I went to the park the other day, like I always do on runs that exist not for running but for breathing and for beating and for rhythmic pounding. Burnham Shores Park, where all the playground equipment composes a neat circle on the edge of the water. I avoided eye contact with the mother I deemed not-intimidating-enough to keep me away from the swing sets and settled into the one rhythm I learned I've learned and never forgotten. Feet up chest back. Chest up feet back. Until I feel the iron frame tugging at my limbs, the sky tugging at my stomach.
Today I had company but it wasn't from a curious girl child investigating the effects of 15 years on a human body. As I was recalling the swinging I'd done on this very swing (last spring, the spring before, two winters past in the dark and cold with a boy and a girl) I was visited by myself of the future. She was slight but sturdy, clean grey hair and clear eyes, facing the lake like I was, pointing her tennis shoes with evident expertise.
I was humbled that she chose to visit there and then. We didn't have to speak for me to know. I remembered I was young and god of my matter and leapt of the swing in a deliberate show of my jeunesse dorée and smiled at my naivete and her wistfulness. I knew this wasn't time for silly sacrosanctity so I pressed play on my ipod (Club Can't Handle Me) and ran home.
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