The Red Swing

Last night I was sad. Just one of those run-of-the-mill sad evenings.

Since Florida's weather has been pretty agreeable as of late, I decided to go for a little walk. I stepped out of my front door intending to go left to my favorite spot in my neighborhood at night, the bridge all lit up, but since it is also in a high traffic area, I decided to turn right. As I was walking, I realized that I was going towards this little park, and in that park was a little playground that I had been meaning to visit.

So, with a plan in mind, I headed out to the playground, specifically the swings. I love swings, but I'll get back to that in a second.

The first thing I saw when I got to the park was the big jungle-gym-y type of thing. It was long, had two little swinging bridges, the part where you can try to make it across using only the hanging hand-hold things and a little area where, if you held on to a hand-hold thing on rollers, it'll feel like you're flying through the air. I like that thing.

It also had a twisty slide, a pole...and several other delights to children. The rest of the playground consisted of a seesaw (I know!!! I thought they practically outlawed those things on playgrounds a while ago due to liability issues!!!!!), a long deck looking thing on springs that could rock back and forth, a tire swing and finally...the swings.

I went to the swings. because I love swings!!! I remember in third grade, we were the ones that owned the swingset at my old elementary school. They were two sets of swings. It's poles stood out really high giving one the ability to swing really high (which was so cool!). I know there were three swings in each of the two sections, but in each section, there was a red swing, a blue swing...and I can't remember the last swing. I can't remember because it wasn't the important swing.

You know how when you go to Disneyland/Magic Kingdom, and you're standing in line for the tea cups...and the whole time you're watching each round of the tea cups in order to see which tea cups could go the fastest? It didn't matter that the ones that were going the fastest had big kids or fathers who were stronger and trying to make the tea cups go faster...no, for some reason you really wanted that tea cup that the other people had...since, yeah, it must have been the tea cup and not the people inside it that made it fast, right???

Anyways, back in third grade, the red swings were the ones to have. I don't know how we determined that the red swing was the best one that could take you higher than the other swings, but it was. The blue swings were the second best, and the other one, well...it was just for people who weren't taking swinging seriously or something, and wanted to be with us kids on the blue or red swings. When we had to share the playground with the other grades, us third graders were older than the littler kids who wanted to swing, but still young enough that we wanted to swing, unlike the 4th - 6th graders who were starting to get "too big" for the playground and were out playing kickball and other things.

That being said, my friends and I would race outside and try to grab the red or blue swings. We would then swing the whole entire recess period, talking, laughing, sailing up in the air. Sometimes we get a push or an "under-doggy" where the person who is pushing you would give you a great big push while running completely under you. But of course, we'd start out with our little game of sitting in the swing with no motion, and, without a push or putting your feet down, we'd see who could be the first one to start actually swinging. This would be accomplished by trying to rock back and forth from a still position. It was quite fun to race with my friends and see who could start actually swinging first.

I was thinking about all of that while swing on the really short swing at my neighborhood park. It was so short, that I had to curl my legs uncomfortably close or risk slamming them on the ground everytime I swung down (which happens quite a bit, you could imagine).

Being a kid was so nice. No work problems or problems thinking about the future (future to a 3rd grader is what's for hot lunch tomorrow, the spelling test each Friday, or hoping that during tomorrow's "Around the World" multiplication game, I didn't have to go up against Katie Snyder, the genius child who caught up and eventually passed our grade...well, that last one was probably just mine). As a third grader, I didn't worry about relationships or remembering to pay the mortgage.

As I swung, I leaned back and watched the star swing in and out of my view. I remembered when I loved to sit outside and my biggest fear was getting called back inside before I found Orion's Belt (because...you know that's the first constellation young Adventists learned about).

After I swung a little bit more, I explored the playground more. It was really nice and I had everything to myself!

I started feeling better after that. Its amazing how hard it is to write something like this and not mention specifics on my life and what's really going through my head. Yes, I am still finding it hard to actually share my thoughts and feelings on here. Maybe later. :)