February 11, 2008: Look, Mom! [Crash!]
Most afternoons, I walk around a local park.
The paved trail seems to have the virtue of being one of the few places in town where a kid can learn to ride a bike without getting killed, so once a week, I see a mother or father trotting behind a wobbling cyclist in an outsized plastic helmet.
They're always smiling, the parents, and sometimes they stop to clap. The kids, usually, are staring straight ahead with all the concentration of the pilot of the Enola Gay, biting the bottom lip and clenching the jaw.
Usually, though, the kid breaks free and starts making the loop on his or her own. Then there's a big grin of success that seems to say, "I am TOTALLY THE SHIT."
Which is usually when the bicycle crashes into a tree root.
The kid usually lays in the wreckage a moment with a stunned expression, as if to say, "What the hell? I learned this already. Damn you, God!" Then he or she gets up, sniffles a little, and totters away.
I wonder about the long-term effect of that moment on a kid's psyche. The cosmic message is clear: the moment you're feeling most good about your accomplishments, the universe is going to kick your ass.
To 18th century Calvinist preachers, that's a good message against arrogance. To me, a person who rather enjoys his arrogance, I worry that it sets kids back on their natural human mission to confound fate.
Am I overcompensating now for low self-esteem gathered from MY first bike crash? For years, I clung to a superstitious terror of the Superman theme because every time I hummed it to myself, trouble surely followed: usually from overextending beyond my abilities or permissions.
One such time, I was showing my parents how fast I could pedal my bicycle when the dog stepped in the way and I ran into him. I went flying and skidding on the pavement, and the dog came sniffing up to me--completely uninjured--as though to say, "You okay? What the fuck was all that?"
My parents took away my bike for a week.
And now look at me. Let that be a lesson to all you parents out there.
Reason #90771 I'd Be a Terrible Parent:
I'd be inclined to tell my kid after such a crash, "God's just jealous of your ambition. Try again just to piss him off."
