double dutch

once every six weeks or so, our church building is host to a few temporarily unhoused families. we share the responsibility of feeding and caring for them with 2 or 3 other congregations. last night, i volunteered to help lead the evening activity for the kids of these families. this time, the kids were mostly older (10-15 yrs.), so we took them down the street to a school playground. they played a little basketball, then they pulled out a really long phone cord they’d brought along and tried to teach us to turn the rope and jump “double dutch.” wow. i haven’t gotten to participate in more-than-one-person jump rope activities since elementary school, let alone double dutch! it was great! although we were told that we were terrible at turning the rope because we were holding it too slack and not doing the correct circles with our hands and holding it too low (although our critic didn’t do much better jumping with her two double-dutch experienced friends turning, i noticed). when we got tired of that, we went over to the jungle gym area. there, i (possibly foolishly) tried to turn flips on the bar like i’d done when i was a kid–once with the bar on my stomach, once with one knee over the bar, toes tucked behind the other leg. luckily, i did not hit my head on the ground. what a rush! i wasn’t able to turn more than once like i used to when i was a kid, but even just the feeling of throwing my head at the ground like that …. i don’t know… it really sent me back to my old elementary school days. then, i went over to the monkey bars, climbed on top, tucked my feet into the bars and hung back upside down over the edge. also, a rush. and a head rush. wheee!