Classic Velocity

5:45am Middlebury, VT

The tii starts easily as if it is as glad to see the new day as I am. It is covered in dew. The kind of dew that only a summer overnight stay outside can generate. It is not cold, just cool. Maybe in the 60s. The motel was cheap and convenient. A place to shower and sleep. Now with bag in the spacious trunk, and a day of driving ahead, I stretched and smiled. I looked at the tii sitting there, idling comfortably now, smiling with me. At that moment, the day was full of promise. Man and machine were one.

There is a time of day where the light is magic. In the time leading up to dawn,  a painting is created with a soft glow over everything. Harsh detail is airbrushed by the cosmos, and the most flattering light is  poured like some luminescent syrup onto even the least worthy of objects. Apply this to the hills and valleys of new england, and you have a masterpiece. Then add silence. It is somehow even more beautiful because nature has added a soundtrack of…..nothing. This is now a movie rather than a painting. And we are in it, man and machine.

Somehow, this combination of metal and blood is one form. Somehow the synapses are firing in synchronization with the spark plugs. 1-4-3-2, 1-4-3-2. The undulations and curves of the road in the pre-dawn stillness are in lock step with the suspension and steering. Speed is high, sensing that this glorious window is but for a short while. And miles to go while others sleep…The weak yellow glow of the headlights is a perfect match for the hue of the emerging glow to the east. The whole universe is smiling.