I learned to ride a bike when I was around 7. I remember my dad, having watched me trailing my friends on their two-wheelers on my Big Wheel, announced it was time. 

But I was happy on my Big Wheel. Some part of my brain had just accepted that being on a two-wheeler was something others could do, but not me. 

"Oh yes, you can!" he said. "I KNOW you can." 
"Really?" I replied. I just wasn't so sure.  

One evening, he wheeled the "Desert Rose," out of our garage. We made our way to the middle of our quiet street and he steadied my new ride, while I perched myself on its banana seat between pedals that seemed impossibly far away.  

Ready?! Ready?! He called? 
No, I was not ready.
He gave the bike a shove from behind and down the street I coasted. 
"Steer!" "Steer!" he repeatedly yelled as he ran alongside me. 

I ran straight into the curb and fell over. Dad gave me a look that I now read as care though at the time saw as unfounded confidence in my capabilities.
"Let's do it again!" he exclaimed." "Really?" But I had failed. I could have hurt myself. 
"You almost have it," he said. "You're so close." 

I reluctantly did it again, and again, and again. And eventually, I was able to coordinate steering and pedaling.  By the end of the night, I could hardly believe it, I could ride a two-wheeler. I would be riding with my pack of friends upright down the street and no longer bringing up the rear. 

This embodied memory is like a Riverstone I turn over and over in moments of uncertainty.  

How many times have I looked at what others are doing and thought, not me, never me. Sure them, but not me. 

Having just one relationship where someone believes in you -- where someone sees what's possible before you can fathom it is an experience a body can build on. 

With the release of my book next month, I've been holding on to this smooth stone of memory.

In my day-to-day, it feels as if I am perched on something perilous. I'm afraid to fall. Afraid I'm moments from something cataclysmic.  But my body has been here before. It knows this gripping across my throat and anvil in my belly. 

It knows the energy that runs through the body as we extend to new horizons is too quickly named as fear. My father gave me a shove and the worst happened. I crashed. I fell off my bike.  I failed. 

But that look he gave me did not affirm the defeat I internally felt. Instead, his eyes communicated joy and excitement. And why not, he was teaching his daughter how to fly.