buzzing over the ground but not encapsulated in the steel cocoon of an automobile. It's a dangerous freedom, yes, but then teaching -- as we've become more acutely aware of in recent years as politicians have attacked education -- has its perils as well. (Knowledge is power and all that.) Teaching's also a bit like flying, when it's going well.