I’ve never been good with talking. Not the small kind that fills silences. Not the heavy kind that’s supposed to matter. Every day, the same cacophony of hollow conversations - a torrent of idle nonsense, borrowed truths, and the occasional spark of original thought. We talk in circles about Trump, AI, the housing crisis. It’s all noise, and none of it really goes anywhere.
But when I get up on my Moto Guzzi, amid the roar of the engine and the rush of the wind, there’s a different kind of silence. No need for small talk. The road doesn’t speak. It just pulls.
I twist the throttle and the journey unfolds. Instinct and momentum carry me forward.
Through damp, mossy forests where gentle deer pause and look up. Along a boreen that winds up the mountain, past black lakes teeming with tiny trout too small to eat.
Over the bog road that sags and swells, where a pheasant bursts from the purple heather but doesn’t disrupt my flow. Down a narrow stretch where grass grows thick between the wheel tracks and the stone walls close in. A rabbit finds itself trapped ahead of the Guzzi, white tail flicking as it bounds along - nowhere to go but forward, until it finally slips sideways into the safety of the ferns.
Sometimes the road brings me to misty cliffs and desolate hills out west, where the wild Atlantic hurls itself endlessly at the rocks - erupting in bursts of fury, then receding in a fizz of sizzling foam. It can be sketchy riding out here: loose surface, sharp bends, sudden gusts. But on the bright side, if you drop your bike there’s no one around to notice except for a few spray-painted sheep.
Feel the cool mist on your face. The pockets of cold air, then warm. The hum of tarmac, the scuff of gravel. The wind carrying faded traces of yesterday’s slurry and last week’s gorse fires. The sweet scent of hawthorn, the earthy punch of wild garlic. The brine of the bay, the stench of the estuary.
On these roads, my voice is irrelevant. I don’t need an opinion on American foreign policy, or Apple’s latest acquisition. The hush of the wind silences me. The rumble of the engine decides for me.
.