Thursday, August 25, 2016

August 25: Outline of My Son's Day, Justin Runge, "Outline"

My son got his first two-wheel bike this afternoon.  A neighbor was having a garage sale, and there it was.  Blue with hand brakes and a bell.  The neighbor adjusted the seat for my son before I got home.

When I pulled up in my car after work, there was my son sitting on his new bike.  He'd been waiting for me.  I changed out of my work clothes, and then I helped my son take his first ride.  He was unsteady, nervous, kept saying "Oh, gosh!" when he felt himself leaning too far in one direction.  My wife took pictures.

The bike is now parked by our front steps.  By the end of the weekend, my son is going to be riding it like a pro.  That's my prediction.  It is one of those life-changing moments in a kid's life--a step toward independence.

That's the outline of Saint Marty's son's day:  two wheels and wind and pavement.

Outline

by:  Justin Runge

I sneak in, partly to escape the strange room where I wake, but also for this—thin fifteen minutes of my father. It's night for me, but his morning. The shower is two doors away. Then he's a dark dressing shape. A belt buckle's clank. A cough, a yawn. Everything of our house that creaks. Then a drone down the street that I follow to its vanishing.

I'm in the theater as the sun sets. Night is an idea outside of us. We beckon black. We wait to enter. And when I hit my mark for the final scene, nearly bedtime, there he is, through the murk of auditorium, a shape again, the only audience member. It's how he reappears. I open my mouth. There's a song in there.

First bike ride--me and my son

1 comment:

  1. Ah, first bike! Mine was pink with the very important banana seat, and those plastic streamers hanging from the handle bars. Memories.

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