Longing
for a Greenbelt
“Come on Achimore,” Adam
shouted at the top of his lungs, “Finish your breadsticks already and let’s go.
We’re running out of time!” Adam, as usual, was acting like a soldier on a mission,
and nothing, not even my need to eat, would get in the way of his Saturday
adventures. I, of course, needed to carbo-load for the afternoon by consuming
an un-godly amount of cheesy breadsticks. With the melted cheese seducing my
nose, I could have sworn that I was being dragged away from cholesterol heaven.
Adam and the gang were already heading for the door, so I managed to stuff two
more breadsticks in my mouth before smearing my greasy hands all over my helmet
as I caught up with them. Leaving the pizza parlor with a broken heart, I
managed to hop on my bike, clip my helmet on, and peddle rapidly off in the
direction of our favorite hang-out spot: the greenbelt.
Stretching for miles in
the safe community of Davis, the green belt is a long bike path containing
grassy fields, play structures, and work-out stations for those intense soccer
moms committed to keeping their cardio training up. But the most important part
of the greenbelt to my childhood contained none of these more pleasant
qualities of an upper-middle class park. As twelve year olds devoted to the
idea of stirring trouble, my friends and I didn’t need much help to find ways
to cause chaos and mayhem. Dried twigs and clods of dirt in a meadow the size
of a soccer field was all my friends and I required to stay entertained during
our seventh grade years, and we found exactly this in the dirt-clod field
behind some rarely-used tennis courts on the greenbelt.
During this particular
day, my buddy Mike had bought a water-balloon launcher and we quickly began
launching the few water balloons we had left before aiming pomegranates at
pigeons. We even set up our bikes in line formations and attempted to launch any
objects we could find to try and knock them over. It was after Adam’s bike went
crashing to the ground that a simultaneous light-bulb went on in all our heads:
let’s turn this into a fight. My friends and I quickly divided into two groups,
ran to separate ends of the field, placed our bicycles on their kickstands next
to each other, and started throwing the dirt-clods at the other team. The goal
was to be the first group to knock over all the bicycles of the opposing team
with the dirt-clods. Of course, if you ventured too close to the other team,
you were liable to get a dirt-clod smacking you in the head. Despite our
shoulders getting sore, our clothes getting dirtied, and our skin getting
battered and bruised, we couldn’t help laughing and having the time of our
lives. After about an hour of an intense battle, the game came to an abrupt
halt when Ty hit David with what was technically deemed a “pebble” and not a
“dirt-clod,” leading to a quick disqualification. But the fun had been had, and
for the rest of the day, no bruises or broken bones could ever have wiped those
grins off our faces.
Twelve years later, my
daily jogs take me by the field as I seem to have been influenced by those
soccer moms I thought I never would have emulated. Only now, the field has no
more dirt-clods, as green grass has instead grown in, with random flowers and
unexpected weeds blooming depending on the season. All my friends have gone
their separate ways now, and while we occasionally catch up, most of us have
lives of our own that keep us occupied most of the time. When some of my
friends do swing by Davis, we might grab a bite to eat, or watch a sports game,
but without our bicycles leading the way, there is little reason for us to
travel on the greenbelt any longer.
It’s unfortunate, even
depressing to think about, but those kids on their bikes are mostly a distant
memory now. Much like how the dirt-clods have disappeared from the field, gone
are the days when I could carelessly cause trouble on the weekends without the
fears of graduate school deadlines, family obligations, or commitments to work.
Although I still live in Davis, the twelve years that have passed have aged me
in a way that makes those seventh grade kids a distant memory in a far-removed
life, one that I at times wish I could retreat back into. In many ways, I
always knew it was inevitable that my friends and I would out-grow the
greenbelt and the other immature adventures we peddled off to every Saturday. With
Mike recently married, David starting his residency rotations, and Adam in the
middle of law school, it’s fairly apparent that my friends and I have moved on
to what many might call the “adult world.”
This nostalgic longing
for our childhood seems only natural as we grow older. That yearning for what
seems in our own minds as a simpler time, full of laughter and harmless
mistakes, sticks with us as we creep up in age each year and begin making
decisions that we feel impact our lives in monumental terms. It seems as though
we all miss our own “greenbelts” as children. That space we could go, both
physically and mentally, where we did not actually have to think about paying
bills or holding onto our jobs before our lease ends.
But
this is the exact trap that adults can fall into. Instead of moving on from our
treasured childhood memories, we grasp onto them without recognizing the simple
fact that time has changed. And this is not a bad thing. Transitioning into
adulthood does not have to be a death stamp on laughter, joy, or innocent fun.
Yes we are older, but with age comes a wisdom that allows us to rationalize our
memories and make sense of them in a new context. Although we may make
decisions that hold more weight and live our lives with a different purpose, we
can now fully appreciate any free weekends in the sun, lunch breaks with
co-workers, or brief moments when we can simply zone-out. As adults, we can
learn how to value those experiences that we often took for granted as
children. With this greater appreciation, adults have the potential to perhaps
find more delight and satisfaction than was ever possible during our adolescent
and childhood years.
I hardly notice it on
my runs anymore, but every now and then I turn my head, looking in the
direction of the dirt-clod field, and remember those kids with grins on their
faces that could have lit up the sky. Maybe it’s not important to become
that kid again, throwing clods of dirt at his friends. What’s important
instead, twelve years later, is finding that smile on my own face yet again.
