It's only a ride
It’s only a ride, and soon it will stop.
It’s that ride at the fair - every fair, from the smallest county fair to the big state and regional shows, or even that parking-lot full of rattling contraptions that spends a weekend by the church or the summer at the mall - the one that whips you around, feeling out of control, yet weightless, somehow free.
It’s the one usually called the Scrambler, sets of seats that whirl around, set up so that your car and the one on another spindle flow by each other, barely a yard apart but it feels like inches. You’re in a set geometry, yet you get the illusion you will collide every time. And part of you wants it to happen, but most of you know it won’t, and sure enough, you whip-whoosh past those people feeling the same wild joyous sensation you do, carried on that arc towards the next close encounter. Again and again. Until the whole sequence of turning again and again slows, the whole world slowing with it as your body and senses adjust, until it all stops.
It’s the Tilt-a-Whirl, always a favorite. The simple design like the compass you used in grade school: the car you ride in has a tongue fastened to the floor where that center pin of the compass would go, and you are the pencil. Because of the uneven, wavy, merry-go-round style platform, you travel gently up and down, but the car doesn’t have to be so gentle - it turns its circles at varying speeds. There’s the gentle rocking, back and forth, or the lazy circle, then as the car crests the wave just at the right point of its turn, it whips around a brisk circle or two, then catches the upside of another wave, then travels as quickly the other direction. Within the car, you’re carried along, feeling momentum and gravity toss you like an empty bag in the wind. You want to swirl another big spin, but then you’re back to the rocking, maybe another, slower three-sixty swirl, as the ride slows, and stops.
It’s not one of those rides that put you in a little capsule or cage, spinning endlessly in tight little circles until your inner ear tells your stomach to evacuate everything. - One chili dog, coming up! - No, my young body never got sick on the Scrambler or Tilt-a-Whirl, only that whole-body spinning feeling, more elation than distress.
These are the rides you take your date on. Even if she’s not quite up to holding hands with you, you know she can’t fight the laws of physics.
Sit on the outer end of the Scrambler car. The motion of the ride pulls her into you (never let her take the outer seat - no matter how small your boy-body is, it will crush her like a mighty he-man, or she’ll act like it did, and your relationship is doomed). If she likes you at all, she’ll let the momentum carry her into you - can’t be helped, after all. Feel the warmth of hip against hip, or her shoulder naturally nestling into your chest as you lay an arm across the back of the seat - to hold on to the ride, of course. She knows you won’t get fresh because you’re getting whipsawed by the machine, too. And both of you are looking more at your friends in the other cars than each other. Waving and reaching for them as they come so very close, then turn away.
On the Tilt-a-Whirl, you’re more equals, making it a better test of: “Does she ‘like me’ like me? Or are we just having fun on the ride?” Either way is cool - the ride is great, her hand on yours holding on to the safety bar is bonus. You lean into her, she leans into you, as you try to give that car a little more oomph to go around for another, faster, three-sixty spin. Can you really influence the motion of this object that weighs much more than the two of you together? You believe you can, and you really don’t care.
It’s only a ride.
That’s what I tell myself as this car swirls in an uncontrolled circle across the highway. The momentum presses me into her. Maybe we should have switched seats. My friends in the front seat are screaming, but not from joy. We flow toward another car, its horn blaring. I pray it will turn away from us at the last moment, as I feel it must, as it’s only a ride. I feel the spin in the other direction, whole body momentarily free from gravity. Let’s go around again, my inner child screams, as the inner adult freezes in horror. I hold on, willing myself to influence the course of this two-thousand-pound machine. It’s only a ride. The hospital, the funerals, the questions -- they will come later. Right now, it’s only a ride.
And soon it will stop.
- - - - - - -
This is my entry for LJ Idol Exhibit A, Week 6, Topic: " Tilt-a-whirls" The incident in the last paragraphs is fiction, though we've all experienced something like it, or know ones who have.
It’s that ride at the fair - every fair, from the smallest county fair to the big state and regional shows, or even that parking-lot full of rattling contraptions that spends a weekend by the church or the summer at the mall - the one that whips you around, feeling out of control, yet weightless, somehow free.
It’s the one usually called the Scrambler, sets of seats that whirl around, set up so that your car and the one on another spindle flow by each other, barely a yard apart but it feels like inches. You’re in a set geometry, yet you get the illusion you will collide every time. And part of you wants it to happen, but most of you know it won’t, and sure enough, you whip-whoosh past those people feeling the same wild joyous sensation you do, carried on that arc towards the next close encounter. Again and again. Until the whole sequence of turning again and again slows, the whole world slowing with it as your body and senses adjust, until it all stops.
It’s the Tilt-a-Whirl, always a favorite. The simple design like the compass you used in grade school: the car you ride in has a tongue fastened to the floor where that center pin of the compass would go, and you are the pencil. Because of the uneven, wavy, merry-go-round style platform, you travel gently up and down, but the car doesn’t have to be so gentle - it turns its circles at varying speeds. There’s the gentle rocking, back and forth, or the lazy circle, then as the car crests the wave just at the right point of its turn, it whips around a brisk circle or two, then catches the upside of another wave, then travels as quickly the other direction. Within the car, you’re carried along, feeling momentum and gravity toss you like an empty bag in the wind. You want to swirl another big spin, but then you’re back to the rocking, maybe another, slower three-sixty swirl, as the ride slows, and stops.
It’s not one of those rides that put you in a little capsule or cage, spinning endlessly in tight little circles until your inner ear tells your stomach to evacuate everything. - One chili dog, coming up! - No, my young body never got sick on the Scrambler or Tilt-a-Whirl, only that whole-body spinning feeling, more elation than distress.
These are the rides you take your date on. Even if she’s not quite up to holding hands with you, you know she can’t fight the laws of physics.
Sit on the outer end of the Scrambler car. The motion of the ride pulls her into you (never let her take the outer seat - no matter how small your boy-body is, it will crush her like a mighty he-man, or she’ll act like it did, and your relationship is doomed). If she likes you at all, she’ll let the momentum carry her into you - can’t be helped, after all. Feel the warmth of hip against hip, or her shoulder naturally nestling into your chest as you lay an arm across the back of the seat - to hold on to the ride, of course. She knows you won’t get fresh because you’re getting whipsawed by the machine, too. And both of you are looking more at your friends in the other cars than each other. Waving and reaching for them as they come so very close, then turn away.
On the Tilt-a-Whirl, you’re more equals, making it a better test of: “Does she ‘like me’ like me? Or are we just having fun on the ride?” Either way is cool - the ride is great, her hand on yours holding on to the safety bar is bonus. You lean into her, she leans into you, as you try to give that car a little more oomph to go around for another, faster, three-sixty spin. Can you really influence the motion of this object that weighs much more than the two of you together? You believe you can, and you really don’t care.
It’s only a ride.
That’s what I tell myself as this car swirls in an uncontrolled circle across the highway. The momentum presses me into her. Maybe we should have switched seats. My friends in the front seat are screaming, but not from joy. We flow toward another car, its horn blaring. I pray it will turn away from us at the last moment, as I feel it must, as it’s only a ride. I feel the spin in the other direction, whole body momentarily free from gravity. Let’s go around again, my inner child screams, as the inner adult freezes in horror. I hold on, willing myself to influence the course of this two-thousand-pound machine. It’s only a ride. The hospital, the funerals, the questions -- they will come later. Right now, it’s only a ride.
And soon it will stop.
- - - - - - -
This is my entry for LJ Idol Exhibit A, Week 6, Topic: " Tilt-a-whirls" The incident in the last paragraphs is fiction, though we've all experienced something like it, or know ones who have.