The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: BICYCLE

For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in THE BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann. I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?

Here are January's prompts: apron, bar, basketball, bed, bicycle, birthday, boat, broom, button, cake, car.

BICYCLE

-->

my adopted sibs
with Christmas bikes!

One of the great things about growing up in a big family (5 kids) was built-in playmates. When I was in 3^rd grade we lived in a neighborhood in Lakeland, Florida. During that summer, the rule was that we kids must be home by dark. My brothers and sister and I would take our bikes out in the afternoon, ride across empty lots, explore streets, climb trees, etc. – not paying a bit of attention to the time. It wasn't until the first street light buzzed on that we'd realize the sun was below the treeline and our time was up. We'd jerk our bikes out of the dirt and fly home. Faces flushed, hair streaming out behind us, we'd ride with the sweet taste of freedom in our mouths, and in our hearts the thrill of knowing someone was home waiting for us.