Carrie Minns

Writer & Photographer Notes on courage & beginning again with touches of food, France & the creative life.
💌 Sundays, over coffee ↓

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

By third grade, I had secured the coveted purple sparkly bike with the low-slung banana seat.

Purple tassels flew from the front handlebars. A woven white basket with plastic flowers hung on the front.

I rode that bike around my cul-de-sac and up and down the street day after day ringing my silver bike bell to let people know I was coming through.

But then Brian Hawley, a year older than me, started riding his new ten-speed bike with the hand brakes around the cul-de-sac.

Suddenly my purple sparkly banana seat bike seemed a little less sparkly.

When I inquired of my mother as to whether I could have a ten-speed bike, she asked, “How much babysitting money do you have saved up?”

I replied, “It's too expensive for my babysitting money,” and then I proceeded to beg for the bike, saying something like,

“But it's not fair, Brian Hawley has a ten-speed bike and he’s only a year older than me.”

My mom said, “Well, sometimes life's not fair.”

So, I spent the summer after third grade riding around the cul-de-sac on my banana seat bike trying to do the math on how many hours I would need to babysit at 25 cents an hour to afford the bike I wanted.

Meanwhile, Brian Hawley sat perched up on his ten-speed bike circling the rest of us like a hawk.

The start of the new school year came around, and along with it, the read-a-thon.

Being a voracious reader in elementary school, I'd always participated in it, but never really had my eye on the prize.

But this year, the prize was a $75 gift certificate to Ted's Toy Shop, and I knew in the back of that toy store was a rack of bikes, including ten-speeds.

For the next two weeks, every minute that I wasn’t at school, I had my head in a book.

Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie.

Every evening, all weekend long, reading with one goal in mind.

Usually with these fundraisers, my stumbling part was going around asking for money.

I've never been particularly good at cold calling or door-to-door sales. But this year, there was a ten-speed bike at stake.

So, despite the pit in my stomach, I knocked on every door on my street and the next two streets over asking for pledges per book.

Most pledges were for 5 cents, 10 cents, or if I was lucky, 25 cents a book. Not everyone said yes. Some people turned me down flat.

Not everyone could buy into my cause.

And then I called my granny.

I'm not sure she completely understood what she was signing up for when she pledged three dollars a book,

But I made it my mission to turn her three dollars a book into the prize-winning amount for that year's read-a-thon.

When it was finally time to hand over our pledge sheet, I had read 28 books during the two weeks and had raised $192. Granny was my most generous supporter at $84.

I still remember her laughing when I called to tell her how much she owed me. But she wrote the check.

At the school assembly that week, I was declared the winner of our annual read-a-thon.

That weekend, with my prize winnings in hand, I wound my way through the maze of tall shelves to the back of Ted's Toy Shop and pointed to the forest green ten-speed Schwinn.

After Ted himself pulled it down off the rack, I handed over my gift certificate to him.

I walked it out of the store with a click, click, click from the gears.

My dad loaded it into the car and we brought it home.

Once home, I took a few spins to get the hang of the brakes and then I headed out of the neighborhood and rode my new bike down the steep hill,

No helmet, no hands, my ponytail flying behind me, all the way to the beach near my house.

With my bike parked next to me, I sat there on a rock and looked out into the ocean, keeping one hand on the curled-down handlebar.

Every few seconds I’d glance over to make sure it was really mine.

That bike stayed with me from fourth grade all the way through college. It followed me through seven moves and five different schools.

Somewhere along the way I lost track of it. Probably part of the collateral damage of my parents downsizing into their empty nest home.

My mom was right when she said, “Sometimes life isn’t fair.” Brian Hawley’s ten-speed showed up in his driveway and mine didn’t.

But what I didn’t understand at nine years old was that “not fair” doesn’t mean no.

It means finding another way.

Looking back, getting that bike taught me much more than how to ride a ten-speed.

It taught me how to ask.
To knock on doors and hear no without giving up.
To make the uncomfortable call to Granny to tell her what she owed.
To keep going.

This week, I’m reminding myself of that before I send that email I’ve been putting off.

Before I hit publish on something I’m not sure anyone will connect with.

Before I post more videos of myself on social media.

I still get the same pit in my stomach I had going door-to-door for the read-a-thon, but I'm doing it anyway.

That feeling isn’t telling me to stop.

It's reminding me that I'm probably standing at the beginning of something worth working for.

