recess

|2 minute read|

On a sunday evening, the crisp air bit at my cheeks, but the trees stood still and the sky hung silent. On a sunday evening, I walked around my backyard, as if I was wandering around a museum exhibit with naive eyes, eating up the shapes and colors laid down on the patch of earth outside my door. Two purple flowers blooming on my mother’s rose bush. A lizard resting atop the fence, stoic, unmoved. The faint rumble of a car every so often, carrying someone going somewhere. On a sunday evening, I was 23 years old and I was jumping on the trampoline. The dog sharing in my joy, wanting to play too, sharing in this excitement. This was our recess.

I’ve talked about play before and the tragic nostalgia the memory can sometimes be bound in. The idea that we only play as children is far redundant. Our recess now looks different, consists of new things; growing with us as we grow up. A recess full of monkey bars and tetherball turns into a coffee break or a walk around the block. Matching the activity with our needs. A break from the stress, from the realness of reality. But can the good old-fashioned play, dress-up, make believe, still benefit us as adults? Talking and putting something into practice are far different from one another, yet this time I didn’t have a choice. On this particular weekend at my house, the wifi was out alongside the cell service. Abstaining from a doom scroll or binging Sex and the City was a choice made for me. Offline with nobody to call. But with a quick shift of mind, a frustrating thing turned joyous. I could pout or I could play.

Throughout the day, my recess had been cleaning, refreshing the space with nothing else to distract from the task. No rush to finish, not a corner untouched. As the day grew darker, the dusk swallowing the house, I opened every window. The outside bleeding in, swirling the air of the living room, sending a cool breeze up the stairs. The gust dancing upon my skin, I felt invited to be outside, join the waltz, the celebration of what lives beyond the walls of my home. Sliding my tattered flip flops on, my backyard was beckoning.  I walked every inch of grass, paused to let the bugs fly by. My dog pranced around me, excited to have another person out there with him. A recess full of wandering.

Then the promenade was boring. And the creaking trampoline, the same one that I jumped on every day as a girl, stood tempting. It’s funny how something can be so routine, until one day you look back and you don’t even remember stopping, let alone a reason why. But one day you just do, things rendered useless as a growing girl. But on this Sunday, the trampoline was my recess again. Nobody was watching me and I don't think I would care if they did. Even so, is playing performing, or a break from the charades?

My feet wet from the grass, my face gritty with dirt. Fighting to catch my breath. There was a bug on my glass of wine I left on the concrete. A drink that used to be a juice box or a Sunny-D. I walked into the house with my feet dirty and tired, like I did all those years ago. And that night I made mac n cheese like a child. To prove that really nothing has changed. To worry about school is to worry about work. Packing your lunch, picking our your outfit. It was the same in your tens as it is your twenties. A longing to forget and just do. 

But the crispness of the outside air on my cheeks, my dirty feet, was enough to satisfy my inner child. My playful self. I wasn't worrying what time it was. What I had to do still. The mess I made and cleaned inside. The emails I left unopened or what to send in a text. Because I was 23 and on the trampoline. And I laughed out of joy. And I smiled because I was having fun. 

Who knows when I'll play again but this recess was enough for me 

until we play again, 

natalie <3