Spirit Traffic recounts how, at the age of 50, the author learned to ride a motorcycle, overcame the terror of navigating her steep dirt driveway in Vermont, and, three days after her son's college graduation, set off with him and her yoga-teacher husband (his stepdad) on a 10,000-mile two-wheel adventure that took them all into uncharted territory-both as novice riders, and as a family. As if in the saddle of her dual-sport BMW, the reader will experience the good, the bad, and the heartbreak of her journey as a soon-to-be-empty-nester grappling with impermanence, sexuality, hot flashes, high winds, and tailgating tour buses.
Spirit Traffic is at once a colorful travelogue of a bucket-list bikers' route across America and an unflinching memoir of a middle-aged mom conquering her fears (on and off the bike), unpacking a complicated childhood with an addict father and stoic mother, and ultimately, learning to let go of her only child. (Think Blue Highways meets Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance meets Operating Instructions meets Wild.)
With its first-person accounts of legendary rides such as the Burr Trail, Hell's Backbone Road, and the Pacific Coast Highway, Spirit Traffic has a ready audience among bikers. But as a midlife memoir, Spirit Traffic resonates for anyone who is navigating the departure of a child, negotiating the dynamic tensions of family, or simply yearning for life's next adventure.
Author Biography:
C. Jane Taylor is a writer, biker, mom, wife, and empowered woman. When she was a little girl, her mother owned the motorcycle shop, Honda of Ann Arbor. Motorcycles colored her childhood until she and her family moved to Northern Michigan and later to Vermont. At the age of 16, she went to Bard College at Simon's Rock where she earned a BA in Literature and Music History. She's been a cook for a baroque orchestra, a sculptor's assistant, a resume writer, and a yoga teacher. She started (and stopped) her own welding shop. She has repaired farm equipment under the blazing sun on the Fourth of July and decorated cakes resembling the Palace of Versailles on Bastille Day. Writing has been the foundation of each of these roles. After a forty-year hiatus, she started motorcycling again when her son graduated from college. To celebrate his achievement and fill her impending empty nest, Jane, her husband, and son took a 10,000-mile motorcycle trek across the United States. She lives, writes, and rides in Hinesburg, Vermont with her husband John, a yoga teacher. https: //www.laughingbeardesign.com/Mason Singer is a multiple award-winning graphic designer and publications consultant. He has designed hundreds of publications and produced a broad range of work, including magazines, books, guides, posters, brochures, annual reports, handbills, logos, and much more.For more than two decades his studio, Laughing Bear Associates, has provided design services to nonprofit organizations, publishers, business, government, academia, and individuals throughout the northeast. Mason has taught elements of graphic design for a number of schools and workshops, been a member of the faculty at the Governor's Institute on the Arts and has frequently spoken to groups about developments in design. Mason is the founding director of two nonprofit organizations: - Perennial Press Company - a nonprofit education and publishing center specializing in the tradition of typography, handset type, and letterpress printing. - Vermont Network for Community Newspapers (VNCN) - which has organized and run two statewide conferences designed to strengthen the role of independent, community-based newspapers in Vermont. He has been a member of the board of directors of numerous nonprofit organizations and has served on the board of Toward Freedom (Vision and Advocacy for Human Rights and Global Democracy), Circus Smirkus, Live Art, and Summit School for Traditional Music and Culture. Mason currently serves on the board of The Montpelier Bridge Community Media.
