Wagon Wheel

In our yard was a wagon wheel, an old-fashioned one, made of wood and metal - a wooden inner wheel protected by a metal outer wheel. The wheel was attached to its axle, and the axle was sunk into the ground. But it wasn't straight up and down. The axle pointed up toward the sky at an angle, and so, of course, the wheel also sat an an angle, and the angle was such that one side of the wheel touched the ground and the other side was about 18 inches high. 


To me, this wheel was meant to be ridden. And so I tried. Sitting on the higher end, I lifted my legs, hoping to swing down and around (and perhaps up again?). It never worked very well. I cleaned away the weeds and grasses from around the wheel. I tried to reposition it so that it would be level and I could just go in circles, pushing myself with one foot. I tried twirling it around in hopes that it would become a better swing, or slide. All of my efforts were in vain. 

The old wagon wheel
Photo by Tom Allen

As a swing or a slide the old wagon wheel was an utter failure. And yet, I returned to it again and again over the years, trying in one way or another to get a usable ride. Summer after summer, the wheel was there for me to try again. We had a long and engaged relationship, for I returned even when I was long past the age of swings and slides and far to tall to even think of making the old, abandoned wheel into a ride. Now that wheel is embedded in my memory and in my soul, but not by itself or alone, for the wheel, sitting in our yard above the marshes, is joined forever with the wide-open sky, the trees lining the stream and rimming the western edge of the yard, the birds winging across the sky, and the summer breeze riffling through my hair.