Do you remember your absolute first love? The racing heart, the sweaty palms, and the peculiar enjoyment you derived from it? Do you recall the day when it swept you up in its web of tentacles, tossing you around from side to side as though you had been a message in a bottle out at sea? Can you still feel the searing pain of this love, now lost and gone, as it nostalgically clings to your breast?
My first,
true
love
was
gymnastics.
My love was all encompassing. It traveled around the Brengle Terrace gymnasium with me. I seemingly grew inches from the raw power it bestowed as I dug each of my pounding feet into the spring mats during the floor exercises, upon which I would gracefully leap,
jump, twist,
turn,
and flip. (This was a favored pastime outside of the gym as well, as the grass strait-away in my parent’s backyard turned me into Nadia Comenechi every weekend.)
This love also had me trembling in fearful anticipation as I swung my brown legs from the dizzying heights of the top, uneven bar, landing upon the blue, crash pad with a soft thud and a huge grin. It whispered the tiniest of insecurities into my small ears as I glanced down at the slender width of the high beam upon which jumping backwards into space and landing with both of my girl hands upon the wooden platform seemed an unbearable task. And
it screamed
“Don’t!”
and
“Stop!”
just as soon as my coaches stepped away from the vault that I was hurtling down a speedway towards, ready to fly my fragile form through mid air just beyond.
These most basic and elementary of days were spent either bringing milk and ice in a plastic bottle to those gymnastics practices or out on my school’s expansive playground where my peers would encourage me, at recess, to do another tumbling move. “Again, Cara. Again!” I never refused their pleas.
