s u m m e r
training wheels
You run across the damndest things sometimes; usually while cleaning, ever notice that? I tried to tackle the job of cleaning out the secretary that has letters, pictures, negatives, tax papers, etc. I didn't make it very far. Instead, stuck to the top of the first drawer was a photo of a kid, age 5, on a red bicycle. A faded polaroid of a boy with an awkward smile and sneakers with laces a little too long. His trousers are too short and his hair too long. Above all though, he's happy.
No surprise this little kid is me. That's not really the point. The point is I remember that bicycle. There came a day in the not to distant future from that day when my dad decided it was time to lose the training wheels. I had on the same sneakers with the same long laces but I wasn't smiling that day. I wasn't quite ready to lose the safety of those wheels. With them I could ride all day around the block, through yards, down grassy hills. Without them I felt vulnerable. I knew I'd fall and I hadn't even tried.
I watched in mute horror as my dad loosened the wheels one by one with a yellow handled screwdriver and set them aside. The bicycle had no kickstand and it wouldn't stand on its own anymore. My dad leaned it against the carport and motioned with his big hand for me to come over. I didn't. Instead I cried. I remember that too. He got mad. Threatened to take the bicycle back to the store (what did I know) I believed him and cried more. He called me on it and opened the trunk on the Monte Carlo. He started to lift the bicycle into its gaping mouth and I took a step forward. When the front wheel disappeared I took two steps. By the time the bicycle was completely in the trunk I was begging to ride it just one more time. I was still crying but now I was crying for the chance to ride, anything to get my bicycle back.
Anything.
First I had to stop crying. The bicycle came back out and dad and I walked up the driveway. I got on and the handlebars moved with my weight as I tried to balance on the front wheel. It was hopeless, but then I wasn't moving and my dad was holding the seat steady. When he started to push I remember fear, distinctly I remember fear. Real fear. Maybe for the first time. It was different from fear of the dark or things under the bed or in the closet. It was fear of not only being hurt, but for the first time I was experiencing the fear of possible failure. Yeah. A little fear mixed with a new emotion, guilt. I remember not wanting to fall more because my dad was watching me than because I might get a skinned knee. A few minutes before I hadn't cared what my dad thought, but something happened when he started to push. After a few hard steps I could tell he'd let go. I wasn't looking back to find out, but I felt his hand slip off the seat and that's when I really got scared.
Did I fall? Did I have to climb up off the ground and look my father in the eye?
No. Many times over in the years to come I would fail both my parents in one way or another, and I'd find out more about guilt, fear, and failure than I ever wanted to know or thought possible.
But if you've ever wondered about a fearless, guilt free expression, free of failure, look at yourself before the world took hold. I'm just lucky to have a picture taken days before it all began to change forever.
goodnight 3.11.99