Wordy Girl

It's Sunday morning and the sun is peeking from behind it's sweater. I keep hoping the sweaters will come off her smile and we can bask in her light for a little while. In the meantime I am layered. A t-shirt with the words "your kidding, right?" a jacket with some Aerie lettering and polka dots in the hood. A baseball cap covering some deep graying at the temples. I am in a place in my journey where I can't put another chemical on my head. I went gray in my 20's. It's been a lifetime of purchasing colors. A lifetime of sitting miserably in a shower trying not to breathe until the toxic stuff can be washed away. Then an itchy scalp follows for a day until 6 weeks have past and it needs to be done again. I think it's time to accept myself. I think it's time to realize what 60 looks like after a lifetime of suffering. I'm done trying to impress. Except maybe my beloved and he likes the grey. (He is a little crazy that way) So I am walking the trail beside the creek and I am loving the sounds and the smells of a forest after the rain. It's my ritual, this creek and I. I meet Sammy, a beautiful scarred rescue and his "Mama" Lizbeth some days, and we catch up and share snippets before we carry on in our exercise time.  Today, I am alone except for a girl. She looks to be about 15 and she is swinging wildly on the swing set. Pumping her legs hard, her hair is flying back and forth and her face is tipped to the skies and she is smiling. It's a joyous sight to see and suddenly I want to join her. To take my pain wracked spirit and squeeze my 60 year old behind into a child's seat. "Hi," I smile at the girl "Isn't it magical to swing like that?" She smiles at me with the joy of an opening flower. "It is!" she cries loudly and I don't want to frighten her off her joy by asking if I can join her, not with all of the messages now of DON"T entertain a stranger. So I walk off...daydreaming of the skies coming closer. The crows along the trail are mocking me, a large old dog comes and takes a giant crap in front of me. I am all of that in my thoughts. "What is so wrong with speaking to a child?" I think.  So I turn back towards the playground, my heart beating a little harder in anticipation of meeting again. The swings are quiet, the girl has left. I walk slowly towards the swings and squeeze my hips between the sides of a blue seat. I begin to push off the sand and my feet start to rise. The spirit of my child comes shyly from within and the soles of my feet pump up into the sky. I feel the earth, I hear the sounds of my childhood and I pump harder. My stomach is flipping and I remember that too. The sun is removing her sweater and my face is tipped towards the glory. I am for a moment in time 8 again.  I swing and I pump and my heart is light and missing a beat and I am in some pretty beautiful joy.  All 60 years of pain is flying in the seat of a blue swing, size child.
The sun puts on her sweater again and I feel acutely the pain in my hips and I stop abruptly.
The old dog meets me with a large wag of his tail and he and I slowly make our way back to our homes.  I am suddenly lighter, younger in my heart. Full of something I had forgotten.