welcome, readers & writers! thank you for your contributions and comments last week. it gives me comfort to traverse the rough terrain of this life together.
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this week's photo prompt bids welcome to spring. short story, poem or creative non-fiction ~ writers, come write with me... click on comments below to share. readers, your comments are also most welcome. here's my spin (ha!) on the photo:
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Peter pedaled patiently up and down the length of his street, from second avenue all the way to fifty-first, where Highway 33 made it impossible for him to cross. He made the loop a dozen times a day now, despite the fact that Evie worried about him. Oh, she clucked on about how his new recumbent bicycle was too low, how it was barely taller than their grandson's tricycle, how he was going to get rolled over one day by a harried mother in a minivan or a businessman on his blue-tooth, blazing off to a meeting. Peter just smiled and kissed her forehead and promised her again that he was watching, that he wasn't a toddler on the loose, but a bonafide grown-up. Eighty years old now. His eyesight was great. His scar was healing. He'd tossed that blasted heart pillow out with the trash last week. He was determined not to waste a moment of the time that his insurance company and his doctor's Harvard degree had bestowed upon him. Excercise. Rest. Low sodium diet. Hell, if he didn't have dentures now he'd even be up for flossing. Twice a day. That's how serious he was about this.
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Evie didn't know it yet, but he had a mind to ride in the Senior Sprint at the end of the summer. Sixty miles. It would suck up a lot of time to get ready for a race like that. Time away from his wife. Time not spent with his grandkids. But, and he didn't know how to explain this to them without sounding like a simpering school girl, riding his bike made him feel like a boy again. With the wind in his ears anyway, his hearing loss didn't matter, didn't even exist. When he rode past honeysuckle trees and lilac bushes, when the wind blew his hair back off his forehead, when he pumped his legs hard and threw them back for a quick stop, he was ten again. At the beginning of the long, winding tunnel and not heading for that confounded light. On his bike the world was new and he had thousands of days left to enjoy it.
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That's a beautiful take on the picture. My father-in-law had open heart surgery last fall, so the reference to the pillow was evocative. He couldn't wait to get rid of his, either. :)
ReplyDeleteIt was spring at last, and the first thing Bobby wanted for the new season was to get his bike out! after days of begging, his mother finally gave in. She smiled and followed the prancing boy round the house to the shed. She was in no rush, as a matter of fact, she was taking as much time as she could, much to the annoyance of her son. She didn't what to do this, though now that it was the first day of spring she knew she could deny her son no longer. The truth was the had hoped the boys father would be here for this. But there was no telling when he would be back.
ReplyDeleteFinally she reached the garage. "Will i still fit it? will the tiers be good?Will i have fun? Will we lose it? Oh i can't wait etc." cried Bobby, jumping up and down, while his mother fumbled at the lock until it gave way.
Bobby shrieked with excitement as the great old door was pushed open, and together they looked for the bike under boxes and crates of old toys and tools. At last it was found beneath an old dusty table that was once used to saw wood for the toys Bobby's father used to make.
Outside they hosed the bike down and screamed when they themselves were sprayed. The tiers were pumped and before long it was ready to be tried out.
Bobby proudly lead it to the road and then kicked off. He zoomed up and down the road screaming and making faces of delight as he passed his smiling mother who stood by, watching him. As she looked at him she laughed and a single tear rushed down her bright cheek as he ran to her and leaped into her ams. And there they stood on out block: the first day of spring.
Sorry to have been so absent - terrible busy combined with knee problem requiring a couple hours agonizing therapy exercises have slowed me down. But this morning the muse dropped by:
ReplyDeleteMorning daughter call
All the spokes are spinning now
Cycle is complete.
I was four, watching my brother having his picture taken by a photography student from the college. He as six... my big brother. It looked so important and fun to have someone take pictures of you. I really really wanted to do it too.
ReplyDeleteWith my kids, I take bazillions of pictures of each of them and/or together. Posing. Laughing. Playing soccer. Anything. I don't think many of the pictures are in and of themselves important... not for a school project... not the musings of a photographer... but my kids, they are always interested in being photographed. You can see it in their eyes, on their faces... I love that look, back at me through the lens.
So why is it that it seems we love the attention? The focus. The desire to be preserved in image.. capturing otherwise fleeting moments. To be loved. And perhaps that desire of the subject to share who we are... to be noticed as individuals, picked out...
Or, perhaps cause we are such big camera hogs.