swingsets

I love playgrounds, even though when I mention that about me or say it outloud or even write it down somewhere, I feel weird saying it, like I'm some freak or something. But they represent a unique piece of life, a fleeting moment of childhood, a fantasy world that never exists again once you outgrow it. Think about it, close your eyes, see the bright paints of metal rings, the clinking of chains holding a swingset, the length of the slide when you read the top of the ladder, half sunken tractor tires, their rubbery smell, the small streaks of black that rub off on your fingers, jungle gyms, hanging by your hands, the wildflowers that grow around those places, the old woodbeams that make up some obstacle course. The fun that we had.

And now, those places and playgrounds are vacant lots to our minds, once played in, but abandoned. Weeds rise high around the bottoms of the poles, the dirt scuffed from your feet dragging under a swingset not muddy and cake dried. The slide doesn't seem so long anymore or so high. Those rubber sunken tires aren't magical getaways - my first kiss was inside one of them; no, they are just sad dried out tires. Everything smells like rust and flaking paint.

What happened to us? When did we forget? I try to remember. In fact some of my favorite memories of people and places and me are in playgrounds, even as a grownup. On tour up in New England, illegally swimming and bathing in a pond, running out of it through a playground as the lifeguard chased us. My first ever injury was in the same place my first kiss was. My first fight and foot race, too.

There is this one playground and park in Mobile, Alabama that holds some sort of supernatural sway over me. Takes me back to some far away place. It's large, it has a huge open field and pond and ducks and swings and it. I have some of the best memories there, and some of the worst. Dread, hope, smiles, almost tears, sunsets, and then sunsets (you know the difference).

And that last thought reminds me of that Thrice song "we move like swingsets". And that brings me back to how we sway and blow in the breeze, and how effortlessly we go here and there. We swing back and forth, and we are at our best when making someone smile and happy. Moving like a swingset.