Leaps of Faith: Memories of a Brooklyn School Yard

The neighbor kids were out playing jump rope with their babysitter. They dared me to try.

As if. As if there's anything difficult about playing jump rope, the kind that requires three people, one holding each end and chanting while the third has all the fun. I flashed back to the concrete school

yard in Brooklyn, the white girls skipping with rhythmic ease on one end, the black girls navigating double dutch ropes with a remarkable combination of grace and speed on the other. It never occurred to us to cross the divide and learn the game. We knew our limits.

On my end of the school yard, I jumped with carefree abandon, rarely getting tripped up by the rope. I would never have been caught dead standing next to the rope to start while the end holders swayed it gently and counted -- one, two, three -- before lifting it in a full arc as I waited, knees bent, for the rope to approach the pavement on my other side. I preferred the running start -- one, two, three -- timing my entry perfectly as the rope completed the first half of its fourth revolution. Not double dutch, but certainly pushing the envelope, for a white girl.

I handed my packages to one of the neighbor girls, and I stood at a distance from the rope, scoffing at the notion that I should start slow, standing next to the rope. They looked skeptical, but I held my ground, rocking back and forth, toe to heel, as the rope rose and fell in a perfect arc. I was suddenly terrified. I tried to channel the young me in the Brooklyn school yard, confident as long as there was only one rope turning, never even considering the dangers. Like the rope smacking me in the head; the rope getting tangled in my feet; me, landing in a face plant. The rope reached its apex, I surged forward, for about an inch, and hit the brakes.

Plan B. I swallowed my pride, agreed to a standing start. One -- I bent my knees; Two -- I got ready to spring; Three -- I straightened my legs, and achieved absolutely no lift off. Not a centimeter, Nothing. I no longer knew my limits. It's not that I didn't want to cross the divide, from now to then; I just couldn't.

It was even worse than the hula hoop debacle, years ago, when my own kids were little, and I thought I would wow them with my hula hooping prowess. My skills were pretty advanced, and the bar was, after all, pretty low -- they had never looked across a concrete school yard at a game of double dutch.

With a barely perceptible pivot of my hips, I used to be able to keep it going indefinitely -- walk while I hula'ed, even add a second hoop around my waist while a spun a couple of extras on each arm. Like the girls with the jump rope, my kids had looked skeptical, but I grabbed the hoop with confidence and held it against the small of my back. Alas, my imperceptible hip pivot was no match for the softening of my mid-section, and I found myself thrusting in a grotesque Elvis imitation just to keep the hoop up for almost three seconds. A first glimpse into the extent of my limits. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson by now, all these years later.

Still, my bucket list continues to grow. Some of the items are attainable, some as elusive as double dutch in the concrete school yard, or hula hooping in my thirties, or jumping rope in my fifties. The older I get, the more comfortable I get with what I cannot do, but the more determined I get to continue to cross divides and push envelopes and test my limits, unless there's a very real possibility of a face plant.