Spiderman Yo-yo: I Need More Time for Triviality
Today was a good day for me. I had to go to the optometrist in Ashfield, but when I got there I discovered she’d gone out to lunch and wouldn’t be back for another hour.
I found myself back out on the street wondering what to do next. For the first time in ages I had an hour free with nothing planned.
I stood on the corner and just watched people, feeling frozen in time, completely in the moment. I watched life move around me. A man and his baby gurgled at each other. Another dude carried a pig carcass on his shoulders to deliver it to the smiling butcher, who stared out the window at a blind man, who struggled to cross the road. Life, death, mirth and toil; all in a moment.
I snapped out of my daze and helped him, then wandered into the 2 dollar shop, where I spent close to 20 minutes in the toy section.
That’s where I spotted it. A cheap knockoff Spiderman yo-yo which lit up when you played with it. It took me right back to my childhood.
When I was about 10, yo-yo’s were the pinnacle of playground cool. The ‘brain’ yo-yo to be precise. It lit up as it moved up and down the string, some of them even made noises.
For about three weeks, if you didn’t have one you weren’t anyone. I begged my mum to buy me one, but she never did. At the time it was devastating, or about as devastating as anything can be when your 10.
So when I saw this Spiderman yo-yo with the light I just had to have it. I tried to talk myself out of it (I’m trying not to buy crap I don’t need). When will I have time to play with it? I thought. It’ll just sit there accumulating dust.
When you’re a kid time feels like it stretches on forever. The Christmas holidays felt like eternity. An eternity of riding bikes, running through sprinklers, making cubby houses and laughing. Nothing matters when you’re a kid. Life is playtime.
Then you grow up and life becomes heavy and meaning-laden. All you do is think. You live in your head so much, worrying your worries, that you miss out on the little pleasures. You miss out on moments of beauty hidden amongst the hustle and bustle of life.
I bought the yo-yo and then wandered over to K-Mart and bought some paper. The teller was a lady with gray hair who looked to be in her late 50s.
“Life is getting so much harder”, she said, randomly. “Especially for young people. You gotta be tough these days. You gotta be confident. It’s a dog eat dog world”.
“You’re right”, I said. “But you deal with it. You get tough”.
She smiled and gave me a sympathetic look. “Thanks for the conversation, dear”, she said.
Walking away it struck me that I’d had an amazing hour. A welcomed respite from the cluttered mutterings of my head. Then I walked into the optometrist and it was business as usual. I wish I had more time.
3 years ago