Susie D

Freerunning is an athletic and acrobatic discipline incorporating an aesthetic element and can be considered either a sport or a performance art, or both. Freerunning is similar to parkour, from which it is derived, but emphasizes artistry over efficiency and speed. Freerunning involves interacting with physical obstacles in creative ways, such as by climbing, jumping or running; the obstacles may be purpose-built or may be part of a pre-existing natural or man-made environment (Wikipedia).

We are the freerunners. 

We cross the liminal spaces between one generation and the next. We encounter many obstacles on the path through life, but we use our pain, resilience and creativity to overcome them. We evade the fixedness of time as we move deftly through the world, occupying a place somewhere outside the linear trajectory of a human lifespan. 

Parents feel the passing of time and the stark, concretising transition as each new generation comes into being. We are not so constrained. We are at once the child, the teenager, the career woman or man of business, the daughter, the son, the sister, the brother, the niece, the nephew, the aunt, the uncle, the wife, the husband, the partner, the lover, the friend, the glamorous older woman, the silver fox, the wise elder, the gent and the dame. 

When we meet up with our friends and talk with their children and grandchildren, we vault quietly across the so-called generational divide to meet them just where they are, able to share in an understanding of the things that matter most to them at their age. Time cannot place its narrative upon us, because so many of the questions, interests and preoccupations of the next generations have never ceased to matter to us either. 

Sometimes, we will jump awkwardly, our bodies twisting out of shape to avoid hitting the rocks that lie before us. Other times, we will land too heavily, and we must then pick ourselves up and run on a sprained ankle or with wounded pride. But most of the time we will judge the height and depth of each obstacle just right, rising and soaring as we clear it with ease and grace. We have honed our technique over many years of encountering painful, triggering situations, casually cruel words or blisteringly unthinking comments. But no matter how large or how frequent the obstacles may be, they cannot ever stop us from moving forwards.

We are the freerunners. 

We run free.

Photo by hugorouffiac on Pixabay