"In my late 20s I learned..." something I could have should have might have wanted to learn when I was a small child except that Dad died. The bike came the year I stopped believing in Santa which was because of the bike which could not have possibly fit down the chimney. The bike: I couldn't quite get the hang of it despite his efforts and then he died. He died and Mom couldn't help me learn either. So the bike went in the garage until it was too small. Besides, no one bikes in LA in the 80s anyway. All through my middle 20s C. wanted me to learn how to ride a bicycle. When we met he had the John Deere tractor green bike that he rode on those steep Tacoma hills. Except when I came through the park to his apartment and we walked to work together. That was how everyone knew we were a thing, us walking together, him with the hand-painted green bike. He tried to take me bike shopping. I was terrified of being that far off the ground and of moving at a speed faster than walking. Looking out the window of my first office, first real grown-up profession, and he's on the phone explaining how, no -- really-- I have to see this bike it's totally different from all the other times -- five -- six -- seven years of "you should get a bike." But really -- it is different. The bike is different, the shape of it isn't so scary and maybe by then I'm different too. Because I get on and after a wobbly how-do-I-start-this moment I'm moving and pedaling and somehow the whole thing stays up and is a sort of miracle not unlike flying.