New shiny thing

My daughter is now five, and we got her a bicycle. Her first real bicycle. It's blue with hammerhead sharks on it. Frankly, sharks and bikes both seem potentially ill-suited to her, but damned if she doesn't love it. This is the five-year-old who often prefers to simply stay home, who flees the vacuum, who spends hours on end reading, and once in a while gets on her bathing suit and jumps onto the couch to play "Pride Parade."

The first day, her birthday, she walks the new shiny thing up the ramp of our garage and onto the sidewalk. She is wearing her sky-blue helmet. She is thrilled. When a neighbor sees the bike and comments that she can follow her ride up with a trip to the aquarium to see the real hammerhead sharks, she beams, declaring, "I don't have to. You see, they are all right there on my new bike. I can just look at that."

She gets on to try it out. And she takes off. I hope against hope that she will hold on to this moment forever, like I know I will.

I don't remember a lot from my early years.  I always marvel at people who can recall minute details of, say, kindergarten during Halloween, as though they kept active journals the entire time. Me? Not so much. I definitely remember a few flashes of things. Flashes as vivid as they are brief. I remember cutting my knee open on the brick wall by the hill in our yard when I was four. I remember how that one narrow stream of blood began running down my lower leg as I stood there, staring and stunned, waiting for my brother to fetch my parents. I remember standing there all alone in those seconds, watching the blood get closer to the top of my yellow sock - my precious, favorite, rather amazing yellow socks - and I remember my stunned silence finding its way into a scream of utter terror as the blood inched closer. I remember the thud of each step as my father carried me inside, assuming my cries were from the pain, as opposed to the shock-induced despair upon seeing the red-soaked sock.

Speaking of knees, I also remember my mother putting Vaseline on my knees once, when I was even younger. She denies this, and thinks I'm completely weird for having fabricated such a thing. But she did. I know she did. Perhaps they were dry.

And while I don't specifically recall my own first bicycle launch, I do remember the first time I rode it with the training wheels off. I was probably six, and my father and I walked to the top of the street we then lived on. It was a modest hill, but a hill nonetheless. Maybe he thought I needed a little speed to remain vertical, that having to pedal too much on my own would make me tip.

We reached the top and turned around. It was so quiet and so sunny. I got on, asking what would happen. He said that he'd hold on to the back of the seat the whole time, that I would coast down the hill, working on balancing, and that he'd hang on. Seemed like an awesome plan.

I pushed off a bit, and out of instinct gave the pedals a hefty rotation. Wow, did it start to move. I mean, it was a fucking hill, after all. And down I flew. I mean I flew. Wind in my hair, shirt flapping, the whole bit. This was not what I'd had in mind. And the thing that surprised me the most, coming from the world of training wheels, was that the speed was actually increasing as I continued. I imagine my mouth forming a huge, wide "o" and my eyes equally round as I shot down the street.

Now, there are two things I was absolutely sure of. One: it was harder to steer than I thought it would be at this speed, and I was veering sharply towards the left curb. Two: my Dad was no-fucking-WAY holding on to the back of my seat. How did I know this? Because his shouts of "Turn RIGHT! Turn RIGHT!!!" were becoming more and more distant with every utterance. It wasn't pretty.

I can't say I've been all that much of a bike rider since.

It's day two with the hammerheads, and Ann and I have taken the kids to a nearby park. Our daughter is riding the bike around a fenced-in blacktop, enjoying every minute. I look down at her little brother, who has decided to hunt for a snack in our backpack, and when I look back up, she is on the ground crying.  Ann is with her, holding her, and the bike is on its side.  I make my way over and instantly see the thin trail of blood coming from her knee, running down her lower leg. She does not like the sight of it one bit.

But the patching up she does like, of course, and we get her standing and merely sniffling in no time. But I still feel sad for her. I am discouraged for her. It had been going so well, and now it hurts.  She straightens her helmet and looks around, squinting in the sun at the kids around her. She is a wonder to me. So grown up and so tiny all at once.

With a final sniff and a wipe with her sleeve she does what I think is the impossible.

So, yeah, she asks us to hold the handle bars a little more. And, yeah, she's more tentative with those sharp turns. And, yeah, she'd rather ride wearing pants that cover her knees. And, yes, perhaps she'd maybe prefer to stay in to read half the time.

But she got back on. She got back on. And I hope against hope that she will hold on to that, like I know I will.