Trees are regaining their colors; spring is almost fully sprung. Last Friday morning, in between my sips of coffee and reading of Toni Morrison’s Sula, I got a chance to have an early morning chat with my mama. Our conversations are always warming, especially now, after not seeing each other for over a year. I keep thinking about our conservation and, in many ways, my childhood. Last Friday, my sister got a bike, and I thought about surrendering to the wind.
Every year my parents took my brother and me to pick out new bikes. These yearly trips heralded the coming of spring, warm western New York weather, fresh flowers in papa’s garden, and everyday family barbecues. Our bike choices demanded meticulous care; attention must be paid to looks and feels; how does it feel during test-drive? We pretended and played around Walmart, just as we would once we got them home, just to make sure they would fit our needs.
The last time I remember getting a new bike, I decided on a Black and yellow one. It was the biggest bike I had ever had; I can still see the high seat, black pegs, large wheels. This bike, my first one as a pre-teen, was perfect. I don’t remember the bike my brother picked out, but I am sure his was equally satisfying. We chose them, and the next day our dad brought them to us. For the most part, our bikes stayed unless we wanted a different adventure, at our nana and papas house.
One house down from the corner, red bricks, and before dad passed, beautiful greenery introduced you to the most beautiful home. All my life, this house represented something so much more than a place with comfy rooms, good food, and even better love. During spring and summers, our nanas (because for some reason, we never really called it “nana and papas”) served as home base for all our adventures outside. When playing out on your block, making friends as you could, making worlds in-between homes was all the world a child needed.
My brothers — two of them, are very different but altogether similar — are roughly four years younger than I am. During childhood, Cj and I would ride our bikes, up and down, up and down church street. Then, eventually, with age and fierce determination to push every boundary, we made it around the block. Right at the corner onto 37th street; turn right again on Royal; zoom past the bars, turn on Hyde Park; ride toward the dance studio and back again onto church ave. Riding through, one beyond the other, Cj and I created worlds between those right turns.
Years before the yellow and black bike, I had a smaller one; it was blue/black with training wheels and an adjustable seat for my fast-growing legs. One day, before karate practice, I went out back, saw my papa in the garage, and I asked for my bike. He got it out just like he did every time we asked. I begrudgingly put on my helmet as I always did during those years; we hated helmets, the safety of them, and the immaturity of having to wear it. I started up the walkway between our front and backyard, making it past the bathroom window but not yet crossed beyond the side door. My Tee called out, “Bud! You still riding with training wheels?” She was correct; I was too big (feet touching the ground) to ride around still with the assistance of training wheels.
I don’t remember if papa walked behind me in the walkway, and that’s how he stepped in to remove my training wheels, or if I asked him to. Nevertheless, within ten minutes, they were gone. Dad, as we all called papa, guided me toward balance — “c’mon and focus!” — and to find the strength to push myself forward, into the wind. We couldn’t practice long that day; even though I hated karate, I still had practice. I remember dad saying, as I was pouting, heading back into the house to grab my equipment, “next time, we’ll go to the race track, and you can get the hang of it.” We never did go to the racetrack, but somehow, I still learned to keep balance and push forward.
When those wheels came off, I gained a sense of freedom I hadn’t experienced on bikes — or in life — before. Riding was an altogether cathartic and joyous part of my childhood; even through the scraps and bloody clothes, every memory I have today is cheerful. Each ride offered Cj and me a chance to create different worlds, alternate realities where we could exist as whoever we wanted to be. Growing up between New York and Texas, airplanes and aviation dominated my imagination; I wanted to fly. Every ride was a different journey elsewhere, a hop into the wind, gliding wherever it led. If I wasn’t pretending to fly for AirTran or Delta, I was day-dreaming about adult-hood — driving where I wanted, doing what I pleased; making it how I intended, only worried about which turn to make.
