The Speed of Joy

I watched a group of kids on the sidewalk this morning, their scooters humming against the pavement like a swarm of bees. One boy was leaning so far into a turn that I held my breath, expecting a tumble, but he just laughed and kept going. It reminded me of how we spend so much of our adult lives trying to stay upright, trying to keep our balance, while children seem to find their center only when they are moving fast. There is a specific kind of bravery in that momentum. They aren’t worried about where the path ends or what might be waiting around the next corner. They are just entirely consumed by the wind on their faces and the blur of the world rushing past them. We used to know how to do that—to let go of the brakes and trust that the ground would be there when we finally decided to stop. What would it feel like to move through our own days with that much unearned confidence?

Jose Juniel Rivera-Negron has captured this exact feeling in his image titled A Family Day of Fun. It perfectly mirrors that fleeting, breathless energy of childhood. Does this scene bring back any specific memories of your own afternoons spent outside?