I was driving the other day and noticed a really scruffy man in a baseball hat coming towards me on the sidewalk up ahead. As I got closer, I realized he was skipping. He seemed so blissful that it made me smile. You don’t see a grown adult skipping often, maybe never. This could be due to stupid norms, or the fact that older people could have a bad skipping outcome. Personally, I am sure I would trip and fall, or maybe put out my eye with a rouge hand. I have enough trouble navigating over cracks and bumps in the sidewalk as it is. I think my skipping days are behind me, as well as ballet class and getting off the couch without my eyes popping out of my head. When my daughter was about 9 years old, jumping rope was a big deal. I bought us each a jumprope and we would go on walks together. Molly would skip along with her jumprope, never getting tripped up as we chatted. I on the other hand only knew how to jump rope while hopping in one spot. “How hard could skipping rope as we walk be?” I asked myself. The answer was “Very hard”. As it turns out the jumpy/skippy thing was beyond my skill set. I was forced to just carry my jumprope with me, to be included somehow in the process. I could have used it to tie up a bad guy should one have fallen on the sidewalk in front of us. Otherwise, it was just a reminder of how adulthood is not all it’s cracked up to be. Sure I can drive a car, and stay up past dark. It would be nice, though, not to get a cramp while tying my shoe. When my kids were in elementary school, they got to try riding a unicycle as part of PE. I thought that was so cool that I bought myself one, and named her Eunice. Again, I asked myself “How hard could it be?”. I never learn. Riding a unicycle is SO hard. It took me an entire summer to master a two-wheeler when I was 7. One less wheel was not going to be a quick study. I got two mop handles to use like ski poles or training wheels, but that didn’t really help. I would mostly put on my crash helmet, pump up the tire, adjust the seat and try a couple rotations. After falling off the unicycle a couple times (getting hit in the calf with the pedal doesn’t feel good) I would put Eunice away. I tried this many times, going as far as piling up patio furniture to hold onto. Nothing worked, but riding a unicycle is still on my bucket list. At least I made my son happy by not crashing and killing myself (he was concerned). That may be as good as it gets.
