While on vacation, I thought it would be cool to republish some of my favourite blog posts. Hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane. I wrote this one almost one year ago today.
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I saw him about thirty seconds before I passed him. I was cruising down the street on my motorcycle, thinking about all the things I needed to accomplish before the end of the day. I was feeling the pressure. I had procrastinated on a few things, and now I was under the gun. I had no one to blame but myself. I was frustrated.
He looked to be around nine or ten years old. He was straddling a bicycle, his right leg on the pedal, his left on the ground. His eyes stared at the ground about ten feet in front of his bike. He was focused. I could tell that he had tuned out the busy street where cars and motorcycles rushed passed, their drivers focused on all the things that demanded their time and energy.
It was a puddle that had grabbed the boys attention. It was about three feet wide. The rain that fell about an hour before had created it. The same rain that had caused me to grumble as I realized my bike would need a good cleaning when I got home. A rain that I knew was needed in Ottawa, but I wished had fallen during the night rather than when I was trying to cross town on my bike.
The boy wasn’t concerned about the timing of the rain. He wasn’t thinking about deadlines or responsibilities or anything else that was consuming my thoughts. No, the boy had only one thought in his head. I know, because I have no doubt that he was thinking the very same thing I would have been thinking about when I was nine or ten years old.
In his thoughts, he was Evel Knievel. He was staring out over a huge river. He had once chance to cross to the other side without being swept away by the rushing water. He was getting ready, psyching himself up for the world record jump he was about to attempt.
Just as I passed him, I saw a smile cross his face. It was a huge grin. It was the grin of a champion. I saw him lift up on the right foot, the one already on the pedal, as he lifted his left foot off of the ground. It was time, he was going for it.
Did he make it? I don’t know. I tried to watch in my mirror, but the mirrors on my bike are more for show that actual practical use. I couldn’t tell how the daredevil did with his massive jump, but I knew it really didn’t matter. If he made it, he would hear the roar of cheers from the crowd inside his head. If not, he would be imagining his front tire making the other bank, and a miraculous recovery as he managed to get the bike over the other side.
Suddenly, I wasn’t 43 and worried about all I had to do that day. My thoughts went from my dirty bike, the sermon I had to preach the next day, and the yard that still had so much work before it was complete.
I was nine or ten. I flicked the throttle of my WideGlide and heard it roar. I used to put playing cards in my spokes to make noise. Now, I had the real thing. I was a child again, trying to avoid the land mines that had been placed in my path. My adult brain calls them potholes, but at that moment, I was rushing through a maze of bombs in order to save the world.
It didn’t last long, but for a few minutes, I once again enjoyed the wonder of seeing life through the eyes of a child. I have a young Evel Knievel to thank for that.
Why don’t you take time to open your eyes today?
