You Stand on Soft Wood Chips: A Swing Set Monologue

You Stand on Soft Wood Chips: A Swing Set Monologue

By Dave Woehrle        

            The bell rings and you run headfirst outside, whooping, yelling, living.

            You look to the swing set – six swings divided, three on each side, no baby swing nonsense – the chains of each swing suspended from a high gray support beam, with six yellow legs extending down for support, and you realize the swing set resembles an ant, and so it’s like you’re swinging from the udders of an ant when you swing, but you won’t tell anyone that because they will put you in counseling.

            But you love swings. Everyone loves swings: those gods of elevation, dashed to at recess, the hot limited commodity of the playground, the space under each swing cleared of woodchips, like worn launch pads. The blue spongy swing seats, like Smurf smiles, under you butt, you reach and pull, your little legs clawing the air, like hungry oars in dense water, higher and higher, and your arms pull, too, and you lean back on the upstroke, legs extended, and at your zenith, you see your shoes silhouetted on the backdrop of blue sky and you feel infinite and hope you don’t puke up your shark and dinosaur fruit snacks.

            And you look to friends swinging around you, each dreaming and sweating and wishing there was more than fifteen minutes to do this, and someone gets in the same swing rhythm as you, and you yell, “We’re married!” and then you sing songs from Aladdin and dare each other to keep eye contact as you swing, and it’s so CRAZY DUDE and your equilibrium gets squishy and if you fall, someone will take your swing and that sucks but that’s the recess code.

            But you don’t fall. Not today.

            You swing as hard as you can and your body is its own ride. And at your highest point on the backside of your arc, you’re level with the top support beam, so high the chain goes suddenly slack and suddenly back with a THUNK like a bass drum kick to the body and you know you’ve reached your peak and there’s nothing more to prove, so it’s time to jump.

            Jumping off a swing is its own art, its own philosophy. If you jump too early on your upswing, you launch, line-drive style, over the safe bed of wood chips, and onto the unforgiving blacktop, knees and palms scraped up, and others will laugh. You release too high, you stall, you panic, you flap your arms, and you drop like a rock. You get no distance. You get bruises.

            You must time your leap to create a slow, parabolic glide to the Earth, like a last second three-pointer, a trajectory beyond physics, more of a mindset, an angle only swing set practiced children know.

            Everyone’s watching you just as you’ve been watching those jump off around you, judging, nodding, taking stock of it all, recalibrating popularity ranking of playground dominance. Jamey can’t jump worth crap. I won’t sit next to her during story time. Besides, she farts.

            So this is important, this leap, this letting go, hands unclenching the chains, butt off the seat and in the air, giving your body to gravity and luck. You’re scared and excited, the same emotion regardless of what adults tell you, but you must jump. So you swallow a hard ball of nervousness, take a breath, and you’ll go on your next upswing.

            Yeah. The next upswing. Okay. Not that upswing, it felt off. The next new upswing. No no. One more. Make sure the right people are looking and remember to jump to mid-upswing, and okay be ready. This is it. This upswing now. Go go go go go go.

            Oh yeah oh yeah this is great momentum and here it is and here it goes and……………………………………………………………………….......................................

            Time stops. You’re flying. Or the closest you’ll get to it. You’re t-shirt billows, your arms raise, you’re like seaweed moving in water, suspended, eyes popping, mouth open, not surprised by the falling sensation, just in love with it.

            And in that jump, you’re a legend, a superhero, looking over the school’s roof, to houses and fields and worlds, and you know you have a test about the Louisiana Purchase you didn’t study for when you go back in after recess, but right then, in the air, in the air of this strange day as they all are, you’ve conquered the art of the swing set, the swing leap, the landing, and you stand on soft wood chips, proud and sweaty, a god of the suburban playground.

            And the bell rings again.

            And it’s over.

