Bikes and Butterflies

My bike is pretty ho-hum. Except for the double wire basket I have on the back.
The basket prompts the neighborhood kids to sing 'dunt-ta-dunt-ta-dunt-ta-dunt...dunt-ta-dunt-ta-dun.'
I laugh and call out to them, 'I'll get you my pretty and your little dog too.'
It's all in good fun. They know me to be far from the wicked witch of the west...but who can resist the teasing with those big ole baskets.
I love them though. I bike for fun, not for sport. It brings out the kid in me.
Sometimes I'll ride up to the store and tote dogfood or teabags back in those baskets.
The baskets are big enough, so that sometimes I will toss a blanket and some food and drink to take to the park.
Sometimes, I'll take it to the creek and bring it back with the baskets filled with rusty tin cans and broken glass bottles that I have found down in the water.
I love my bike just as it is...ho-hum and all.
But IF i were to customize it, I think I would give it some big butterfly wings.
They would sit upright between the two baskets, as I pedaled along, just as a real butterflies wings sit straight up when it stands.
The wings would have psychedlic cleopatra eyes on them in shades of yellow and orange, teal blue and mint green, purple, pink, white and black.
And when I parked my bike, I could lay the wings down over the baskets and have my very own traveling butterfly bistro bar...
I could meet the traveling Beach Party and The Captain next year on their bike run down by the water.

So there he was…paranoid yet prepared.
Helmet on.
Big toes, escorted by little piggies, on black plastic teeth.
Excitement met anxiety in his eyes...unsure of his situation
The training wheels had just been popped off.
One steadfast and supportive hand held the back of his seat.
‘Okay Now! Pedal!’
‘No-wa-oh! I’m afraid.’
‘It’s okay, I have the back of your seat. You won’t fall.’
‘Only...but if.... if I my bike starts going…fast?’
‘I will be running right beside you. See my hand. I’m right here.’
And so he began to push…
Smiling…
Escorted…
Feeling Free…
The hand fell away and he didn’t realize he had been let go.
He pushed on, in his new found freedom, pushing himself right up the hill.
In a momentary glance, he realized he was alone.
He veered.
No one was holding onto the back of the seat.
He wobbled.
No one was running beside him.
He began to cry out that he couldn’t do it.
The sense of betrayal could be heard in his voice...
Words replacing the hand that had once been at his backside
‘But you are doing it! Keep pedaling son! Keep pushing!’
And so he did.

Sometimes in life we all need a hand, if not to push us, to remind us that we are not really alone.
And sometimes in life we just need to think, feel, believe that someone has got our back in order to learn that we can do it all on our own…