So I have a confession to make.
Yesterday I drove down to Felton to spend the night at my dear friend Adria's house. She has a smart, savvy four year old girl, Ayla. Ayla was asleep when I arrived so Adria and I had several hours to catch up on various goals, dreams, aspirations, a few failures and in matters of the heart.
Adria would tell you she lives pretty simply. I see she eats organic healthy foods and uses cloth napkins. She has a garden where she uses the compost she's made from her leftovers. She is strong and athletic and is a female firefighter. She is independent and smart and feminine and once again made me marvel at her maturity and wisdom despite being younger in years. Her healthy natural beauty is only surpassed by her lovely inner qualities. I see this demonstrated by how she patiently and tenderly cares for her daughter. I hear this by how she reacted with another woman recently in a very trying situation. She let the amazing shared spirit of sisterhood take precedence over a wrong done to her.
I love Adria and she is one of my favorite people.
In the morning, Ayla and I played while Adria cooked breakfast. We played with wooden tangram puzzles and make-believe games of Beauty Parlor and Halloween. I was reminded with a tug of my heart how my own girls and son would play similarly when they were little. Many adventures with Barbies and Robinhood, Batman and princesses were created on Fairway Dr with my kids. We had tea parties and baking and coloring and painting and drawing, climbing, building and assembling. When my youngest daughter played Beauty Parlor with me my scalp hurt a lot more and her devilish laugh would coincide with the tight twists of the comb or the many clips. Ayla was a kinder, gentler beautician but still I remembered what it was like with fondness.
It was much chillier than we had anticipated the day before so I put on all the layers of clothes I had packed wearing bike shorts with a skirt over it, a tank top, long-sleeved shirt and a vest. I wore a headband beneath my bike helmet and though it was not sunny I wore glasses as a shield for my eyes and my thickest pair of wool socks. Adria and Ayla were similarly dressed, but only after a little struggle as Ayla was asserting her independence by choosing what to wear. Adria was a master of negotiation and soon Ayla had on leggings and layers and a cozy coat. I then recalled how I teasingly used to say I wanted to market buttons to pin on my children that would read, "I dressed myself" as a disclaimer as they asserted their independence, just as Ayla was doing.
Adria assembled a tasty lunch and packed it along with all of the gear necessary to pull Ayla on her bike trailer called a Weehoo. It's a bigger endeavor than some would attempt but Ayla, Adria and I had gone on a similar ride last month and we all looked forward to our day. I followed in my own car with my bike and gear so I could go home directly after our riding. While we were driving I was remembering the children's seat I had attached to the back of a bike I owned when my children were babies. Later it was replaced by a Burley bike trailer which I used to pull two children at times, as well as swimsuits, towels and food for the day while we hung out at the nearby neighborhood swim club. I remembered sometimes passing golfers in a nearby private golf course a development over and they would comment that I must be the babysitter not the mommy. At the time I was too tired or happy to be outside and aware they were too old to be bothered by the comments. But for today I remembered a string of outings involving my children and bikes and realized this love I have for my two-wheeled friends is not a new love, it's simply a renewed one.
Just before we started our pedaling, Ayla asked if she could eat a snack while riding. Adria complied and gave her a choice of apple slices or a healthy trail mix with nuts and a few tiny, dark chocolate squares. Ayla chose the trail mix.
We pedaled across a bridge, along the river with a few shady characters, and then past the Santa Cruz Boardwalk until we reached the path along the ocean's edge where all of the surfers were gathered. It was not as crowded on the road as it had been last month and we were traveling at a steady clip.
That is the excuse I will use as to what I did next.
The thing I did was nothing.
I saw Ayla's plastic baggies blow out of the Weehoo and onto the road. Adria was ahead and I did not want to stop in the street to get the baggie and fall behind as we had just stopped to take off a layer of clothing. There was a person walking and I reasoned with myself that they would pick up the baggie.
Still, I felt guilty. I should have stopped but I didn't.
But then it got worse.
We arrived at Wilder Ranch, now a state park. We parked our bikes and were unpacking the lunch and walking to the picnic table when Adria asked Ayla, "Where is your trail mix baggie?"
"I don't know, " Ayla said.
They discussed it further.
"Have you seen the baggie?" Ayla asked.
"Yes, I saw it," I answered. I avoided saying specifically that I had seen it blow out of the carrier and onto the pavement. Ayla was concerned about the baggie but then joined her mommy at the table to begin eating lunch. I still felt guilty.
We ate. Then we played. We climbed in the tree, walked in the magical bushes, sucked on the ends of the sour flowers and then fed the chickens. We got back on the bikes and visited the horses and saw a bobcat.
Ayla wanted the rest of her apple slices, also in a baggie. She mentioned the missing baggie. Again. She looked right at me. "Did you see the baggie?" she asked innocently.
I avoided the question with a question, "Why don't we look for it on the way back? Maybe we can find it and pick it up?"
We headed up a big hill and then when we got to the top we realized Ayla had lost her water bottle. The one with a sippy spout and stickers from Trader Joe's on it. I volunteered to go back and re-ride our path at the ranch to find it. I zipped down the hill, I rode by the tree, the bushes, the barn, the port-a-potty, the chickens, the horses and darned if the bobcat hadn't appeared next to me again next to a group of quail. He was probably annoyed with me for thwarting his hunting twice that day.
I could not find the bottle anywhere and headed up the small, steep hill toward the mother-daughter duo. And there was the water bottle, lying in the middle of the path. I stopped, picked it up and pedaled to my friends.
"Yay! I found it!" I smiled. "Now maybe we can find the baggie too!"
Please God, I prayed.
We pedaled across the railroad tracks, down a street and along the ocean's path. All along I kept looking for that baggie.
Please let me find that baggie.
And then we pedaled around a curve and there along the edge of the curb, next to the path we had ridden earlier was the baggie. This time I was leading and stopped. "There it is! The baggie!" I exclaimed.
Thank you, God, I prayed.
Now some will say it was a coincidence. Some would say it was a stupid baggie. Some would laugh, as my sister did when I told her this story over the phone tonight.
Earlier I should have stopped but didn't. I should have said something but didn't.
I've done that before in my life. Made mistakes.
But here is the beautiful thing. I got a second chance to right the wrong.
Sometimes we get a chance to right a wrong in a real, tangible way. Sometimes it is only through words. Or time. Or forgiveness, mainly to ourselves.
I got to remember today what it was like to play make-believe with my sister Laura. This time I got to remember all the good times, not the times I got angry and we fought. I got to remember what it was like as a young mommy and making lunches and snacks and packing up for adventures with a bike and Burley trailer with three kids or a giant red suburban filled with gear. I got to remember all the healthy things they ate and not the times when I let them eat something that was not organic before organic was the norm, or if I was tired or impatient, bored or cross.
I'm going to remember today as a gift of memories of childhood, being a mommy and of second chances.
Oh. And I have an empty baggie in my vest pocket that I'm going to throw away too.
