Fun Zone

As I waited for my dinner to be served, I watched a young mother and her son at the table across the way from ours. They were playing a game. They had to. They were waiting for their dinner too, and the option of staring at the bald guy sitting at the table across from them was less appealing than any other options, and so they played: She would start with her hands in her lap. He would peer down expectantly from his high chair. Slowly, mom would bring one hand out from under the tablecloth, and walking two fingers in tight lock step across the checkered pattern, she moved closer to her son's tray. There were no other props. There were no sound effects, save for the anticipatory giggles from both participants. Once the marching fingers had made their way across the table, they made the perilous and surprising jump up onto the high chair tray. More laughter, especially from the boy who was mesmerized. So much so that he never noticed that his mother's other hand had quietly and stealthily crept around behind his head and while the little hand soldier stood and waited for the next command, the sneaky hand reached over and tickled the exposed neck of this unsuspecting young man. Both of them laughed as if this was the very first time this combination of events had occurred. As I sat and watched, I knew full well that it wasn't. The kid should have seen it coming. His mother performed the same trick at least half a dozen times, and she got away with it every single time. Maybe it was because he was no more than two. Maybe it was because you should always trust your mother, even when she is trying to distract you with a soldier-puppet with one hand while trying to give you a motherly Vulcan nerve pinch with the other.
Or maybe it's because, even in 2015, there are ways to be amused that don't require wi-fi. One of the reasons I would find it difficult to leave my job at an elementary school for the discrete challenges of teaching kids who might get more of my jokes is that I love to watch them play. It is a source of joy for me to see the unbridled enthusiasm six-year-olds have for running across an open space. There doesn't have to be a particular goal or destination, just a direction. When they stop and catch their breath, they turn around and run back. Sometimes, if I am standing still, they will even choose to collide with me. One little girl in particular this year, Janet, has made a point of spotting me before school, at lunch, and after school to run headlong at my waist, where she grabs on tight for a few seconds of giddy affection, before calling out my name as if it were the first time she had ever heard it. And then, just as abruptly, she is off to find someone else to hug. I wish I could bottle that and save it for those late nights or dreary mornings when the sun doesn't make its way to wherever I find myself sitting. I want to be able to hang on to some of that ebullience so when she gets to fifth grade and forgets that she and her friends used to pretend to be bunnies together beneath the play structure, I will have evidence of that simpler time.
A joyous time. A wondrous time.