Revisiting My Childhood Playground

I could still hear the ripples of giddy laughter, winding around every tree, bench, and swing set, the echoes of my joyful youth embedded in the school playground. A sudden vision of memories long-forgotten, yet still cataloged in the membrane of my personhood, came rushing back in. Lunchboxes filled with ripe, fragrant clementines and Ritz crackers recalled, tidy, marching lines out to the woods where PE classes would run, play, and return unruly and rancid, fondly remembered. Afternoons spent daydreaming out the window in math class, soothed by the steady sound of my mom’s teaching voice, held dear. I remember digging in the dirt and beneath rocks for black, shiny crickets; the bigger the find, the more celebrity among the recess-dwellers. Hours spent in classroom prayers, with curious eyes peaking open, long before I knew the gravity this practice would later hold through life’s peaks and valleys. I saw paintbrushes and paper, and tiny, meticulous hands maneuvering them, imagining the devout appreciation of beauty these daily routines might later bring about in the eager minds of each child. Like a garden where tiny dreams are sown, this place in all of its earnest striving for goodness and unavoidable imperfections brings about growth: bright sprouts of hopeful ambition into a world where idealism is dismissed as impractical, yet sorely needed. Like even the best of parents, this place cannot pave a smooth and uncomplicated road ahead as each pair of feet leaves its corridors, but it can provide firm roots, leading to sturdy trees that withstand the formative storms up ahead.