http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/writing-challenge-1000-words-four/
Based on the photo, I see a dark-skinned girl sitting on a small merry-go-round of six animals. She may alone, waiting for her friends, or simply resting after having fun. I don’t know who she is or why this photo reminds me many times of playing alone in the playground.
Usually during recess I would join other classmates on the playground, which had red to brown tanbarks lining the bottom of the equipment. These tanbarks cushioned our falls and some children would rub the tanbarks into their sweaty palms; where as my palms are dry and I could feel the painful splinters enter mind sensitive skin.
Pain was felt while playing. I remember rocking back and forth on the lowest bar with our legs intertwined, supporting the our butts with each leg. I don’t know how I forced myself to enjoy this game when some kids were too heavy for my legs.
Other equipment was the monkey bars. That too proved to be too painful for my hands because I would get callus and/or blisters after trying to make my way from one bar at a time from one end to the other side. But I also forced myself to keep up with the rest.
Tether ball was also a fun sport. But only two people played. Only the ones who held their hands together and powered that ball to wrap all the way around won. I wasn’t strong enough to hit the ball around the pole and usually didn’t win.
Two people also played hand ball. Again, here is where I couldn’t keep up either. There was lots of running and hitting the red rubber ball. I didn’t like how my hands had to use such force against something that warmed up and smelled.
Now hop-scotch was easy but for whatever reason, I couldn’t always keep my balance. Maybe my shoes were ill-fitted and painful or that my bowed-legs failed to hold up to the rigorous exercise of using ONE leg for some squares throughout the game.
At times, I remember sitting alone on the cement where a sloped landscape rode up to the building behind me. In front of me, I could see the school children playing. It was here that I sat and made shadow figures with my two hands. The teachers to my right sat observing my “art”. But no one said anything.
I guess I got tired of playing or that no one invited me to play. So that’s where I sat for a while, just like the little girl in the photo exercise. Just waiting for whenever recess would be over so we could go back inside to our classrooms and learn.
Fast forward over forty years later, I’m still learning how to “play games” as an adult. I believe this is what is called “politics” in which “going out of your way” would win favors, or blessings among the religious fanatics. But I was taught NOT to expect or receive any “credit” in return whatsoever and out of the sincerity of my heart – that is all the reward I could ever need.
Being all alone in this harsh world is not entirely without some words of wisdom from those who care enough to share their experience; so that I too could avoid the pitfalls of playing these “games” for survival. But the choices in life are still full of vipers, ready to strike at both the heels and heads.
No longer is playing for fun of hearing and seeing children laughing or smiling to uplift the spirit. No, the sights of adults playing are not pretty or sugar-coated but ugly and not for the faint of heart. Theirs is a violent sport – of fighting bitterly to win at all cost to feed their ego and/or family.
The sounds are the labor pains of single mothers suffering the indignation at failures for not raising children on their own or the silent tears of fathers prevented from seeing their children on their own. Theirs is the cry of the poor, who sit alone and wonders where they are going to get their next meals.
That is why it’s such as lonely world. Each person sitting out to watch the world pass them by as they contemplate how they got there and how different it would have been had they only worked or played harder. Most cannot afford to pay to ride on merry-go-rounds that turns around for a few minutes and then stops.
Is it worth the time to wonder?
Leave a Reply