In my previous stories I’ve made myself sound pretty kick-ass (and maybe more than a little high strung 😝), but I think I’ve neglected my spiritual, dreamy side.
So my fifth grade story is more about that side of me, and it takes place in Ohio of all places.
You see, my dad and his side of the family are from Ohio. So in the summers and at Christmas I would always go out to visit him and the rest of the family. And for the record, kids, Ohio really isn’t that bad that you had to create a demeaning slang word out of it #somebodyhastostandupforohio 😄💕
When I was in fifth grade, my dad got remarried to Heather, his girlfriend who he had been dating for a couple of years. So I got to take a little time off of school to go to Ohio in the spring for a long weekend and witness my dad getting married.
While I was there, I stayed with my Uncle Dan and Aunt Mary Anne, and my cousins, Katie and Colleen. They were both sporty, athletic kids, who loved doing all kinds of physical activities, which was challenging for an artsy, sensitive kid like me. I much preferred gentler activities, like making up games with my stuffed animals, reading, and coloring. But when I was at Katie and Colleen’s house, I did a lot of swimming in their pool, playing basketball in their driveway, and general running around. I even tried to use their Pogo Ball, but I could never quite get it right. I did however, manage to get the hang of their Skip-It, and wound up asking for one for Christmas that year and getting it, probably because my mom was happy I actually wanted an active toy for once.
Anyway, that spring, Colleen was playing softball, and she had a game while I was there. And okay, I had to admit that swimming in the pool and playing basketball was fun. I even didn’t mind too much when Katie and Colleen wanted to play Red Rover with the other kids in the neighborhood, even though Red Rover was one of those games that had the potential to make me cry. But I wanted absolutely nothing to do with spending a couple of hours in the sun watching my cousin play a softball game with all of those yelling parents and shrieking kids.
So… while everyone else went and watched the softball game, I took my notebook with me and settled down into one of the unused fields near the game, with thoughts of working on one of my latest stories, or maybe writing a poem or two. I was near enough that my aunt and uncle could still keep an eye on me, but far enough away that I didn’t have to be right in the middle of all of the chaos.
It was an unusually warm spring that year, so the grass was already high and wild in the field, and spring flowers like buttercups and clovers were starting to peek through in places. I remember I was even wearing shorts and everything. I settled back in the grass, and I swear it was almost like I could feel the earth moving beneath me as I watched the clouds drift above my head.
I guess you could say this was the first time I ever meditated, even though I didn’t know what that was at the time. I fell into this sort of trance as the wind blew across my face and the sun shone against my skin. I had no thoughts, no feelings beyond the natural world all around me. I was completely in the moment, and at peace.
After a few minutes, I didn’t even feel like me anymore… it was like I was part of the earth, and the grass, and the sky. I was dissolving into space and time, becoming something bigger than myself, bigger than I could even grasp, because I was only eleven years old, and I had somehow wandered into something deeper, something that my immature child mind couldn’t quite comprehend, something that my adult mind still struggles to explain. The closest I can come is that it was like God was upon me, shining his light down on me from the heavens while all I could do was lay there in awe.
I don’t know how long I laid there like that, filled with what felt like all of the peace and love and joy in the universe pouring into me.
Long enough for the softball game to end, because the next thing I knew Colleen was standing over me asking what the heck I was doing.
Long enough for a couple of boys on the softball team to notice me, because Colleen told me they kept looking at me throughout the whole game, and when they found out that I was Colleen’s cousin they wanted her to ask me to come over and talk to them.
Hearing that made me get all flustered and embarrassed and I turned over to cool off my burning face in the grass, and refused to talk to them, because I didn’t want to think about boys and how weird they’d been acting with me ever since I started growing boobs. Instead I wanted to write in my notebook again, and daydream about this new experience, and what it all meant.
I spent years of my life chasing after that all-encompassing sense of pure unity I first stumbled upon in an ordinary Ohio park on a spring day when I was eleven years old. To this day I still don’t think I’ve ever come close to recapturing it.
