Rider's Dilemma: Motorcycle Passion Collides With Family Concerns

Somewhere between the open road and the kitchen table, a man has discovered that the things which make us feel most alive can be the very things that frighten those who love us most. A Washington Post columnist finds himself newly captivated by motorcycles, newly at odds with a wife and mother who see not passion but peril. His story is an old one, dressed in leather and engine noise: the tension between the self we are still becoming and the obligations we have already accepted. It asks, quietly but insistently, whether love is a gift we give freely or a claim we hold over one another.