Balance (A Guest Blog by Dawna Russom)
What does safety actually feel like after a lifetime spent fighting for freedom, autonomy, and the right to make your own stupid decisions? Maybe it feels like sitting beside a powerful river without fearing the current. Maybe it feels like finally being seen and loved. And maybe, sometimes, it feels like having enough room in your life to get really fucking pissed off about a crappy mechanical pencil.
The Deodorant
Sometimes the biggest signs that your life has changed are the smallest ones. A garage door opening before I can reach for the remote. A little gift waiting at home. A second stick of deodorant on the bathroom counter. Ordinary things, maybe. But when you’ve spent most of your life surviving, ordinary can feel a lot like love.
She Brought Me Home
I got pulled over on my way home from pool league for doing what I always do on a motorcycle: getting away from traffic. But somewhere in the middle of arguing about speed, safety, and freedom, I mentioned the crash that nearly killed me. Suddenly, the traffic stop wasn't really about the traffic stop anymore.
The Responsible Thing
A friend suggested a motorcycle that sounded perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, reasonable and I have a complicated relationship. After spending decades away from riding because someone else was afraid of motorcycles, I came back to them after nearly dying and discovered something important: I’m not giving up the things that make me feel alive again.
Borrowed Thoughts
Most people don’t actually think about politics anymore. They consume it, repeat it, and then congratulate themselves for being the only sane people left in the country. The problem isn’t just borrowed opinions. It’s what happens next: people stop questioning authority, confuse legality with morality, and trade away liberty one camera, one regulation, and one “common-sense” restriction at a time.
Freedom at 75-Ish Miles Per Hour
A speed camera might look like a harmless tool for safer roads, but automated enforcement represents something much larger. It replaces judgment with machinery, due process with bureaucracy, and liberty with convenience. Government rarely takes freedom in one dramatic act. It takes it one camera, one database, and one automated citation at a time.
Motorcycles Aren't the Problem
Motorcyclists are constantly told to wear more gear, ride more defensively, and take more training. We do. But maybe it's time we stopped treating riders as the problem and started asking why nearly every piece of motorcycle safety equipment exists to protect us from everyone else.
Maybe I Should Give Up Motorcycles
Last year, a woman turned left in front of me and nearly killed me. She didn't get a ticket. This year, I got a mandatory court appearance for riding the way I do to stay alive. Somewhere along the way, we've decided it's acceptable to endanger motorcyclists, but apparently not acceptable to be one.
Competence Isn't Amazon Prime
Watching the morning crowd shuffle through a hotel breakfast got me thinking about something bigger than powdered eggs and mediocre sausage. Somewhere along the way, we've stopped learning how to do things for ourselves. We've outsourced competence, and I think we've lost something important in the process.
My Life. My Rules.
A mortgage application isn't really about buying a house. At least, not for me. It's about finally choosing to build the life I want instead of the life everyone else thinks I should have. Almost dying has a way of clarifying things. I'm done waiting for retirement to start living. The life I want begins now.
Hollywood Doesn't Understand Bikers
Hollywood has spent decades telling Americans that cowboys and bikers are natural enemies. It's a great movie trope, but it's also complete fiction. My experience with the biker community has revealed something very different. Cowboys and bikers have far more in common than Hollywood would ever admit. They value freedom, self-reliance, hard work, and the simple desire to be left the hell alone.
What the Actual Fuck
What would the Founding Fathers think if they woke up in modern America? Would they recognize the nation they fought to create, or would they wonder how a people born in liberty became so comfortable asking permission? This Independence Day, I found myself asking a question that refuses to leave me alone.
Interesting, But Not For Me
After twenty years of dating as a transgender woman, I've noticed a pattern. Endless texting. Great conversations. Coffee. Connection. And then the same conclusion: "interesting, but not for me." This is a story about dating, politics, loneliness, friendship, and the difference between sex and genuine human connection.
A Favor
Most motorcycle riders have seen it: a loose piece of plastic, metal, or undercarriage hanging beneath the car in front of them, bouncing closer and closer to the pavement with every mile. Most drivers never even notice. The problem is that when that part finally falls off, it doesn't just become their problem. It becomes everyone else's problem too, especially for the rider sharing the road behind them.
Can You Give Him A Goddamned Minute?
A food truck cook accidentally called a woman “he” while buried under a lunch rush. What happened next says a lot about performative outrage, modern allyship, and our culture's inability to distinguish between harmless mistakes and actual injustice.
Heavenly Pursuits
I always assumed all bikers loved horsepower. Loved torque. Loved the feeling of a machine trying to rip their arms from their sockets and launch them toward the horizon. Turns out that's not true. Some ride for peace. Some ride for scenery. Some ride for community. And some of us are engaged in an ongoing theological dispute with the laws of physics.
“Outlaw” Bikers
A trip to the Harley dealership turns into an unexpected lesson about modern biker culture. Expecting to find an ally in the fight against government overreach, one rider instead discovers that not everyone wearing leather believes in freedom the same way. A rant about loud pipes, regulations, Baby Boomers, and the growing gap between the image of rebellion and the reality of compliance.
The Bear
After surviving a motorcycle crash that nearly killed her, a rider watches Santa Fe quietly criminalize the very thing many bikers use to stay alive: being heard. A furious reflection on freedom, government overreach, automated enforcement, and what happens when working people stop feeling represented.
The Experiment
A Memorial Day reflection on military service, political division, civic pride, and the strange loneliness of modern America. A veteran rides through northern New Mexico searching for community, meaning, remembrance, and perhaps a little hope that the American spirit still exists beneath the noise.