The Patch of Soft Sand

The third step to that led to the entrance of our milk barn was taller than the rest, and my eight-year-old legs had to stretch extra long to lift me up. But now I was on the platform, steadying my "horse," a red boys' bike that my brothers and sister had passed down to me. It was too tall for me, really, but it was ride this or a tricycle, and I was way too proud to be on a baby's toy.

And so I clasped my hands on the white plastic handle, leaped aboard and listened as the tires crunched across the dirt and small pebbles. To my left, the vision of a a corn crib skeleton somewhat long forgotten shot past me. I was on my way to conquer an enemy on that warm July day.

I pumped up a tall hill, a feat that I had just recently mastered.  But it was the long stretch of soft-sand at the bottom of the hill that always ate me up. Soft-sand was a child's bike nightmare. You hit it and your wheels sunk, lost traction, and you would fall. There's no way to fall gracefully or without getting hurt when your bike's too big. This stretch of soft-sand was in the worst possible place: at the bottom of a tall hill right before another hill. Once you hit it, the chance of making it to the top of the next crest was almost impossible if you couldn't shoot right through the sand.

I stopped at the crest, uncaring that the oversized bike braced into my groin, and I tipped my "horse" on its side. There was no need to worry about mounting now. I could jump on the pedals and coast down the hill. But at the bottom, I had never made it through.  The littles pieces of sand had rolled down there over the years to form a perilous patch of what seemed like quicksand to the biker.  Would I have to do the worst? Push my bike up the next hill again?

My sister didn't pause with the bike in the soft-sand. I was certain my older brothers wouldn't either, but they were too old for bikes. Two were married and gone, and the middle brother owned a cherry red Camero, which was beautiful. He didn't care about soft-sand, and my sister seemed to only care about boys. For me, this nemesis was mine.

To my left, a corn field. To my right, alfalfa. A sea of yellow moths lazily sunned on the road between me and the bottom of the hil. I jumped on the pedals and shot forward, clutching the handles hard as if to force my determination into something I could touch. The moths scattered as I shot through them, the sand getting closer and closer.

I thought about that moment this weekend during a conference where the author of Peace Like a River, Leif Enger spoke about the importance of place in writing. I thought about this moment, this place, this part of my childhood that seems now to be so far away. I realized it wasn't important that day if I made it through the sand enough to keep my speed and make it up the next hill. It wasn't important any more that soft-sand stopped a child from a simple bike ride.  The road is gone now anyway, the soft sand buried under topsoil, hay or corn.

What is important is that soft-sand exists in our daily lives every where. It is piled ahead of us in forms of having enough of a nest egg to retire, dealing with a child's drug abuse or mental illness, enduring cancer or a job layoff. It is the pitfalls of life, the parts that bog you down, the thing that must be mastered, the lesson that keeps cropping up until we have tamed.

I don't remember if I made it though the sand that day, or the next, or even the next summer. But one day I charged through far enough to keep my speed, keep the momentum, and I made it up the next hill without having to stop and push the bike. I conquered my foe through practice, desire and patience. Funny how that patch of sand helped me develop what I needed to thrive in the future.