Trampolines

I love to walk. I had forgotten this. In retrospect, one of the reasons I loved living in New York was my almost weekly walk around Soho. Through the marvelous and slightly pornographic graffiti. Darting into two rows of the flea market. By four or five of the "original Ray's pizza's". Walking around Soho was heavenly.

Gisborne is nothing like Soho. Except for the joy of walking. Every day. I decided not to buy a bike. That felt like cheating somehow.

One of the pleasures of walking around is looking around. Noticing things. Small things. Ordinary things. The every day relics and artifacts of the life here. Things you simply can not capture inside a car. For one, the car is on the street with other cars and walking is on the sidewalk closeby to the fences, trees, yards, porches, driveways, lawns, bikes, crushed rotting lemons, rusted lawnmowers, heaps of rosemary bushes, for sale signs with pictures of the house, other pedestrians [always with a hello or g'd day] and, around this town, trampolines.

I've seen at least seven or eight trampolines.

I haven't yet seen the trampoline in action, but I know how it works. I was on a trampoline. Once.

You kind of hop on. You start jumping. Someone yells, HIGHER. You jump higher. It is a little bit scary, but mostly fun. You start making crazy faces. And yelp a bit. You fall. You get right back up. Falling doesn't hurt because you are on the elastic. Falling often leads to another lurch of a jump. Airborne. It is the closest we probably get to flying.

There is no competition on the trampoline. [I suppose one could do the 'who jumped higher' but it isn't really the point]. No training. No referees. You don't score any points. You don't crash into anybody trying to get a ball down the field. There are no uniforms. No equipment. No rules. No time restraints.


I've been wondering about the ease and carefree nature of the children I've seen here. Sure, they play rugby too. There's a big equestrian club. But I gotta believe that one of the reasons these kiwis are so grounded, is that they start off early on learning to fly.