by Brit Herz

Created on: September 03, 2009

Nothing made me feel more alive as a child then riding my bike. The wind in my hair, the cold in my nose, and that burn in my chest; all just from peddling in the cold weather. The scenery would rush by till everything just looked like a water color painting darting past my view, totally unaware of all the changes shifting through the trees. Going uphill was the only time I ever stopped to taste the air and see the colors that feel around me.

Inevitably the ground became damp as the fall grew deeper and closer into winter. I never minded that as I peddled just like I would if I were on a sidewalk in the spring. Going up a grassy hill I started to notice how much steeper it was then on most days, like it had grown over night, not worrying about if it would be steeper on the way back down. Suddenly, the peddles underneath rolled at their pace sending me flying down the hillside. I tried to stop with my heels but the wet leaves wouldn't offer any resistance.

I hit the flat ground and was sent soaring over my handlebars onto a concrete slab in front of me. A stinging in my knee told me not to look down, but I was a kid, so naturally I looked. Blood was peeking itself out of a tiny hole I had ripped in my jeans. At first I wanted to cry, not out of pain but out of shock. But then I finally looked around. I was surrounded in an ocean of reds and oranges. Yellows glowed against the dark brown trunks and there was even some green left fighting to remain on the platform.

I couldn't help myself to get up and run through the dying summer in all its jewel toned glory.

Now there are stressors that I never once knew as a child. I traded my bike in for a car, the wind for my radio, and that burn in my chest now comes from a hot cup of coffee. My office doesn't have a window, so all I get from autumn's arrival is knowing I have to drive more carefully.

But every now and then, I go to check the mail or get out to pump some gas, I actually think I feel that stinging in my knee. I can't help but stop and smell the colors.

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