I still have the scars from the first trip I took without training wheels down the hill of Van Dyke Road. The majority of the road was more than flat. It’s still curious to me why I started with the hill. Of all my virtues of youth, patience wasn’t one of them.

The immediate speed that gathered in wheel, pedal and handle bar shook my sunburned shoulders, all the way down to my bumpered shoes. And within all that impatience, I was not taking my bike for a ride, it was taking me. I can’t tell you the amount of off-brand Band-AIDS it took to try and teach me the opposite. 

I’d like to think I’m getting better. It would be hard to label it virtuous, but I see it growing, bit by bit. 

I have begun using water soluable oils in my sketchbook. Mostly because they wait for me. They don’t dry up instantly. The colors of the woman painted the day before sit patiently to be birded the next day. And the handlebars of my palette don’t shake beneath me. And the ride is smooth. And the lesson as well. 

I know the furious speed at which you are trying to get over and around. I have traveled that wind and hung on for dear life. But the dear life I found came only in the quiet slowing down. The letting go. No longer rushing to get past, but easing my way through. And the peace. Smiled. Knowing it had always been there, as I whirled. Peace, sitting quietly next to joy, and hope, and OK now. There, there.