February Journal Entry

February Journal Entry

By Dave Woehrle

It’s easy not to drink when you’re hung over. It’s the day after the hangover when the urge bites the brain again. But instead I read and wait in bed, praying without saying I am. I overate today after a substantial dinner. No one wants to be logy and lonely but tonight I am both. The bitter arrival of your blue self, the painting that dissolves like cold rain on February grass. We live in an odd world. News is entertainment and vice versa. Jeremy Lin stats and Rick Santorum hates condoms and Bill Maher smirks and we can’t have four more years of failure and there was a Koran burning on a U.S. military base, and a man in Georgia went on a killing spree because Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons told him to, so HLN has experts to discuss Bipolar I and Bipolar II disorder. Which chemical or social institution is to blame? I know nothing but suspect happiness doesn’t roar like a river. It trickles like a stream. You have to be quiet to hear it.

Karen

Karen

By Dave Woehrle        

She's fifty-seven. Her father is dying. She loves him but hates him for dying and for taking up so much time to do it.

            At her deli job, she packs her pockets with bits of baked chicken breasts. She pinches off little white chunks throughout the day and tries to hide her nibbling.

            She sneaks pulls of Peach Schnapps in the bathroom, returning red-faced and talkative about the weather and how the new coleslaw recipe isn’t as good.

            One night at closing, she cried while saran-wrapping a side of ham. I asked her if she was okay. She turned to me, her glasses thick and fogged, and said, “Stop saying that. I just need to finish this.”

The Alpha Alpaca

The Alpha Alpaca

By Dave Woehrle

 We talk on the school bus on the way to Starved Rock. He sits alone in the seat behind me, so I lean my back parallel to the window to converse.

            The sun is rising and I sip a thermos of coffee. I try at small talk.

            “What’s your favorite food?” I ask.

            “Mangos,” he says. He looks out the window.

            “Mangos?”

            “Mangos. I love mangos.”

            I nod.

            He asks, “Do you even know what mangos are?”

            “Yeah, I know. They’re a fruit.”

            “They’re a great fruit, the best in the world. Not like grapefruit.”

            “What’s wrong with grapefruit?”

            “God, grapefruit is too tart. And too large. So freakish. But I like grapefruit juice. It’s probably the most quenching juice known to man. Strange at first taste but a great aftertaste.”

            I laugh. I say, “Like Ruby Red?”

            “Yeah. That’s good stuff.”

            He opens a bag of Animal Crackers and asks, “Do you know what an alpaca is?”

            “Sure.”

            “Yeah. I like them. They’re really anti-social animals.”

            “What? I thought they were herd animals, like they live in a pack?”

            “Nope. They don’t like anything.”

            “So they don’t live together?”

            “They do. I mean, they can. But if you put them together, they prefer to stay in a ten foot radius of the other alpacas.”

            I laugh. “Really? That’s something. Aren’t they similar to llamas?”

            “Yeah, but alpacas don’t spit much. They purse their lips and look like they’re going to spit, but they don’t.”

            “Wow. You know a lot about alpacas.”

            “Yeah, I do actually.”

            “How do you know so much?”

            “My grandparents raise them. They have three.”

            “What are their names?”
            “Blanco, Crow, and Kevin. Blanco’s white. Crow and Kevin are black. Crow is the leader, for sure.”

            “The leader? I thought they weren’t social.”

            “Well, I mean…what’s the word for, like, the dominant dude?”

            “Alpha?”

            “Yeah. Crow’s the alpha alpaca. For sure. But Crow and Kevin have similar voices.”

            “Voices?” I ask.

            “Like the sounds they make in the morning,” he explains. “It’s high-pitched. Like a bird, kind of. I mean, when I woke up at Grandpa’s farm last month, I heard that alpaca sound. And I thought it was Kevin and I told my grandpa at breakfast, and he said it was Crow. Crow is very vocal. You should really hear the sound of alpacas some time. I wish my voice was like that."

(I am blessed to work with brilliant children)