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the neighbourhood
poet, dæd · neighbourhudd
While i was strolling around Cape Town, i passed by one of those typical local playgrounds.
Everything around here seemed pretty dead. There seemed to be no one living here. At least not now. At least not outdoors. There was nobody on the streets – nobody but me.
The floor of that grey and dreary playground was completely asphalted, just like many playgrounds around here.
What did these grown-ups think, when they decided to put asphalt onto the soil? How can we hurt our children the most? How can we turn falling into a freaking bloody experience, as painful as possible?
Are we all insane? What are we running away from? Dirt? Reality? Nature? Life?
I was alone on that playground.
The playground was equipped with a slide, some monkey bars and a swing. First i climbed onto, over and threw these monkey bars – just like in the good old parkour days:
From A to B – as fast and efficient as possible.
Then i went to the slide, to slide it down, over and over again.
Didn't do this in ages!
While i enjoyed myself, gravity and the sliding moment, kids started to approach from all the peripheral angles of my eyes, carrying skateboards, balls or simply with their bare hands.
They came closer.
We started to share that slide.
Two boys started some daring trial-and-errors, sliding down that slide on their skateboard.
Freaking scary!
I had to put both hands in front of my eyes and force my grown-up gene to be quiet, to not say something stupid like ›be careful‹ or such. And it worked.
They tried it, they made it.
Over and over again.
Nobody fell. Nobody hurt.
—
The transformation of an entire neighbourhood – from a dead concrete block, surrounding a dead asphalt playground, into a vivid, playful area.
All over the place kids came out of their houses, some entered the playground, others just sat down somewhere on the kerbstone…
There it was again: Life.
And it all started with one single guy … being authentic.