Five Minutes from Home, A Carefree World

Last summer, my husband and I discovered a new way to enjoy the outdoors: frolf. Anytime we need to get outside but don't have energy to plan, we jump in the car and head to Kenneth Rosland Park. In 5 minutes' time, we're on the first slab of our neighborhood's 9-hole frisbee golf course. We've done this a handful of times, and it's always provided just what we need, an easy hour enveloped in green.
Without fail, we represent the oldest crew on the field, easily 15 years "wiser" than the groups preceding and following us. In fact, this is one reason I enjoy the sport. Evidently, when I'm surrounded by t-shirted 20-year-olds on a sunny day, I tend to adopt a carefree attitude myself. Yesterday, waiting my turn on Hole #2, I glanced behind me and observed four young guys performing an exaggerated warm-up at the course start. One-upping one another with their showmanship, they took turns: one squatting to the ground with a disc held high, the next executing a kind of musical-drama, dance-skate move, legs and arms pumping straight, discs in both hands. I defy you to witness this and not embrace a jovial spirit, if only for an afternoon.
Though I'm fond of stepping into the world of twenty-something frolfers, I can't help but note that I am not one of them. I appreciate my job and husband and house and all the responsibilities that go with them, but I'll never regain the college-aged excitement of having nothing but possibility ahead. It wouldn't occur to me to volunteer, grinning widely, to scale a thin, 30-foot tree to retreive a stragers' disc, unlike the player who rescued my errant throw last summer. I can, however, make a habit of coming here and other places that bring me joy. It's a matter of revising my routine, then allowing myself to appreciate what comes next.