Are you a chicken or just old?

I got on the trampoline with my six-year old granddaughter the other day. I just had my knee scoped so I had high hopes for a mysterious renewal of my athletic abilities.

I can still feel my body jumping on a tramp, the swoop as your stomach goes up, the spring in your knees as you land. We were the first in our neighborhood to get a trampoline and my parents sent out notices to parents for blocks around that children who jumped at our house had to have a signed permission slip. It was like we’d set-up a high wire circus rig.

My sister Mary was really good, due to her advanced sense of daring. She could do both front and back flips whereas I never got up enough nerve to do more than have a “seat war,” aggressively sitting and standing in competition until one of us gave up in sheer desperation, just to make it stop.

She could jump in the air and land on her back without worrying about the implications of a broken neck. Even at twelve I was concerned with every disastrous eventuality, something that I can’t understand about my husband even now, but I smirk every time I hear him say, “I didn’t think THAT would happen.”

Needless to say, I’m not a better gymnast as a senior citizen than I was at twelve.

It took me about ten minutes to get up the courage to stand up on the trampoline and after a few tentative bounces I realized my greater problem was going to be sea- sickness, a blessing in disguise I hadn’t counted on. No one wants to see their grandma barf all over their playthings.

I’ve tried a little bit of everything, but it’s the same for sliding down poles. It’s seems so much higher up there on the top than I remember it being. And you can forget slides. Someone with a size 16 body hurling down a steep slope should be classified as a weapon, not a fun-goer.

So I watch, and like an old dog running after squirrels in his sleep, I remember myself soaring and climbing. But I have become a cheerleader now and I suppose that’s all right.

I’m just so grateful to not have to think I’m a chicken anymore.