The Rope Swing

~ Yesterday my kids, my husband and I, were taking a drive up to Wales to visit Alfonzo's mother and they were asking me for the millionth time about my childhood.  I suppose since they have never been out of Europe they have a lot of questions about life in the United States.  So I told them this story~

When I was eleven years old I met a girl named Lula at a summer camp.  We soon realized we were neighbors and after camp I would visit her frequently.  She had the most amazing house complete with a beautiful back yard.  I sent all my weekday afternoons playing in that backyard.  I would call it The Secret Garden because I always felt so inclosed.  Their yard was encircled with grand willow trees, protecting us from the outside world.  It wasn't a traditional backyard, they had bridges over a moving steams and trees taller than skyscrapers.  Everything was so green and bright and we felt alive.  Yet the absolute best part about her yard was the rope swing.  It was a good hundred feet long hanging from an extremely high branch.  To ride the rope properly, we would step way back and climb onto a smooth boulder. From there you had to muster up the courage to jump, just barely getting on to that small wooden seat.  And then you were soaring like a bird and you can feel the wind running by your hair and your teeth when you laugh.  The fear from that first leap is replaced with the exhilaration of flying and you never want to touch the earth again.  We would do this again and again until it got dark.

One day I came over and Lula's parents weren't home but I could see Lula sitting in the backyard on her blue lawn chair.  So we started our rope swing routine and as always Lula went first.  She always went so high, thrusting her feet into infinity.  I thought she was very brave. I was watching her swing to the tips of trees when suddenly her hands froze in mid air and the everything stopped except the rope that fell between her knees. She was no longer defying gravity and she it the ground like a meteor.  She was screaming so loudly and there was blood everywhere.  I stood there in shock when I saw her white bones sticking straight out of her elbows.  I felt like throwing up but then I got scared that she would die so I ran inside and I called all the numbers I could possibly think of then I went outside and dragged Lula to her lawn chair and told her everything was going to be alright.  Finally her parents and an ambulance came and took her away.  The next week I saw her with two enormous casts on her arms but she was okay.  I was the first one to sign her cast since I saved her life and all.