I received my banana seat bike for my birthday the end of March in my sixth year on Van Dyke Road. Minnesota’s winter had yet to let go. Yet I bundled and booted and climbed aboard. I had trained for this all last summer and fall. The baby bike that I had learned on, with its stabilizing wheels, hung from a carpenter nail in the back of the garage, waiting to be passed along to neighbor or cousin. The slush of snow, salt and gravel spit from the back wheel, leaving a streak up my down jacket. But perched on the flowers of the vinyl seat, and led by the same pink, blue, green and yellow florals of the basket, it never felt more like spring. 

I never gave a thought to the weather, nor the whether… everything was yes! I suppose it has to be. How else would we get back on that bike with skinless knees and elbows? This is what I try to hang on to. Hang on to the slippery handlebars of youth. With no grasp of maybe. Not waiting for spring, but tethering it to my waist and dragging it in. 

The countless training wheels have been passed on again and again. There is no turning back. Only forward. I look out the morning window, and know I, we, must spring!