Play, Play, Play
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
Big, blue sky. Yellow sunshine. Jumping on my shadow. Raising my arms. Watching the long bends fall to my side. Throwing an inflatable ball into the back basketball goal with every hope that it will go in. Sweet smells from new flower beds and budding plants floating to my nose, just arriving on the gentle breeze. I had a toy batmobile with two slots for Batman and Robin. I pushed that around the sand and what spilled on the pavement.
Those are the toys you look back on and wish you’d kept, not for value but for memories. Passing airplanes meant something. They were wonders and you’d stop and watch them along with the floating cotton. You were drifting, too. With nothing to do except play, play, play.
I remember the spring weather being weightless, like this, when I was about five. The ground was just beginning to warm. Mowed lawns were fresh again. The wind on some days was light. You could almost smell the sunshine. Soft, soft weather, and light. Mid 80s and birds singing.
I remember playing in a sandbox, swinging on a swing, nothing more to do than to dig Hot Wheels into the sand and make shapes with plastic buckets and hand-sized rakes. I was so innocent, but didn’t know it. I was so careless, noticing nothing but the natural world, always present. The next, nothing to do but play, play, play.
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Wife says, “The kids are outside playing.”
Kids say, “Daddy, let’s go to the park.”
“Daddy, I’m gonna go up the slide. Will you catch me?”
Yeah, let’s got to the park. Yeah, let’s play. Of course daddy will catch you.
Dad says, “Boy, the sky sure is blue.”
