As part of the insane preparation for my Furman life, my mom and I have established two things: 1) I'm going to need my bike to Furman to navigate around campus. 2) In order to make #1 happen, I'm going to have to remember how to ride a bike. Listen carefully. I'm not saying that I can't ride a bike because once upon a time I could. Instead, I'm saying that once upon a time I rode my bike all the time and then I took a short break of about four years from bike riding and then I was gifted with a new bike that leads me to another story of once upon a time I relearned how to ride a bike in a matter of two days and on the third day I had a most beautiful and horrendous bike accident and since then my bike and I haven't really seen each other eye to eye if you know what I mean. "I'm going to conquer this hill," I keep telling myself. Metaphorically and literally. The last time I rode my bike was the summer after freshman year when a close friend of mine asked me to go with her on a bike ride. I relearned the basics by circling back and forth around in my driveway, but I now see that I was nowhere close to going on a "real bike ride." Believe me when I say that I've learned my lesson about taking things slowly and in moderation. From that one bike accident, I learned some great lessons: 1) Don't expect to be an expert on something especially if you've spent only three days relearning basics. 2) Don't try to conquer a massive hill--scratch that--don't try to go down a particularly steep hill if you haven't mastered the concept of braking yet. 3) Certainly don't go down that massive hill in your neighborhood that has been dubbed "suicide hill." Bad things will follow. 4) When you go down "said" hill, avoid panicking when you start dangerously accelerating toward an intersection with an oncoming car speeding ahead to meet you. 5) Brakes are certainly better tools used to stop than suddenly steering your handlebars so that your front tire is perpendicular to the direction you are still accelerating. 6) Newton's Laws of Motion aren't very courteous to people who go flying over the handlebars of their bike and grate a good portion of their elbow on the pavement smack dab, right into the middle of the intersection. 7) Moderation. Moderation. Moderation. You can't rush the learning process. This time, I'll conquer that hill. I'm hopelessly optimistic that I can relearn how to ride a bike before I get to Furman. I may crash a few times before I get it right, but I'll pick myself back up and I'll keep moving forward.
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AuthorKendall Driscoll is an accomplished writer/ musician/ artist/ academic scholar. Archives
May 2015
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