Day 94

Today was a rainy day. I think rain pattering, on rooftops, down drains, or onto sidewalks, is one of the best sounds in the whole world. I remember sitting in my elementary school gym when they would play movies on rainy days during lunch. It was crowded and damp, and the smell of Lunchables salami hung in the humid air. I can't remember a single movie that we watched. Maybe it didn't happen.

In class, I realize now the chaotic nightmare the teachers must have had to deal with. I simply remember the contentment of building. It didn't really matter with what; tiny wood cutouts of color-coded geometric shapes or interlocking plastic cubes with sockets and connectors on their faces were some of my preferred materials, though.

Perhaps it is symptomatic of my being male, but from an early age, anything that vaguely resembled a gun was a gun. One rainy day we had an illicit gun workshop, and business was good. We were using the interlocking plastic cubes, since the ability to detach and reattach the clips of ammo was so cool. We had a stockpile of weaponry stashed away in the classroom, and I remember a distinct sense of shame upon its discovery.

Working with kids now, I am reminded of the lack of inhibitions and the plethora of anxieties that used to fill my life; how great it was to run around with arms locked rigid like the wings of an airplane, and how terrible it was to have to wait in line for ice cream when the people at the front were already getting theirs. I think it's easy to forget how much we worried as kids, maybe we worried more. How else could we channel the joy, the wild abandon of the play yard if not for the nagging possibility that one recess the sky might start falling?

Well, I'm a big kid now; bigger, but still vulnerable to the same anxiety when I was small. Some nights, I fall asleep with a feeling of dis-ease. The dark caves in, and the old feeling comes back. And when the next morning finally comes, what a joy it is to come back to the surface and feel the sunshine once more.