LilButtCheeks

I’ve been gone for my longest stint from home at this point. Fifty days. For some that may seem like a real long while and others, chump change, but again that’s a good amount of time for me. A long bout of ROTC training and then a stint at Air Assault school took some good energy out of me. Towards the end I got sick and I spent my first few days home in between a headache and a fever. I had moments in trying to wakeup that I thought I was still at Air Assault waiting in a line to rappel. But finally, I’m back and I can breathe the air in and sit in the places I love with that improved gratitude we seem to only get when we’ve been away for a while. 

I take a seat in the public park of my hometown, and I’m grateful. The trees teem with a deep green. The air is fresh, and the small waterpark behind one of the pavilions is busy with little kids playing. I grew up here in this patch of green. I played in that same waterpark and spent many hours out here running. And yes, the water treatment facility is just down the road and the county jail is on the opposite side of the peewee baseball fields. It’s funny. But this isn’t my favorite place because it’s a joke I laugh at in my head. It’s my favorite place because on the right day you can see families pile out of their cars and go to the spring down the road as the natural features of Missouri provide their own water park. I love it because on summer mornings when it’s time to run there’s a group of moms doing their workout routine with their strollers nearby. Sometimes, units from on base find that the best place to play ultimate frisbee is on the intramural fields that we all share. And other times, on those cold and rainy days when it looks like nobody is around, you’ll see that one regular who seems to always be at the park walking their dog whenever you make it out to pound pavement. You’ve never learned their name and you probably never will, but you just nod and feel good to see a familiar face. 

What is your favorite place and why?