Jumprope Drive

 Monday in my travel writing class we were given the assignment of creating a secret map. In our minds we have secret maps of the places we are most familiar with. These maps defer from person to person because these maps are marked by significant moments and/or events that took place. I decided to make my secret map on the family cabin in Twain Harte. My secret map had locations on it such as Rabbit Hole, Sunshine Cave, Seaweed Cove (the creek where my cousin Dan once chased me with seaweed) and Jumprope Drive. The short vignette below is about Jumprope Drive.

The sound of children playing in the sun reaches my mother’s ears, causing her to forget the time and the dishes in the porcelain sink. Sunshine floods her hazelnut eyes as she pushes the cabin’s screen door open with a squeak. Pine needles crunch under her worn Birkenstocks as she walks the length of the weathered deck her grandfather so lovingly assembled during one of her teenager summers. Peering over the acorn-covered railing she sees three small girls laughing as the jump rope tangles their feet together in a symbol of sisterhood and love. A small, sandy haired boy runs from the lazy creek beyond to join in their game. The two oldest girls, their wet, red hair tied back from a day at the lake, turn the rope over and over for the two younger blondes, singing “Cinderella dressed in yellow…” The laughter bubbled up from these four sprites to the adults who had joined in my mother’s gaze from the deck. The laughter continued as the years moved forward. Worry lines mingled with my mother’s laughter lines as the four young children became four carefree adults. A rare moment in time when those always wanting to be taken seriously and seen as adults slip back into the sand-covered sandals of childhood. A fifth member moves slowly down the deck’s steep stairs toward the laughing group. Pulling his perfectly pressed beige pants above his ankles to show off his stark white tube socks, he charges the circling rope with one graceful movement. My mother gasps in surprise as she watches her quiet father shed years with every skip of the rope. A simple piece of rope, under the magical spell of laughter, bridges the years between reserved poise of age and the childish innocence of youth.