On the 4th of July our little town has a parade and afterwards a fair. In the past, we’ve made the mistake of going immediately after the parade with all the crowds. This is fine if you like standing in long lines under a noon sun. I do not and so we finally smartened up and this year, immediately after the parade we drove home. The girls swam while David, Christopher and I went to a book sale at the local library. Standing under a noon day sun perusing used books I can stand. When we returned Torey, Paul and I loaded up the four bigger kids and took them over to the fair.
The place was almost deserted. Paul split off with the big kids while Torey and I double teamed the Legumes. We went over to the bounce place and, as you can see the Ren and Eden were the only kids in it. Watching them jump around made us both wistful. “I wish I could go in there.” Torey said. Before I could even say, “Me too!” the teenage employee said, “Go ahead.”We both scrabbled up and in and started jumping like our little girls.
It.Was.So.Much.Fun.
Torey bounced down on her bottom first and then I did. Our jumping knocked the little girls off balance. They were flailing around and falling and we were all laughing and laughing. I don’t know how long it has been since I have jumped in one of those. I remember when I was little getting knocked into corners, having my face jammed against the netting and trying so hard to get loose but any ground I would take I would lose to a bigger kid’s bounce. When I was quite young this scared me, but as I got older it just made me laugh, which weakened me further. One memory I have of jumping with my brothers and being down on all fours, trying to get up, but continually being knocked over and then laughing so hard I couldn’t stop.
Laughing like that feels so good. I don’t laugh like that enough. I want to start keeping track, not in a formal way, but just get into the habit of a little check in. We need to laugh. It’s like an emotional massage. I don’t want to withhold that from myself anymore. Tomorrow I am going to call a rental place to find out how much it costs to get one of these things for a day. I know a lot of people who have need of a place where it’s safe to jump and fall. I want others to laugh until they cry or to cry until they laugh.
