Day 21: Friends Still Call To Me
This largely unedited free-write is linking up with the Write 31 Days Challenge. // indicates the start and stop of five minutes. The prompt word for today is PARK. Go!
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// Church picnics were the best. Endless hours of summer stretching into the cool of the long evenings. Eight o’clock, nine o’clock, ten-thirty, and we were still racing through the playground with other dirty children. Hair messed, faces streaked, and smiles of utter exhaustion a mile wide. So much fun that even the mosquitoes couldn’t make us stop playing tag.
Parents happily chatting together, some in lawn chairs, others on blankets; sometimes playing baseball, sometimes croquet. Grateful to be connecting with friends while kids disappeared for hours on end.
I can smell the burgers grilling. I can feel the corn splashing up my cheek as I struggle to grip the buttery mess. I can taste the ice cream as it drips down my chin.
My best friends were there, now long moved away, but still they play with me in my memories. We would run and climb and hide. Can’t touch the sand or you’re ‘out!’
Boys chasing girls. Girls chasing boys. The eternal game of who’s better at what. But secretly we liked them, and we just wanted them to chase us, so we would tease, and punch, and giggle.
Precious memories that didn’t stop with the changing seasons. The only difference was the presence of snow and ice and a frozen pond instead of sand and swings. I learned to skate here, pushing an old stool around the frozen water. Sore feet, tired legs, but we wouldn’t stop. //
As the years went by and skills increased, so did our courage and our fun. No longer were we trying to stay up, now we were trying to fall down. Crack the whip, round and round, and the lucky ones would fly into unsuspecting snow banks. Sometimes painful, sometimes funny, tears came occasionally. Again, boys against the girls―girls against the boys. Feigning injury only to do it again.
It’s now years later, and my own kids are having their time in the park. Where has the time gone?
Memories, more potent than what happened yesterday, still dance in my mind. Click To Tweet
And I wonder… have I taken them often enough to the place where memories are made? Do their memories scroll as vividly as mine?
Friends still call to me from the park.
Or have I been too busy to play?
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To read more of 31 Days of Mom Awesomeness, click here.
For more information on the Write 31 Days challenge, check out Christina Hubbard’s site!
Great write. You have a clear voice and admirable skills with imagery. Best of all is the flow. I’ll be back to read more!
Wow, that’s high praise indeed. Thank you so much! You are welcome anytime.
Have a great weekend!
Shauna, I absolutely love your writing style! I loved your story about playing at the park as a child– So engaging. Those were some of the best times, weren’t they? How I wish we could go back and do it again!! Thanks for sharing!
Visiting from Five Minute Friday #50
Thanks so much, Kaitlin! Yes, they were wonderful times. Today’s free-write made me want to go back and visit those old spots, take my kids there and show them. I’m so glad you came to visit. Heading over to #50 now. 🙂
I love reading posts about childhood days, especially when I can tell by the games we are in the same age bracket. Children now are so invisible to the parks and playgrounds. Simon says, freeze tag, and neighborhood softball seem to be a thing of the past. We would play hide and seek that lasted all day and the trees and woods are hiding places. Today children can’t be out without fear. So sad. Thanks for posting! FMF #28.
What fetching and vivid imagery, Shauna! You truly have a gift.
My childhood was rather different – I tended to escape to the hills with gun and knife and canteens until I was dragged back – but you’ve given me a glimpse of that which I missed.
#1 at FMF this week.
http://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/2016/10/your-dying-spouse-222-question-of.html
Such a beautifully and vividly written post! Loved reading every word of that and felt like I was right there with you … I really hope we can give our kids the gift of those endlessly perfect summer nights spent with friends. Thanks so much for writing!
And I thought I had a vivid imagination! You just took me on a trip down your memory lane.
Thanks for the ride Shauna!
Dearest Shauna, I read this at the weekend, but reading it again today it moved me so deeply. You know how to move both he mind and the heart with your words. How to paint such a vivid picture and capture the subtle but deep things that go on in the human heart – the wonderings, the longings, the questions. I love that every post is so “real”. I really value the vulnerability in this post. So, thank you and please keep writing!
With much love,
Kara (visiting from FMF #79)
Wow, Kara. Such a high compliment from such a great writer herself. I am deeply touched! I’m so glad to be doing this challenge with you!
Thanks so much for visiting.