She didn’t want me to bring it, my bicycle. But I begged. There’s no place to ride it, she said. Oh, yes, I’ll find lots of places, I said. Living on a gravel road, my banana seat bike was always dirty. It will ruin the back of the car, she said. I’ll put down a sheet, I said. (I never remember getting new sheets as a kid. I wonder how we always had old ones in the garage.) She finally gave in as I struggled to lay flat the fitted sheet in the back of car.

My grandma was aproned and dishtoweled waiting by the back door. She looked confused when my mother pulled out my bicycle. She simply shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. Balancing it with one handlebar, I waved to my mother as she backed out the driveway.

I jumped onto the back seat, still spinning in my mother’s dust. I road from the barn to the mailbox. The barn to the mailbox. The barn to the mailbox. And then began to wonder what I had begged for. I looked around. There was no sidewalk. No bike path. I wasn’t allowed on the highway. The electric fence gated the field filled with cow pies. Still determined, I laid my bike flat. Grabbed the back ring of the seat. And pulled it under the fence — the handlebar just missing the shock of the wire. I stood it up in the uneven grass. I turned the pedals. Right foot high in the air. I pushed it with all of my weight. The wheels didn’t move. I tipped over. I put it up again. Pushed. Fell. Again. Pushed fell. So distracted by the grass stains forming on my knees, I hadn’t seen grandpa walk up behind me. His hand made stable the seat. I mounted. He lifted the back wheel. The front tire took hold and I was off. I don’t know how far I went before getting stuck again. But he pulled me out. Pushed me off. Again and again. Exhausted, and completely unwilling to admit it, I stopped at the machine shed on the other side of the field. I watched him pick out the tools he needed. I looked back at the house. Then back at him. The thing I remember the most is, he didn’t make me ask. He picked up my bike and secured it on his shoulder. We began walking back to the house.

Do you know what my name means? He asked. Grandpa? No, he said, Hvezda. No, I said. It means Star. That’s nice, I said smiling. Some changed it, he said, when coming to America, they thought it would be easier. It’s easier to spell, I said. He agreed. But you didn’t, I said. Nope, he nodded. I already knew what it meant, he said, and that was enough. I smiled and agreed. Perhaps we both saw the uncertainty (but beauty) of my road ahead.

I don’t know what it is, that makes us choose. That makes us decide on a path. What makes us get up over and over again. Determined, on the uneasiness. But I keep choosing it. Ever hopeful. I guess I know what it means to me. And it does mean something! It means so much! So I will choose it again and again. The silent h and the long v, keep pointing me to the unchartered path. And I still believe.