Air Rights

Anne Cassidy rediscovers the giddy joy of flight.

The first few minutes were strange: a wobbly shuffle, a baby bird on its fledgling flight. Bouncing on the trampoline felt vaguely dangerous, like being in a small boat on high seas. But I was determined to try it. For years the contraption had been staring at me from a shady corner of the backyard. The kids had moved on, but the trampoline, like so much else, was still with us.

I jumped for ten minutes that first time, wooden of leg and knee, novice bouncer. A wimp at heart, I tried nothing fancy, no rolls or back flips.

But those first awkward minutes left me loose and limber and wanting more.

The next time I bounced with music in my ears: my ancient iPod and its party playlists. Now I could bliss out to Enya or bop to ABBA. Bouncing is a lot like dancing. There’s the same shimmy, the same shake. Caught up in the rhythms, I jumped higher and longer. I was hooked.

From then on, I bounced whenever I had time: after work and on weekends, even in the dark. And then ... catastrophe struck. A fierce windstorm felled two giant oaks in our backyard and one of them demolished the trampoline. 

The moment of truth had arrived. It was one thing for a woman my age to inherit a trampoline, quite another to buy a new one. But reader, I bought it anyway. I had to have it. Trampolining doesn’t exactly create weightlessness, but there’s a moment at the peak of each jump when it feels like I’ve escaped gravity. It’s liberating and thrilling and addictive. On the trampoline I’m catching up with myself and the years that have flown by. I could be 30 again, or even 15. I could be any age — as long as it’s younger than I am now.

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The other day, I saw a man trotting down a city sidewalk with a portable net slung across his shoulder, kicking a ball as he ran. I’d noticed soccer players heading to and from the park before, but now I understood why this guy was grinning. He’d been having fun. The let’s-finish-our-homework-so-we-can-go-outside-and-play kind of fun.

Which is why I dream about bouncing on the way home from work, why I bounce at all hours, in all seasons. In winter, I’ve shared the trampoline with a fine layer of snow, which sifts through the mesh as I bounce. It’s not unlike the winnowing that goes on in my mind with each jump — thoughts settling, the troublesome ones melting away.

Often, I bounce my way into evening. The trees fade to black and the house windows glow yellow and inviting. Come inside where you belong, they seem to say. But I stay out a little longer. Dinner can wait.

On the trampoline I see things I would otherwise miss: the first yellow blooms on the witch hazel tree, a lone red tulip that pops up each April. If I bounce long enough, details blur and chores disappear: the leaves no longer need raking, the shrubs no longer need trimming.

The trampoline is a portal; it takes me out of myself. No matter how tired I am when I begin, after a few minutes my head and shoulders are soaring above the safety net. I’m not just bouncing ... I’m flying. Maybe it’s endorphins, or some mixture of movement and music and gratitude. All I know is that I’m forgetting my worries and to-do lists. The earth belongs to duty, family, responsibility. But the air — that belongs to me.

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Anne Cassidy is a longtime freelance writer whose articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Independent Review of Books, and many other publications. Her office window provides such a tempting view of the trampoline that it's a wonder she gets any writing done at all. You can find her online at A Walker in the Suburbs, where she blogs daily.

Images by Jasper Garratt