And since to look at things in bloom
A.E. Housman
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
Foot to pedal, you take the seat. Push the right foot down and then the left. The wheels start moving slowly. With both hands on opposite sides of the bar, you tilt and swing with care. Left and then right. You try to find the rhythm. Halt. You panic because you’re unsure that you can still do it. You do each step again. And then again. You feel the wind brushing through your cheeks, the houses on the sides of the street blurring just a little bit. You’re moving. You remember how it feels.
Writing feels a lot like riding a bike to me.
It used to feel like breathing.
Automatic. Natural. A given, even though belabored at times.
But I’ve been holding it for months now. I can’t even recall the last time I wove words together just because, just for me.
“I think so much like a marketer now,” I told my husband a few days ago. “I used to think so much like a writer.”
My head used to be filled with questions and outlines. I was always curious about the best way to lay out a story. Start with a quote. No, begin with a question. End with one word. Finish off with a sentence that encapsulates every idea you want to convey in the entire piece. Write. Anything. Everything.
And then it stopped. It’s been months.
Restart.
I have my foot on the pedal. I’m moving, but it’s wobbly and I feel like falling (or failing — either seems apt).
But I’ve decided to keep pushing. “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving,” Albert Einstein once said. Here’s me trying to find that balance, the only and best way I know how.
Foot on the pedal, pushing slightly but with eyes on the prize. Here we go.