As I listen to the click-clack click-clack click-clack of a scooter on the sidewalk, I’m taken back to a less complicated world.
\nNo pandemics. No earthquakes. No riots. No arguments (well, fewer arguments. I assume.)
\nI close my eyes and I’m back in my suburban small town childhood.
\nBruising my knees on a thin, plastic slip n’ slide.
\nThe syrupy chill of a raspberry snow cone dyeing my tongue blue.
\n(Because in the 90s, raspberries were blue)
Building wooden toy boats at a local festival,
\nthen watching them sink in the kiddie pool in my backyard.
Boys teaming up on girls in water gun fights because we make them feel feelings, but they don’t know how to handle feelings yet.
\nBack when my biggest concern was awkward neighborhood boys, rather than whether or not it’s safe to bring my three-year-old to the grocery store.
\nPicking blackberries down by the pond, then rewarding ourselves with mom’s homemade jams and pies.
\nCatching frogs in muddy ponds, then pulling up all the stakes from the pond because we thought they were going to destroy the froggy sanctuary.
\nThe stakes were markers for expanding the wetlands.
\nWhoops.
One of my babysitters teaching me to ride a bike in a cul-de-sac, because I wanted to ride with my brother and his friends and training wheels were holding me back.
\nI never liked being held back. Still don’t.
\nSwimming until my fingers pruned and my sides ached.
\nPlaying baseball in the street.
\nHop scotch and jump rope and Red Light, Green Light and Mother, May I.
Sentimentality is nice, but it doesn’t cure diseases.
\nI guess all I’m trying to say is that it’s nice to know kids still ride scooters.