The Playground

When you visit a place you knew as a child, it is amazing how most things seems familiar, but different.  Nearly everything seems smaller than you remember which is understandable since you have grown bigger.  Some things are partially as you remember them but the years have distorted your memory and they just aren’t quite what you had locked in your mind.  Shops are in a different order along the old shopping strip.  Houses are in different streets despite the fact you were sure they were somewhere else.  The walk home from school doesn’t involve nearly as many street crossings as you’d thought.  You can forgive your mind for morphing things over the years and chuckle as you think about how your mind as a child had used emotions and imagination to make things into something they were not.

I remember the witch’s house that was in the lot directly behind the school yard.  We used to sit on top of the monkey bars and look at its super-pointy roof, blackened windows and enormous chimney that we were certain was so large because of the enormous cauldron that must certainly have been in the fireplace.  Sometimes there were peals of excitement as children cried out that they had seen the witch, her ugly and distorted features getting larger and more gruesome each time. 

Recently, when driving the streets of the old school district, I saw that house.  Funnily enough, it was just a normal house, with normal windows and chimney.  Probably never had a cauldron.  Made me smile.

Slightly bemused, I continued cruising the old neighbourhood to see what else my childhood-self had imagined.

The playground was exactly as I remembered it.  Certainly the equipment had been updated in the years since we had played there.  Other things were so familiar it was as if the years had not passed.  The paths were still there weaving their same way in and out of trees, bushes and slides.  As I walked along them in the type of high heeled shoes I could only ever dream about back them, I could remember skipping along these paths with Nicky as we played chasing games and racing games and racing, chasing walking backwards games.  Sometimes we just walked around and around them, arm in arm, whispering and giggling and telling each other all of our secrets and pinkie promising not to tell another soul.  The trees were there as before too.  We would play hide and seek there, and climb the ones we could and dared each other to go higher.  In the summer we would sit or lie in the shade and promise to be friends forever, and ever.  

What a truly wonderful time that was.  Nicky would tell me all sorts of things about the world, because he was a tiny little bit older than me and knew so much more.  He would let me talk about friends and enemies and everything in between and help me navigate the bumpy road of learning who to trust, and why.  He would listen to me when I was afraid and help me to be brave and strong.  He always gave a friendly squeeze of my hand when I needed to shed a tear.  He would laugh at my jokes and funny stories, but he never, ever laughed at me.  He was always there for me.

As I continued on the path of memory, I saw something so very familiar.  Our favourite swings.  Everything else in the playground had been replaced by something shiny and new, but not the old swings.  I could remember them so clearly, the old wooden seats that would sometimes give you splinters.  The old chains that would squeak loudly as you moved back and forth.  I walked towards them with a quickened pace.  I wanted to sit where I used to sit with Nicky and kick up my heels and laugh and squeal as we dared each other to go higher and higher.

Suddenly I stopped dead in my tracks.  Something was not right.  The old swing was there, surrounded by a low wooden fence with a plaque.  The plaque read that the swing was kept there as a shrine to someone long since passed who had built the first playground here.  That was neither here nor there for me.  The swing was just that.  A swing.  Not two swings side by side as I remembered.  But how was that possible?  We played there together, Nicky and I.  Swinging together until the sun was nearly down and we had to run to our homes.  Where was Nicky’s home?  I realised I had never been there.  Why was that?  What was happening?  All of a sudden these memories had come back as clear as if they had happened today, yet I couldn’t remember what had happened to him.  When did I see him last?  Did he say goodbye?

I clenched my fists and bit my lip.  Anger boiled inside me then and I cursed Nicky.  He had lied to me, about everything!  How could he do that to me?  He was my best friend.  He said we’d be friends forever.  A strong breeze blew and I took a deep breath as the realisation washed over me.  My skin prickled and tingled and my feet suddenly didn’t feel so steady in those high heels.  I sat down on a park bench nearby.

I sat for a long time then, looking at that one, single swing.  First there was blankness, and anger at myself for being so stupid.  Or was I really just resourceful, imaginative and clever? Then a calmness followed.  Nicky had not lied to me.  He could not have lied to me.  However he had existed, it was because I needed him, and when I didn’t need him anymore he had drifted back into nothingness.

I sat there until the sun was nearly down, stood up in my heels, thanked him, and walked on.   

Pollyanna Gray