Merry Go Round

A few days ago I went to a neighborhood park with my son, the Future Rock Star. He is eleven and in that wonderful time when he can be cool about everything and still enjoy playground equipment like the merry-go-round. I estimate it will be about fifteen years before he gets back to this stage. If he is lucky.

This is not one of your high-end parks. The FRS's favorite thing is to sit on the merry-go-round while I spin it. While spinning, FRS chortles in that fabulous laugh of his. I get a back strain and become progressively ill watching the whirl. On this particular day, FRS yelled out "faster Dad, spin that thing like the All-American Dad you are!!" Well. So far, so good. I felt like I had just won an Olympic medal. A gold one.

The day and place took me back a decade, before he was FRS. Before he could talk. Before he had heard of an American Stratocaster, much less played one so well people would stare at him and ask his name. To a sparkling, bright winter day when I took a baby boy to the same park for some fresh air. His favorite thing then was to swing. I could push him for an hour and not even suffer motion sickness. At one point during that crisp morning's swing session, I had what to that point in my life was a singular experience. I felt as if an arrow had suddenly pierced my heart. No, not an arrow. Too blunt. A laser beam. Accompanied by the striking realization that he would eventually go off on his own journey separate from mine. Leaving me in the park...

The merry-go-round spins and spins. FRS howls with glee. I hear a whisper in the breeze as I twist my soon to be aching body in odd curves to make the darn thing turn. "Enjoy the time. Every second. It is a limited and magnificent gift. And it is running..."