Going Too Fast

It's Spring in San Francisco, so last Saturday David and I took our bikes to Golden Gate Park. We went along the path we've navigated many times before, the one that suddenly becomes a steep, treacherous downhill slide.

Last year, he rode his scooter, and when we came to this valley of death he cautiously dismounted and walked to the other side. The year before, he was still in preschool and we were on foot. That time he gleefully zigged and zagged down one side and up the other, dazzled first by a towering tree, then by the echoes in the tunnel that runs under the adjoining street, then by a dandelion going to seed. That was also the time he climbed some big rocks along the path, tumbled down, scraped his knee, and burst into tears.

This year, when we got to the slide, he matter-of-factly got off his bike and walked to the other side as we headed to Stowe Lake for a row-boat ride. But later, on our way back, he stayed on the bike, whooping and hollering all the way down that hill and back up the other side only to do it again and again and again. We could have spent the rest of the day there.

And I realized how fast he's growing. He's an all-out boy now. And, for me, it's all going so fast. Much too fast.