sara + h
goodbye, summer
It’s our first real taste of independence, isn’t it. Right here, a bicycle with training wheels. Training wheels mean we no longer need a parent to hold us up. Soon we remove the training wheels, and we gain speed. With speed, we gain confidence and with confidence we can ride around the block. Around the block, out of sight of parents, we discover freedom and choice.
With freedom inevitably comes that first long hill, and the discovery of terror, and the further discovery of courage. The nose of the bike dips down and suddenly—before we’re quite ready—we’re going faster than we thought possible. We see nothing but the road, blurry through eyes squinting against the wind; we hear nothing but the whine of the tires and the feathery air whipping past our ears. Most of us survive, though we recognize it was a near thing. And we get our first real taste of mortality.
Right here. Independence, confidence, freedom, choice, danger, terror, courage, mortality—it all starts here. Right here. And it looks so innocent.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
