An Ace in the Spokes

Saturday night in early August, while it was still light out and Michael was riding his bike around the neighborhood, I sat on the porch and sunk myself into Steinbeck, that great apostle of the human condition. The lawn was mowed and the driveway was swept and the lawn mower was put away in its shed. I gulped a bottle of water left over from mowing duty and let the sweat dry on my skin.

Michael—our eight year old—was returning from Jack’s on his bike. He rode with a big kid attitude as the ace of hearts clothes pinned to the frame of his rear tire burped through the spokes and made his new bike sound like it was driven by a single cylinder motor. Cool sound. Fwap, fwap, fwap. And the fwaps became louder and more fervent the faster he peddled.

I gave him the five minute warning for time to come in, so instead of returning to Jack's he kept his circles around the cul-de-sac. The street light beamed through the branches of the overgrown elm and served as a spotlight he would cruise into and then out of.

The sky was becoming a dark shade of turquoise and its florescence still lit up our little part of the neighborhood. I could see him circling down toward Jack's and back to the street light. Fwap, fwap, fwap-it-ah.

He explained the card in the spokes was Tom's idea. "Well," he said, "Tom might've got the idea from his dad. But mostly it was Tom's idea. It sounds badass.” He lengthened the double-syllable, “Baaad-aaass.”

I told him I use to do that when I was his age. "You did?" He couldn't believe his dad was that playful at one time. Yes I remember when I had all the time in the world to play. That was my job and I use to be good at it. Now, I suppose now watching Michael is how I play.

From my perch on the porch I watched him Fwap, fwap, fwap around the neighborhood and could see the lights of Ward road off in the distance. Further beyond I could see the foot hills that would eventually become the Rocky Mountains that would eventually lead to Long’s Peak receding in ever-dimming shades behind the lights of the city.

I thought to myself, I can't take a big enough drink of this. Here, in this moment, my mental capacities seem small, too undeveloped to hold still and take it all in. I ache for my son to give himself with playful abandon to his imagination. And for the seeds of something great for him, his future—for the future of the world—to be conceived in this moment in time. I'm fully aware the next time I blink he'll be graduating from high school.

"Howdy neighbor" he announces to me as he Fwap-it-ah, fwap-it-ah, fwaps past our house and into the streetlight.

"Well hi there yourself" I said in an tone that matched his play. He circled up onto the driveway and back out into the street. The street was silent except for the birds and the ace of hearts fwap-itt-ing through his back spokes.

"What time is it?" he asked me.

"Oh," I woke from my dream, and looked at my watch. "It’s time to come in." I glanced down to find my place in the yellowing pages of my book that was now hard to read because the sky had become even darker.

"No, I mean what time is it?" He rephrased it to emphasize his desire for information that dignified his growing sense of self-agency.

Why do you need to know what time it is, I thought to myself. It's time to come in, isn't that enough? Why do you need some exact time? Don't you trust I have a firm enough grasp on the span of five minutes? He informed me he wanted to know in reference to the television schedule. "Oh, it's almost nine o'clock." I was more precise for his sake. He considered this and decided to bring his ride into the garage for the night.

He wants so bad to be the master of his own time. But, I still want to be the master of it. I suppose as a chaplain to the terminally ill I should know better. I sit with people and families as they come to terms with the last few granules of sand spinning around a glass vortex aimed at the bottom half of their proverbial hourglass. They've learned to appreciate each granule for its very existence and gift to them, and they've taught me to appreciate my own remaining granules as well.

I suppose that’s the answer. The granules of time can’t be controlled, but only appreciated for their existence. I recognize the granules of my own hour glass dropping all too quickly and I want to savor every one. I want to metabolize the joy and sorrow of every grain as it takes its lonely turn and falls through the thin bottle neck of my hourglass into the bottom where it will gently land and remain for eternity with the ever populating mound of those granules that came before it.

I’m delusional to think I can somehow maintain my stint as my son's time keeper, controlling its effect on his life. So, I simply sigh the sigh of my father and accept that I can’t make or manipulate these moments anymore than I can control when Michael's five minutes are up.

Instead, I’m learning to savor. I’m learning to engage in the Now, because that’s all any of us ever have. I want to develop a greater mental and emotional capacity to drink life in. Because if I can let the flavor of these moments linger long enough and deep enough, then maybe I can somehow buffer the pain of losing them.

For now I savor moments like these by writing about them. And tomorrow I’ll buy a new package of clothes pins to transform my mountain bike into a badass ride in order to cruise the neighborhood with my son.