I didn’t know what to write for flaunt as a prompt, so clicked on “Try Another,” and was taken back to 2015… with “Ode to a Playground.”
Boy did that bring back memories…of my elementary school playground. There was a small group of us, girls and boys from a mixed first and second grade class, before the boys started going into the their girl hating phase, who met, every recess, in a small “boat” made from concrete blocks. It was the outline of a big row-boat, and we sat on the block “edges” of the “boat” and pretended to be going somewhere. When we got bored, we went over to a big tree stump, that was just starting to rot in the middle. We’d put in acorns and dead leaves and pretend to be making soup. The hole got bigger and bigger, and when I went back to it in high school, the stump was almost completely hollowed out.
A far cry from the electronic games that seems to be the only thing that holds kids’ attention these days, I doubt any of them would be impressed if I tried to flaunt the fun times we had on the concrete boat near the dead tree stump.
We feel nostalgic remembering our childhood but there is also a sense of loss for children growing up now, whose play has been shaped less by nature and imagination than by technology! This is my true calling: to challenge the others to connect with their senses to the world around them!