Yesterday morning I picked up a colleague and drove down 101 to San Jose for a series of meetings. It was foggy as we came up the hill towards Third Street, and the flames were the only bright colour I could see. Bright red and orange like blossoms appearing out of nowhere, above the grey freeway, under the grey sky.

“Ohmigod ohmigod what happened?” I yelled, gripping the wheel like a life preserver.

“The truck clipped that bike,” said my colleague.

Until he said that I couldn’t resolve the details: the black motorbike itself skidding on its side between two lanes of traffic; the black SUV pulling into the center divider; fifty yards behind it the bike’s rider, in black leathers, getting up and dusting himself off.

The bike must have been a write-off but the rider walked away. Hell of a thing. Hell of a way to start the day.

Posted in mindfulness | Comments Off on freeway, flames

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 11:03 pm and is filed under mindfulness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.