The girl at the swings

Last week was our spring break. We didn't go anywhere until Thursday because Dubya had a neuropsych evaluation midweek. His therapist has told me that she thinks it's likely to come back as Asperger's. Once that process--which took about six hours--was complete, we packed up our car and headed for the great metropolis of Waco, Texas. Where I grew up. Where I never, ever intend to live again, although I have a renewed appreciation for its wide streets, tall trees, milder weather, and this one burger joint at the intersection of Herring and 18th street that serves up the best cheeseburger in the state.

We go there because my sister and her family and my mother still live there, and we like them, regardless of our otherwise mixed feelings about my hometown. And my parents' hometown. And my grandfather's hometown. And my great-grandparents' hometown. And my great-great grandparents' hometown. And...well, you get the idea. These aren't people who move around a lot. Add to that the fact that for reasons known only to the cosmos, the Viking's father is also from Waco (we did not meet there, had no connection there), and, well, Waco still looms large in our lives.

As part of our festivities, we went to a local park adjacent to an elementary school. Waco's spring break was already over, and school was in session. There, at the playground, was also a young girl, about 13 years old, with her little cousin, a boy about five. She was visually arresting, sporting a green school t-shirt from a district 100 miles south, long drooping hair, and slashed, fingerless, black elbow-length gloves that didn't seem quite to mesh with her t-shirt/faded bell-bottom jeans/Converse attire. The first thing out of her mouth to us was, "The teachers at this school are mean. They kicked us off the playground." Not exactly a smooth segue into conversation, and each of the three adults immediately detected something...unusual...about her.

And we didn't care. She engaged with all five of the children we had there at the park, arranging a hide-and-seek game, a tag game, and swinging. She especially interacted well with TH, seeming to take in stride his various awkwardnesses, non-sequiturs, and other behaviors that usually send children on a playground scuttling.

We watched carefully, as we always do, but there wasn't any need for it. This interesting, awkward, direct, ingenuous girl made a fairly humdrum trip to the playground an event for all of the children. We also had the other not-insignificant benefit that we adults got to sit around on our butts the entire time, watching, rather than pushing swings, climbing on playscapes, performing urgent rescues, or declining repeated invitations to race. My sister observed that when she was that age, she would never have been so open to playing with a group of strange kids like that. And I agree--it's rare to find a teenager--to find anyone--who has so little self consciousness (or is it total self acceptance?) to behave as this girl did that day.

School let out, and it was time to go. We encouraged our children to say their friendly goodbyes and packed up to head off to yet another fabulous Waco destination. But our kids had enjoyed a wonderful time at the playground, thanks in no small part to that young, unusual girl at the swings, who took them in hand, who didn't judge, who just accepted everyone--including herself--for who they are.