Category Archives: the view from here (Pictures!)

Here is the story my husband told me when he came home from running errands Sunday morning.

I saw a man walking his child in a stroller. Only the man wasn’t walking, he was riding a bike. Only it wasn’t a bike, it was a unicycle.

I loved the image. I wished I had seen it. It captured my imagination and my heart. First chance I got, I came in here to write a post. I wanted to share my delight, paint you a picture. I thought it would be easy, but when I started to type, I found I couldn’t quite articulate what it was about the unicycling dad that I loved. Was it the incongruousness of it? The surprise? The not-so-subtle circus allusion, coupled with my recent recurring thoughts that maybe I should run off and join one?

Yes. It was all of that… and this.

When I ask myself, “What kind of dad walks his child sitting atop a unicycle?” every answer I think of delights me. He is unconventional, playful, rooted in his life and given to flights of fancy. He does not think childhood is something you leave behind in order to become an adult, and he doesn’t buy into the conventional wisdom that we should do only one thing at a time.

And I imagine his child – so young she fits in a jog stroller – believing that this is how all fathers go for walks with their children. By the time she realizes how many adults have forgotten how to play, I hope it will be too late for her. She’ll have an oversized smile, an outdoor laugh, an awesome, untamed imagination. She’ll sing, and question, and color off the page. She’ll wear polka dots and stripes at the same time because she loves them both, and she’ll know, instinctively, that life is too precious not to spend it dancing.

I was trying (not very well) to explain it all to a friend. I was trying to tell him all the wonderful things that the unicycle dad made me think of, hope for. “You got all that from a guy on a unicycle pushing a stroller?” he asked, doubtful.

I hesitated. He was right. I was assuming a lot. For just an instant, my mind began to skip down less grand, less colorful paths. And then I remembered who I am.

…Yeah. I got all that from a guy on a unicycle pushing a stroller.