Field Therapy

When I was a teenager, we lived in a small college town. Even the college was small; it was a junior college division of Emory. It was the kind of town where our parents felt comfortable letting us roam free. We walked to school, to each other's houses, rode our bikes all over town and were perfectly safe. They thought nothing of us meeting a friend to go for a walk at 9 or 10 pm during the summer.

The college had a beautiful, old campus (it's been there since the early 1840's), with adjacent tennis courts and a soccer field. A soccer field without lights, and not many street lights nearby. PFS lived about halfway between my house and the soccer field, and we would frequently make plans to meet there for what he called "field therapy". I would grab an apple and he would sneak a piece of aluminum foil, and we would both head out after dark, meeting at the stop sign at the end of his street before heading on the the field. We would then take our seats on the bleachers, which you couldn't really see from the road, and he would fashion a device with the apple, foil, and his pocket knife. We would then partake and have a disposable, innocent looking apple we could toss into the woods if need be. Although there was little risk; there was only one police officer in town, and he lived one block away, it was easy to tell if he was at home or on patrol.

We would lie back on the bleachers or on the grass and look up at the sky. We could and did talk about anything and everything, and my god, did we laugh. There is still no one in the world who can make me laugh like he does, and vice versa. He's always said we should have our own radio show, we're that damn funny. He's been my best friend since I was 14 and I don't know what I would do without him. But I still won't let him read my blog. ; )

I miss field therapy. I miss feeling safe enough to go for a walk after dark. I miss being able to just lie back, relax, and talk and laugh, just enjoying the moment for what it is. I think I miss my youth. I need to find a way to feel like that again, and I wonder if it's even possible.