Our Father's Day family picnic was on Saturday, instead of Sunday, and required an hour and a half drive from Sacramento, but it was well worth it. Two miles outside Oakdale, California, there was a picnic area right along the Stanislaus River and it was equipped with a rope for swinging out and falling into the lazy pooled water on our side of the river.
Every part of me longed to put on my bathing suit and swashbuckle out over the river, let go and plop into the tantalizing liquid with a big splash. I could feel the silky water on my skin and hear my own laughter as I burst from under the cold water. I haven't wanted to go back to twelve-years-old for years, but on Saturday, I really wanted to quit being a grownup for an hour and just play.
The desire was so strong and sense of identifying with the age of twelve so clear, that it gave me pause. What was it about being 12?
Well, at that age, we really don't know how anything is going to turn out and certainly don't care. Tomorrow is about as far down the road as we can see. We don't feel consequences hanging over our heads.
Our sense of self hasn't yet been destroyed by the treacherous teenage years. We're poised between childhood and just enough adulthood not to want to ask if we can risk a swoop and drop into a river. We're confident enough to try it, without a lot of coaxing. That's what we (members of the human race) are like at age 12.
I would never want to go through the intervening years between 12 and 40 again. You couldn't pay me enough to do it. But if I could have another day of being twelve, with an awareness of it, boy would I have fun.
I'd play softball, basketball and toss a football around for a while. I'd run like the wind, until I couldn't anymore. I'd climb a tree and I would definitely swing out over a river and drop gleefully into it.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to go back for just one day?
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