Riding Together
A reflection on fatherhood, adulthood, and the quiet transition from parent and child to fellow travellers.
There is a particular kind of silence that only exists on two motorcycles.
Not because nothing is being said.
But because nothing needs to be.
Last weekend, my son and I spent the day riding together. We each followed our own line through the bends, kept our own rhythm and found our own way through the landscape. Yet somehow, we were moving as one.
It struck me that this is one of the few places where our relationship changes.
Off the bikes, I still find myself looking at him as my son. A young man standing on the threshold of adulthood, finding his own way in the world.
On the road, something shifts.
We become fellow travellers.
There are no expectations to fill the silence with conversation. No need to explain ourselves. We communicate through pace, distance and trust. A glance in a mirror. A hand signal. The shared understanding that the other is there.
Perhaps that is what flow really is.
Not losing yourself in an activity, but discovering a place where a relationship can breathe differently.
As parents, we spend years teaching our children how to move through the world. Then, almost without noticing, there comes a day when you realise you are simply moving through it together.
The road has a quiet way of revealing these things.
Not by telling us.
But by giving us enough space to notice.
