I left school today alone. Usually I'm alone, but lately my friends have insisted I join them, and we walk together, away from the school, away from our lives.
But today, I was alone.
As I walked down the slope, the beginning of my fifteen-minute walk, I noticed the leaves. The leaves were finally on the ground, the trees bare. Winter is my favorite season, and today it was finally beginning to feel like fall. A nice, chilly temperature... it wasn't bad.
I noticed the kid in front of me, down the slope a bit, was someone I knew. I slow my pace so I don't catch up to him. (Wouldn't want to suddenly appear out of nowhere.)
I catch up, though, at the bottom of the hill. We wait to cross the street, and he crosses at a faster pace than I. On the sidewalk, I slow my pace again. I look up and notice the trees. The green leaves, not yet fallen, filtered through some of the milky light form the overcast sky. I wear contact lenses, and I only have in one at the time. (For reasons that are irrelevant.) Part of my vision is blurry, and the light through the leaves looks like a sea of faint white circles, all blurred together with the in-focus leaves.
The sight is truly beautiful.
I cross the bridge over the river and am making my way to the crosswalk. The boy I've been walking rather quietly behind turns around and glances at me, then runs the rest of the way to the crosswalk.
I'm glad for the extra distance between us.
I walk up and stand beside him, waiting for the light to change so we can cross. Eventually we do, and walk into a quiet neighborhood away from the traffic.
I could have kept walking past him and gone another, longer way through town, but I didn't. I needed some peace, and this neighborhood has plenty of peace to offer.
Up the hill we walk, him father ahead again, and I see him no longer.
This whole time, I've been noticing my untied shoe. The aglets are long gone from my shoelaces, from them being untied so much. I'm coordinated well enough to not trip, so I ignore the shoelaces.
Stepping on a dead leaf in this quiet neighborhood makes a sound louder than any other. So I felt as if my presence was quite obvious as I stepped on a curled brown leaf.
Soon I was at the elementary school. I walk up the sidewalk and stand by the double doors, waiting to go in. I watch the little kids as they walk past to get on their buses to go home, and I remember what it was like back then. I'm torn from my thoughts by a familiar voice.
“Just put your stuff down.”
I look over by the playground, the source of the voice. The boy I walked behind walks down the hill a ways and says, “C'mon.”
I sigh and walk up the big cement steps up to the playground. “We'll do something fun,” he says to me as I put down my backpack, lunch, and flute. “Tag or something. Whatever you seventh graders, or eighth graders do for fun. Are you in seventh or eighth grade?”
“Eighth,” comes my response.
“Thought so.” He walks over to the monkey bars, the things I could never go across. “Bet ya can't do this.” He stands under the bars and grasps two of them, then pulls himself up, tucking his knees close to his body. Then he swings backward and hangs upside-down for a few seconds before swinging the rest of the way and landing on his feet again.
“Yeah, I really doubt I can do that,” I say. “I have, like, no upper body strength.” (Sadly, it's true.)
“You don't need upper body strength,” he says. “You just need to be able to hold yourself up. You might not be able to go all the way, though, 'cause you're older.”
“Still doubt I can do it.” I swing around on the bars while we talk. He demonstrates a few more times, then stops.
“Tag it is, then.”
We decide who is It, and then I take off running. He chases after me. I simply run around everything, around the edges of the playground. Running like this, playing tag, it's something I haven't done in years. I duck under another set of monkey bars, then run around back to where we started, past a few benches, back past the swings again... and we're both slowing down, both breathing hard. I'm not a good runner, not very athletic in general. I slow down to a walk, and then turn around and run the other way, but he was ready for that. He catches up to me, and I can tell he's pretty tired. Then he finally tugs on the hood of my jacket and says “There.”
Then he runs, and jumps up onto the complex with the slide and the ladders and the monkey bars, and climbs through a tunnel. I hear an “Ow!” as I run around and climb up the stairs to the other side of the tunnel. He pops out the other side and says “I hit my head.”
I smile, and I lean over on the top of the tunnel, catching my breath. He does the same. We stand there like that, separated by the tunnel. I'm tempted to just reach out and poke him, since I'm It and all, and his hand is within reach, but I decide not to.
Soon, we hear his mother calling for him. “Come on, or I'll leave you!”
“See ya,” he says. I wave, like I usually do to people. I turn and jump down over the stairs. He's walking slowly toward the edge of the playground and calls out, “I'm still on the playground....”
But I just shake my head, and I almost tell him, “Nah, you won” but I was sure that he already knew.
