Look, Ma! No Hands!

Any normal person might look at this picture and say, "Hey, cool, a bike," or "Must be fun!" It might even invoke the sentimental trip-down-memory lane kind of response, "Maybe I should take my bike out of the shed and start riding again."

I am not sentimental about riding bicycles. In fact, I am a little afraid and embarrassed. The closest I have come to bicycles in more than 20 years is this bicycle print, blue and white, shirt-dress currently hanging in my closet, and my 2.5 second attempt to ride a co-worker's bike in the driveway of our office three summers ago. During that same summer, in my failing attempt to try

something new, a good friend purchased a bike from her co-worker for $5 on my behalf. My dear friend suggested we could ride our bikes together. That $5 bike sat in my friend's shed for three years until it was time for her to move; she gave away the bike, I never rode the bike, and she never got the $5, plus interest and storage fees I owed her. Sorry, friend, you know who you are.

There isn't any traumatic event from my childhood that has prompted this great hesitation. It's just good old-fashioned fear of the unknown mixed with a dose of insecurity about sports-like activities. The masses of other bikes, crazy traffic and hundreds of pedestrians on the street doesn't do much to calm me, though. But now it seems the whole city of Beijing is chanting in my ear, "ride the bike, ride the bike, ride the bike..." in Mandarin of course. Although the language barrier has helped me to ignore their pleads for this long, it's time for me to ride among the masses, however self-conscious I may feel.

So, here we are, with the first bike I have owned since I was seven years old. I suppose it really is just like riding a bike, except that my childhood bike had foot pedal breaks and streamers. My new bike has a basket and a bell, which come in handy for letting cars and others know that I can't stop or else I'll topple over and spill the contents of my basket or worse.

I look forward to the day I can look back with sentiment and ask, "Remember when we used to ride our bikes through the streets of Beijing?" For now though, it's remembering to use my hands to break instead of my feet, while keeping my physical self balanced with my emotional self.

Just. Keep. Breathing. I mean, peddling.