McQueen, Motos, and Other Midlife Madness

Being a 40-year-old woman brings with it some mighty heavy cultural baggage. You know, it's the year that we're supposed to freak out and have a botox-fest, a tummy tuck, or at the least change our hair color. And hell, even I, an ardent feminist from the old school women's studies department, circa 1989 at Colby College, think about doing these things. I already did the hair, but now the stomach thing is on my mind.

Much more important for me this year though, by far, has been my growing love for motorcycles, motorcycle cultchah as my Boston boy Tom would say, and the great adventures I've had on bikes and with riders of all kinds. In fact, this fascination has resulted in a regular gig with Urban Moto Magazine in San Francisco (www.sfurbanmoto.com) in which I've written about the lasting cool of Steve McQueen, a profile of one of the top pro racers of all time, Mert Lawwill, and an ode to bad boys. Why is this, that a woman from the mean streets of Morristown, NJ, whose doctor father told her daily what kinds of motorcycle injuries he saw in the E.R., why would she become so enthralled by motorcyles and the men and women who ride them?

Say it together now, r-e-b-e-l-l-i-o-n. That's too easy though. Sure, we all long to travel in worlds different from our own, some of us more than others. But the cool thing is when you actually feel that you've discovered a world where you might want to stay a while, or at least bring parts of that world into your everyday existence. Not to get too philosophical or anything, but I think having the guts to create your own life for yourself, patched together from all your passions, interests, and favorite people--as disparate as they may be--is the true hallmark of turning 40 and making it count. And screw the botox and tummy tuck anyway. I look damn good already.