You were in flight with my heart

You’ve been struggling. I know you have. Distracted. Busy. Full of energetic inquizity. When you sing, you sing. When you run, you run. You jump and hop and want desperately to seize upon the rudest word possible and set it off like firecrackers in the quietest of rooms. And oh my, you are so six. And oh my, the adults around you can barely keep themselves sane, and you know it. You giggle and do that in-your-face roar like you do, and poke the kid next to you, and I know that you know deep down that not everyone is happy with that, and you don’t know why. And so we come to yesterday. A hot afternoon. You were still in soccer cleats and pads. But you suited up to ride your bike and you did. Badly. Not your fault. Those training wheels, once friends, were foes, and I wondered if you were ready. But everything about you is ready. You are so ready. You are like water spilling over the edge of Niagara. You are like a rocket raging furiously against the earth shuddering before it rises. So I took off those wheels and we walked back into the road. You did not hesitate. Then you are in your seat, and we are running together, and then you take over under my hands and I stop running and let go. And you did not stop or look back. You were in flight with my heart. Wow! Wow! Look at you. Fireworks! And when you came back, we high-fived, we were two boys who just made fire, we waved our arms, we were kings in the street. Wow! I hope you remember this tonight when you’re doing those sums of all things alone in your bed, when you’re counting all the words and images and thoughts and things, and planning your escapes and adventures. I hope you store this golden shiny thing in your heart and take it out just to look at it in the hallway light. I hope I find it curled in your sleeping fist when I check on you, so I can set it on your bookshelf and admire it too.