“I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going.” – Maya Angelou
Riding bikes with my kids has given me a new appreciation for the learning process. That is to say, I’ve come to see “two steps forward, one step back,” in a more growth-minded way.
I bought eight-year-old Miss O a bigger bike (24 inch wheel) with gears. She hopped on and owned it. It was like she aged five years in that one move because it was bigger and sat her up higher.
As a result, four-your old Mr. D got her old bike, a medium sized bike (18 inch wheel). I moved the training wheels over from his small bike. But even with training wheels, he got a huge boost in confidence and speed from having a bigger sprocket.
We’ve spent the week riding everywhere and in all sorts of conditions. We’ve gone round the block so many times we must have worn a groove. Then one night we rode around our local little lake to get pizza. The next night we went up the hill to get pie. All the while, I’m riding behind Mr. D watching him wobble back and forth before he gains his balance, my fingers crossed that the training wheels will hold.
Then, we got the small bike out of the garage to pass on to another kid in the neighborhood. Mr. D hopped on his old bike, now without training wheels.
I held the back of the small bike for a moment. Before any of us could really think about it, Mr. D took off – riding the bike without training wheels. So, Miss O and I took turns running up and down the block a dozen times holding the seat for the start until Mr. D mastered that too.
All this has made me think of the rhythm of growth. Sometimes you have to go back a step to see how far you’ve gone.
It makes me think of the feeling I get when I go back to the town where I went to high school. With the swirl of old memories all around, it’s easier to see where I’ve grown.
Or when I dust off an old favorite recipe and discover how I’m better at trusting the timing.
Or when I hike a familiar trail and feel the burn of my muscles within the certainty that I can make the summit.
Or when I re-read something I wrote years ago and I can discern how it’s gotten easier to put my authentic self on the page.
Sometimes we have to go back to figure out how much we’ve learned.