I thought my morning walk would be more interesting if Michael and Alice were riding along beside me on their bikes, or ahead of me, or behind me. There is just a long stretch between my house and the Children’s Hospital, my preferred walking and exercise route. So we walked their bikes across Crowchild Trail, but when we got to the church parking lot, suddenly there was this big patch of black pavement, split into four large sections – west of the church, east of the church, north of the church and then the corridors that connects all of them. Of course they wanted to be turned loose there. The parking lot has huge iron gates that are mostly closed, so the chance of cars coming in there is next to zero. Walking that pavement may not be the perfect ground for me, but watching them ride their bikes is more entertainment than I had thought it would be.
Alice can’t help but try to keep up with Michael: his spins, his braking, his exploration of the lips that slide off of sidewalks onto pavement, the breaks on the curbs that give him space to ride on the just beginning to green lawns.
If he tries them, she has to try them.
One of her accidents was more than she could bear and she wanted me to call her mom to bring the car and get her.
There was blood. No shredding of the knee of her leotard, but her knee beneath the leotars was bleeding from a cement scrape. I did have Michael at my side, wondering why I don’t always carry band-aids. Apparently his mother always does. He is like the voice of a conscience that I no longer wish to carry.
Michael rides until he is breathless, back and forth on the pavement, and then spilling onto the lawn, splayed out there, resting, arms stretched out on the grass and his legs straight down. I go over and show him how he can bend them up and get a little relief for his back. He complies and then must like it for he stays that way while he catches his breath.
On the way home Michael pedals ahead of us and beats Alice to their front door. That fact is worse than the spills Alice has taken in the parking lot. She wants to be first at least part of the time. Her flood of tears begins just as we pass the coffee bistro on the corner. Like clockwork wailing begins just at that curb. Some of the outdoor patrons idly drinking coffee stare at us. There is nothing I can do, though it looks like I am the cause of her unhappiness.
I have watched her carefully as she rides, each knee just barely missing the handle bars and her shoulders are crouched down. That bike is not going to last her the whole season, though it is hard to know when to get her a new bike. At her rate of growth, she just barely gets comfortable on a bike before she has outgrown another it and needs another set of wheels.
Arta
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| Our Back Yard April 28th a day we didn't go biking. In fact, it was hard to find the bikes under all of this snow. |
If he tries them, she has to try them.
One of her accidents was more than she could bear and she wanted me to call her mom to bring the car and get her.
There was blood. No shredding of the knee of her leotard, but her knee beneath the leotars was bleeding from a cement scrape. I did have Michael at my side, wondering why I don’t always carry band-aids. Apparently his mother always does. He is like the voice of a conscience that I no longer wish to carry.
Michael rides until he is breathless, back and forth on the pavement, and then spilling onto the lawn, splayed out there, resting, arms stretched out on the grass and his legs straight down. I go over and show him how he can bend them up and get a little relief for his back. He complies and then must like it for he stays that way while he catches his breath.
On the way home Michael pedals ahead of us and beats Alice to their front door. That fact is worse than the spills Alice has taken in the parking lot. She wants to be first at least part of the time. Her flood of tears begins just as we pass the coffee bistro on the corner. Like clockwork wailing begins just at that curb. Some of the outdoor patrons idly drinking coffee stare at us. There is nothing I can do, though it looks like I am the cause of her unhappiness.
I have watched her carefully as she rides, each knee just barely missing the handle bars and her shoulders are crouched down. That bike is not going to last her the whole season, though it is hard to know when to get her a new bike. At her rate of growth, she just barely gets comfortable on a bike before she has outgrown another it and needs another set of wheels.
Arta
Such a sweet post about bike riding and growing up. I hated learning that I would never catch up to Rebecca's grade because she would always be three years older than me. I love Michael's daring. I love Alice's determination.
ReplyDeleteWhen I take the two of them, Betty looks longingly at us leaving. I just have to tell her that she has to wait until she is old enough to ride a two-wheeler and then she can come and have the fun as well. The fun?
ReplyDeleteFalling? Scraping your knees? Having the biting Alberta wind in your face all of the time you are riding west? Hands freezing on the handlebars of your bike, because you lathered your gloves in wet snow just as you left the house and before you got on the bike?