Twenty Seven Years of Excellence: Day One
2.1.2008
It is the first night of summer as the seven of us topple out of Cherry, Megan's 1980-something mini van. We can still smell the hot plastic on our driver's licenses and it is at this moment that we have left two years of high school behind us. Melissa and Paul find solitude briefly in a tunnel slide while I am skipping across a field wearing my long, white wedding dress. I am holding Marty's work shirt behind me by the sleeves and it balloons behind me like a parachute as I come in for a soft landing. Burlington park, later to symbolize the park of my adolescence, is settled between small, glowing homes and the Burlington rail road tracks that roar as the freights pass on toward Chicago. We are singing- loudly- and keeping one eye out for the park police who tend to shoo us away from grassy plots of land and swing sets after dark. It is I who plays the naive one when the cops show. I have the role well established, bashfully blinking and all. "But I didn't know the sundown rule. I'm so sorry." My one illegal act throughout high school: loitering in parks after sunset.
Melissa is trailing toward the swings and I join her. We are married- our swings in perfect rhythm that I will learn is so hard to translate into real life relationships. For now, we are perfectly matched. I watch our shoes rear up into the starless sky, any indication of planetary life blocked by light from the street lamp. We are singing again- welcome to the old apartment. this is where we used to live- and I dip back on the downswing causing my stomach to leap in bounds. Melissa is laughing, Megan loiters near a tree, Paul & the others sit inside a shrub giggling, and we couldn't feel more free. It is summer and we all have each other for every single adventure we can think of.
Above: Me finding a swing at work and... gasp... spending 10 minutes swinging on it. Photo taken by a patient with a polaroid camera. Sigh. "Since when did this place become Sybaris ?"- Bill