How about you?

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

These stories! 🙌 @japan_nobunaga Keep writing! Keep going!

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

I needed my lawn mowed. I asked an American for the name of a company.

He said, "Get a kid."

A kid. Not a service. A child.

I asked which kid.

"Any of 'em."

I asked where one obtains a kid. There is no directory. There is no listing.

He said, "Ask around."

I asked around. Two days later a fourteen year old named Cody was standing on my porch.

He did not bring a mower. Nobody told me this part. The kid uses your mower and your gas. He brings arms.

I asked his rate.

He said, "Whatever."

Whatever. A negotiation had opened and the other party declined to attend.

A blade drawn against no opponent must be returned to the sheath in silence.

I put my wallet away.

So I conducted research. I asked four adults what the correct amount was.

Four numbers. Twenty. Forty. Twenty five. One man said he gave a kid fifty once and could not remember why.

There is no rate. There has never been a rate. An entire national labor market runs with no published price and every participant is somehow satisfied.

I looked up the state minimum wage. I timed the work. I arrived at a defensible figure and I paid it.

My neighbor watched this from his driveway.

Later he came over and told me, kindly, that I had underpaid.

I said the amount exceeded the legal minimum.

He said, "Yeah, but he's a kid."

THE PRICE IS NOT THE PRICE. THE PRICE IS THE PRICE PLUS SOMETHING NO MAN ON THIS STREET WILL SAY OUT LOUD.

So I corrected. I overcorrected. Sixty dollars for forty minutes.

The same neighbor came back over.

"Alright. Don't ruin him."

There is a floor and there is a ceiling. Neither is written anywhere. Both are enforced by men standing in driveways with their arms folded.

The samurai who cannot read the room dies in the room.

I have been dying in this room since June.

Cody was thirsty. I did not offer him water, because he had not asked, and a warrior does not name another warrior's weakness.

My wife told me he is fourteen and it is ninety one degrees. I now leave a bottle on the step where he can take it without being seen taking it.

I asked my neighbor why the whole street does this. Why grown men pay a boy more than the work is worth and then pretend not to have noticed.

He said, "You're not buying a lawn."

Then he went inside, because apparently that was a complete explanation.

Cody has cut my grass eleven times. He is saving for a truck. I know the exact figure because he told me, unprompted, in August, sweating, holding my own mower.

Last week a family moved in three houses down. The man came over and asked if I knew anybody who cuts grass.

I said, "I got a kid."

I heard what that sounded like. I did not correct it.

He is nine hundred dollars from the truck.

A mountain is not asked to be smaller. A mountain is walked around, at night, quietly, by a man with a truck payment he intends to make on someone else's behalf.

I have started mentioning him to people.

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

Today is the first day of me showing up here, all of me, not hiding behind my writing or my photography.

Now is the time to just do it.

Thanks for indulging me, and cheers to everyone who's taking the next step toward something important that they want to accomplish in their life.

Let’s see how this goes. 🤍

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

@marieforleo Posting on socials more…and more consistently. 😵‍💫

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

@KJP So dang cute!!! ☺️

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

@openshutter21 Beautiful!!!

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

@SAVEURMAG LOVE seeing all these print magazines!!

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

@uoregon Beautiful!! Miss that campus. 🌷

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

Something I ask myself daily. 🤍

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

So true! 😅

[National Park Service @NatlParkService]

If Monday after daylight saving had a face…

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

The edge between staying safe and stepping into something new. 🤍

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

First Monday. New month. Back to the blank page.
Not to reinvent everything.
Just to take the next small step.

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

@hannaminns @MDAndersonNews @EceEksi1 YOU are inspiring! 🔥🔥

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

The fig is a flower that blooms inward.
Not all growth needs to be seen.
Some beginnings happen
quietly,
privately,
until one day they're ready.

Good. Begin Again. - even if no one can see it yet.

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

@LewisHowes Good. Begin Again.

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

So cute!!

[▼ Kiel James Patrick @KJP]

“Happy” Groundhog Day. 6 more weeks of winter… ❄️😒🦫

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

Beginning again.

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

@EvaLovesDesign Yes! Love this! ❤️

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

@francesafetytra I love them both so much for different reasons. Two of my favorite cities!

[Carrie Minns @CarrieMinns]

Yes! 💯

[Boring_Business @BoringBiz_]

Life when you stop believing in all the doomer takes and simply lock in on your craft