My first grade class was meekly herded into the gym for a
school assembly. We obediently stayed
put in our designated spot while the older classes monkeyed around. An older girl did a cartwheel in front of
us. I was flabbergasted. Forget the flagrant disobedience, what would
possess that child to put her head at risk by jumping around upside down like
that?!!
I asked my girlfriend if she had ever seen such a
thing. She had. "Can you do it too?" She got up and did a shaky cartwheel. I was awed.
I had no idea my girlfriend could defy gravity. The older girl came back and did 3 perfect
cartwheels in a row. I felt like a backwoods
hick who didn't know city tricks. (Keep
in mind, these kids also lived in the boondocks. They just weren't quite as deeply buried in the woods.)
When at home again, I told Sis1 about this amazing feat of
daring. She knew about cartwheels, but
had never tried to do them before. She
gave it a try, then several tries. She
sort of had the idea, but not the actual knack. Sis2 came home and quickly mastered it. I got off the grass and tried too.
Eventually, all of us mastered it. I thought that was enough gymnastics to last a lifetime, but Sis1
enjoyed athletic things. She started
coming home with more ideas of things for us to practice. I managed to bend over backwards until I
could put my hands on the ground, then I eventually managed to get my legs over
too. I walked the railroad ties next to
the driveway and pretended it was a balance beam. The Olympics gave us ideas for more balance beam tricks. I found a nice broken tree in the woods so I
could swoop my legs further down than on the railroad ties. I did forward and backwards somersaults on
that tree too.
Sis1 often spotted me during some of the more difficult
maneuvers. If she wasn't around, I
might get a concussion. I decided
gymnastics was stupid, but by the time I got to middle school gymnastics were
required. Those city kids had been
collecting more sophisticated tricks in the intervening years too. I eyed the parallel bars with the same
mistrust as I had felt when witnessing my first cartwheel.
I was out in my back yard a few weeks ago when I had a
random thought about cartwheels. Could
I still do one? I almost gave it a
shot, but my rational mind quickly shut down that idiocy. My 5-year-old and 50-something brains are in complete agreement about the rules of my body's verticality and
risk. Perhaps I'll watch some of the
Olympics from the safe harbor of my couch.
My wish for this year's Olympics is that North and
South Koreans build positive relationships with each other. I also hope their combined team wins
something together creating hope for that region and for the rest of the world.
