Play

When I was ten years old we built a treehouse. We hacked apart an old wooden table and used the legs to build a ladder held together with duct tape.  We nailed the tabletop as a platform into the top of a tree.  We made a rope swing and hung from the branches of this big maple tree, and we were happy.  We ran barefoot through damp grass and ate black raspberries until our fingers turned purple.   We'd run around with Nerf guns and dirt blackened feet.  We'd play hide and seek, laughing, running, grass stained knees.  Make believe, crazy games, with intricate rules and stories.   We’d be in other times, other places, being other people: heroes, villains, explorers of all sorts, running into each other, hiding in the dense branches.  We'd lay out under the stars and talk about the places we wished to go when we grew up, where we’d go, what we’d do, who we’d be.   Sometimes I wish I was still laying in the grass, dreaming, in a time of simple bliss.