Choking herself she pulls ahead, pup's leash wraps tighter and rearranges the structure of my hand. My pinky bone is now immediate neighbors with my thumb, and I no longer have a palm.
It's misting out, the way it feels at the very edge of a sprinkler, that part of the spray you can't see. I'm glad to know nature can imitate playtime.
This isn't rain, though that's what is being said on all the couches in the houses we pass. "It's raining, let's just watch a movie and order in. Or make Bagel Bites." They have judged this wet world as not for them. That's fine by me. Me and my pup, we've got a whole freshly washed park to ourselves.
We traipse across the field. Her paws click momentarily on the blacktop loop. Cross the park, cross the street, cross the parking lot. My elementary school.
Click, click, click. Grass brings silence. "Click," I unhook the leash. We're hyper! RUN! Our legs pull us against gravity up the hill. We never get to run, we rarely get to play, and the things we do instead get us in trouble. I know why I never sound convincing admonishing, "Bad dog!"
We're atop the playground hill. I walk around the purple clambour-gym-monstrosity-thing. I turn left out of a habit I haven't practiced in years. I bend down, and peek under.
"Rebecca Houston, '98"
My handwriting is clear, with every letter a different size and on a different plane. I knew how to write, but not if you considered their rules. The pencil etch has lasted in the outdoors for eleven years. Below my name is "Nathaniel Houston, 2001. TJ Titus 2001. Steven 2008."
I turn back to the purple playset. Built for climbing. Handholds everywhere, with no sharp edges. It's all wet though, and I don't approach.
It's kinda chilly. I'm kinda bored.
Fuck it!
An upside-down metal U is big enough to swing from, so I get a running start, slipping a bit on the soaked woodchips, run and launch myself into the air, grab 1 foot above my head (grab tight! Grab tight, it's wet!), and tuck my knees to my chest. I swing through once or twice, watching my dog roll around on her back in the grass. I unfold and stomp down on the hollow purple plastic support beneath the U, to see what kind of noise it makes, try'n to knock some of the remaining puddle off, and because I felt like it. I stand up and look around my miniscule elementary school kingdom. My instincts note that the slight looseness of the bar, the 4' drop I have to fall, and how the wood chips that will slightly cushion a fall will poke and stick to my skin. It's not good for adults to miss these feelings, how the atmosphere feels when it pulls your ankles away from your grip when you hang freely, how it feels to have a metal bar pressure into your gut as you somersault and twist over it, and how it feels like a different world climbing four feet taller in an open space, without a window or other skyscrapers in front of you.
Water from the trees splatters me on the wings of a breeze, so I play sailor and am hit by ocean spray in the crows nest instead. I do my job and look for icebergs. Over by the slide there are yellow rubber footholds, and a thick quadruple braided black rope the scale the side of the enemy ship, er, gym.
'Man, that rope used to tear the bejeesus out of my nine-year old hands.' I'd end recess with hands covered in black grit, raw at grip points and still stiffly stuck in their curved grip. I remember meeting my apartment broker. Our first handshake made me feel like a lumberjack. My hand met his tiny offering, and it was like plunging my fist into a bowl of light whipped cream. His miniscule arm-ending was unblemished and ice smooth, with no resistance. It was the first time I questioned the expression "limp-fish handshake." I've hooked trout with way more fight in them than him.
I've always heard it said that soft hands like that are not to be respected because they're never done a day of "real" or "hard" work in their life. I met that man and had little respect--he'd never worked with his hands, and he clearly had never played sports (four straight rounds in the batting cages will make gripping a pencil seem like knifing an open gut wound). Yet now I know that it's not the opportunities he'd been given that kept his hands pristine and puny. He'd never cut his hands on rope playing pirates, or got splinters digging in the dirt just because he looked down and already had a stick in his hands. That man had no imagination, ever.
So, while my current adult life stifles creativity, at least I know I have it. Not only do I plan on letting it romp freely more often, I intend to use it as the means by which I may achieve my goals.
Rebecca Houston '09
No comments:
Post a Comment