On an empty neighborhood street near my home a father teaches his son to ride a bike. The boy sits on a tiny two-wheeled machine wearing a helmet roughly the size of a prize-winning watermelon. The father balances the bike and offers reassuring advice.
“Keep your head up, and just keep pedaling, and…”
Scattered on the driveway are disassembled training wheels which have been removed from the kid’s bike. The nuts and bolts lie on the pavement like memories of a bygone infanthood.
This boy is about to be one of the big kids today.
The child sits on his saddle wearing the face of Neil Armstrong before blastoff. It is the same facial expression Chuck Yeager had before breaking the sound barrier. The same look I once wore when I realized my income taxes were considerably late.
“I’m scared, Dad,” says the kid.
“You’re gonna be fine.”
“What if I fall?”
“I’m here.”
“What if I can’t do it?”
“You can.”
Meantime, I’m watching from a distance. They don’t see me eavesdropping.
Right now I am having a few
memories return to me. Not memories of bicycles, but of times I once sat in the proverbial saddle and asked myself similar questions.
Can I do it? Can I withstand failure? How about rejection? What about embarrassment? Or pain? Will I make a fool of myself?
There was the time I worked up the bravery to ask Dorothy Lynn to couple skate at the fifth-grade roller-rink party. I was nauseous about it. I felt as though I would vomit all over my shoes.
Dorothy was the most popular girl in fifth grade and I was a chubby redhead whose T-shirts always seemed too snug. Boys like me did not ask Dorothy Lynn to couple skate. Boys like me held the regional record for the most rice puddings consumed during a single cafeteria period.
But I asked Dorothy anyway. I ignored…