saturday

Saturday, Eva, Anna and I set out to Ocean Beach. We packed Eva’s bike in the back of honky and drove off. It was hot and impressive. Eva is getting pretty good at riding that thing. All she lacks now, really is desire. This is surely my fault. I help her too much. She doesn’t want to do the hard parts of riding the bike: getting started mostly. Anna handled this much better than I did. She stood by Eva and told her she was there for support, but that she was going to have to get started and balance on her own.
Ok, Eva got started and began riding really well. I was running beside her. Ocean Beach has a rather wide walkway beside the beach; this is where she rode. About ever 50 yards there is an opening on this walkway with concrete stairs that lead to the beach.
As we approach one of these openings Eva suddenly veers as though pulled magnetically or gravitationally towards the stairs. I was just a few steps behind her, but too far behind to do anything. Eva rode straight through the opening.
All kinds of shit flashed through my head. This was sure to be a serious injury. There were a dozen foot tall concrete stairs Eva has just launched herself down. At the very least, stitches, at worst, several broken bones and missing teeth?
Well, Eva somehow realizes that this is not going to be good and at the very last second does an action hero style launch from her bike and lands about 1 ½ stairs down, prone like a rock climber hanging on to a particularly difficult hold with a curious smile on her face.
My fear turned so quickly to relief that I fell to the ground next to her laughing. I laughed so hard I peed a little bit. I certainly wasn’t laughing at what she had done, although it was funny, I was laughing at life. That split second that I knew something bad was happening showed me I knew absolutely nothing. I mean, what could be more of a sure thing than a 5 year old kid launching herself down concrete demon steps toward certain injury? Well, that’s the thing, nothing, nothing NOTHING is certain.