Just like riding a bike...

The other day I was at my parent's house, playing outside with my four year old niece, Roo, when she asked if she could go ride her bike. She has a Barbie bike, pink with a cool little Barbie plastic bike you clip onto the handle bars where the Barbie can ride with you. She's on the training wheels at the moment, but man, can she get around! Anyway, she wanted her Aunt Nainy to ride with her. I kind of laughed when she said this and went "oh, sweetie, Aunt Nainy hasn't been on a bike in years. She might hurt herself!" But my mom insisted, saying that they pulled my old 10 speed bike from the shed, and my sister was riding around on it the other day, and it still works just fine. So, after much discussion, I decided to get on that bike and try it out.

Of course, I wasn't really dressed for it. I had on my work clothes, but I hopped on and pedaled after Roo, who was speeding off down the court. "Follow me, my Nainy!" she squealed. Man, it was a rough start. I wobbled all over the place, but eventually I got my pace and started to enjoy myself. It was a lot of fun! And it got me thinking, it's funny how those things you used to do all the time but haven't done for years, like riding a bike, can come back to you easier than you think they would.

Like music, I've been back to playing my viola for about 2 months now. It's come back to me a lot easier than I thought it would. Those seven years of playing in school must have stuck with me. True, I have my shaky moments, but I'm picking it up the best I can. And I'm loving it along the way. I find that it's become a huge stress reliever, too. When I have a bad day or am in a grumpy mood, that seems to go away after my 30 minute weekly lesson.

And writing...in school, I used to write all the time - poems, short stories, and I wrote for the high school and college newspapers. After law school, most of my writing turned into legal briefs, and it's been that way for the past five years. I thought coming back to writing would be really tough, but amazingly, it's come back to me as if I never stopped. I'm nearing chapter eight of my book I'm writing, and I love it. It's cathartic, and it gives me something to look forward to.

So I guess that adage of it's just like riding a bike is more true than I thought it was. What about you all? What sorts of things come back to you easily, just like riding a bike?