This Is the Life, Xilo!

This is the life, Xilo! This is the life!

We're on the trampoline. I ran out to join him and he giggled and laughed. He's young enough to have that squeal sound that slips in at the end of a full belly laugh, remnants of a sound from babyhood. He stands in the middle, releasing his weight to the force of my body falling into the trampoline. Small kids are so good at releasing and going full weight into something. He's laughing and I'm running circles and hops around him figuring out what shape my feet should take once they leave the surface. I try out a pointed foot, but the immense give of the trampoline doesn't allow for a fully softened knee on descent. My legs feel stiffened with this method.

I try bending my legs in the air with pointed feet but this feels even more contrived. I'm doing some kind of pas de chat now.

Then I try to copy Xilo and release my ankles and knees and hips and spine, trying hard to not judge the felt physicality of the motion. I'm trying hard for one moment to discard a lifetime of body memory. A lifetime of intuitively measuring degrees of flexion and extension, percentages of weight and shape. I stop and lay in the middle of the trampoline and Xilo is taking his turn hopping, running and jumping around me.

I see through the frame of tree branches above us and watch the uneven swirls of blue gray clouds in the dim sky. There's a rumble of thunder.

"Did you hear that?" "yeah" he says quickly, with a big smile and…..those eyes. He was already hearing and waiting for me to notice the sound. He was waiting for me.

I see a tear in a leaf. I see a bird I see the taught web skin of my palms.