gravel in my knee

Back in grade school, my friends and I always played on "the bars" at recess. These were the old school steel bars; just a straight bar across at three levels, each increasingly higher than the other. These bars stood over gravel covered dust. The ground beneath each bar compacted and indented from hours of little girl feet dragging on the earth, trying to slow momentum.

I specifically remember Lisa on these bars. Lisa was a monkey bar savant. Oh, how I wanted to be Lisa. To be brave and skilled enough to perform the tricks she did. Little Lisa--blond hair flying--making me dizzy as she swung around those bars.

In fact, all the girls at Sheridan Elementary wanted to be Lisa on those bars. (And we most certainly did not want to be Janelle...who got on the bars in a dress. Her panties showed. I still shudder at that memory.) Through the grades, I worked on those tricks Lisa performed and slowly mastered some of them.

I particularly remember working on the "penny drop". The ultimate goal was to hang upside down by the knees, swinging back and forth to gain momentum, eventually swinging high enough that you could let go with your knees, fly off the bars and land on your feet. Only the best and the bravest could meet Lisa's skill. Lisa performed the penny drop (and many scarier things) from the tallest bar. We could not even reach the tall bar without climbing up to it from the second bar...or having friends who would boost you up. I tell you this to say, a penny drop from that top bar was scary stuff, my friends.

I think I eventually managed a single penny drop from the tall bar. And if memory serves, I did it once, clapped the dust off my hands and promptly stopped trying that particular brand of danger. The feel of gravel in my knee...the stinging memory of the afternoon the school nurse popped several pieces of that dusty, grey-white gravel out of my knee...was enough to keep me from celebrating my new found skill with additional feats of glory. (This scar on my knee sits next to the one resulting from my single attempt to jump my bike.) The history of gravel in my knee was enough to make me revel in a singular achievement...I'd acquired the desired piece of grade school street cred.

And that's how I've lived most of my life...going for what I want, but learning life's lessons from the gravel in my knee.