For so long, we were too young to go too far. Nana would stand over the kitchen sink, chat on the phone, make coffee, or prepare something, all while listening for our laughs and bikes to ensure we didn’t stray too far from home base. Eventually, as each summer passed, sometimes even as months of summer moved on by, we ventured further and further. We took left turns where we previously hadn’t; kept going when we usually turned round; sped up just when it seemed we might take flight; we just kept riding. We got to a point where we no longer wore helmets. Our egos wouldn’t allow it, and our imaginations rejected protection from the thrill. We collected scrapes and scars as reminders of our adventures — they served as stamps on the skin of adventure done well.
We started riding through alleyways, navigated alternate routes, making nana wait just a little bit longer to hear the sounds of our return. I don’t think she was worried — though if she was, we never knew — because she, being a mother who raised many, understood we were getting older. Our imaginations were more defiant, determined to discover all these new things of life.
Each ride-around built levels of anticipation as we never really knew if that one served as the last loop of our day. Sometimes we would come around, and our dad was there to take us home, the barbershop, dinner, or the mall; every trip with our dad was an adventure. Other times, our Tee was back home; my step-mom stopped by to drop something off or picked Cj up headed to nana Mary Anns; our favorite surprise was when ‘uncs’ truck was parked out front. Even to the adults, who traveled in cars and not on bikes as we did, nanas house served as home base, a return from adventure.
At some point, though, we outgrew the rides around any blocks on our bikes. Our uncle was killed, and now, at least for me, his truck parked out front served as a reminder he wasn’t ever coming back to home base. Papa died soon after, and his gardens eventually stopped blooming, almost as if the ground he worked mourn his loss just as we do. Tee moved out for a little bit and now raises two beautiful twins a few doors down from nanas. I haven’t been into the garage where our bikes once hung in years; my bike was passed on to a cousin or a friend; maybe Cj rode it for a little? I have no idea.
Back then, we were carefree boys with different shades of Black skin, enjoying the life our village provided. Our bellies never went empty, nor our head unsheltered; homes filled with sorrow and tears, but even more love saturated the air. That house on church street, which Cj and I circled, day after day, summer after summer, still calls out toward my imagination — toward surrender to the wind.
I finish graduate school in the coming months. I kinda feel as I did on that sunny day when my papa began to teach me about freedom, riding without training wheels. I feel as anxious as I did then, unsure if the wind would caress my body to hold me on balance. The knot that grew when dad claimed he would eventually let go, and I’d have no option but to pedal — to fight for my own freedom — if I wanted to ride the air is the same one silently sitting as I write this.
I finish, at a time, as it’s always been, when Black children riding around on bikes gives all pause — holding breath hoping to see them come around again. My sister, a beautifully tall, hazel-skinned, kinky-hair having Black girl, got a bike the other day. On her rides, she’ll discover parts of herself, embrace day-dreams, and ventured into a universe where everything is indeed possible. The world she inhabits is vastly different, but it still remains a dangerous place for young Black kids who dream and imagine a world where they can and will be everything; where possibilities, like turns down new streets, run over. She will ride her bike and await the anticipation of turning around. My mother will hold her breath as her last baby discovers flight in her imagination, hoping she will get to live her adventure over and over; I will continue to pray her imagination never wains too close to dreaded reality, toward the world of only right turns and helmets, of training wheels and no scrapes.
Life is more freeing than first rides leads one to believe. One goes a lot faster when you pedal toward surrender allowing the very wind to carry our beings. Sufficient is this freedom in an unfree world; that is, sufficient it is we still having babies who ride bikes and discover worlds available to them to be whatever and however.
I graduate soon, and I need to make a few turns, go too fast, catch the wind, glide, and anticipate the turn round. At some point, when my sister takes her kids to buy their first bikes (or whatever they have then), hopefully, we’ve created this world to be a place where our babies know they can and will be everything their imagination allows.
Until then, into the wind without training wheels. Sufficient is this.
