Concrete Dancing

12.23.06

I awake to find that Michael's mother has fallen in the night on the way to the bathroom and cut her arm on the way from vertical to horizontal. At 88 she's tottery and my sister in law and I talk about how we try to preserve our elder's independence. We are all so "busy" in our lives we must farm out our parents to "homes" to care for them and I am reminded of my own deliquence in not nursing my mother in her final days. What is then, this thing we call famly?

I take a run in this housing development with evocative names like Wood Duck road and Morning Mist Lane and find myself at the edge of a road that bears a sign warning that imminent domain may soon extend it through the pristine farmland adjacent. I stop my job and do some jumping jacks as I look out over the rolling land, grey-green velvet folds of dried grass and strewn hay. My legs aren't used to this form of ambulation, but it feels good to sweat in the cold, feel the air and sun against my face.

We take Noah to a skateboard park and I am enchanted by these long limbed boys as they sail through the air, twisting like whirlwinds as they catch their boards underneath them, performing twists with the ease of an Alvin Ailey dancer. The concrete layout includes dips and bowls and ramps and rails and Noah's in heaven as he watches the other boys (and a teen girl) doing their tricks. He's a late starter and watches the other ones intently; we are such visual learners. Hanah and i inhabit the jungle gym; she makes me Mulagatawney stew and Jam with the sand piles and then fights off the abominable snow man. I love watching her and the other kids, various ages as they dance around each other, seemingly with a radar for crossed paths, inevitable crashes, missed connections. These are precious ages and our parks function to germinate their play, their explorations, whether paved with concrete or grass or ergonomically correct re-cycled tires. The boarders, in their silent soaring moments, raise my spirits and kindle hopes for tomorrow.