With a little hint of Spring in the air today and seeing that the local bicycle shop in Pleasant Valley had their great inventory out for sale today, I wanted to repost this message that I wrote last May.
Tonight, as I was making my way home, I saw a pure reminder of childhood. As the evening rush hour traffic crawled east on 44 right before West Road, right in front of the bicycle shop, I saw a girl about 10 years old whose was walking a brand new bike to her parents car. She could not contain her excitement as the bike was being placed in the back of her Dad’s car. She was waving to the cars that were waiting to turn onto West Rd. The smile on her face was so broad. I’m happy that I saw this. The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get sick and get crippled. People lose their way, for one reason or another. It’s not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. You don’t know it’s happening until one day you feel you’ve lost something but you’re not sure what it is.
It just happens.
These memories of who I was and where I lived are important to me. They make up a large part of who I’m going to be when my journey winds down. I need the memory of magic and I’m glad that there was a little girl and her new bike that made me see and remember that magic.
The Valley Viewpoint 