Somersaults

When I was in second grade, my family lived on an Army base in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. I remember my school holding tryouts for a talent show that I thought would be fun to participate in. I came up with a gymnastics routine to perform despite never having taken a gymnastics class. In fact, the only gymnastics skill I actually could do was a somersault- but by golly, I thought I did them well and they always brought me so much joy to do! I had planned to do 100 somersaults in a row without stopping. It turned out that there wasn't enough time for my entire routine; and the mat wasn't long enough for me to do more than two and a half somersaults at a time. But I did as many as I could going back and forth as quickly as possible in that quiet, tiny gymnasium. I can imagine the site of me doing this left the judges and other children uncomfortably wide-eyed. I am not even sure if anyone clapped when I was done- I was much too dizzy to notice anything at the time except for how much I loved the feeling of somersaulting. I secretly wondered if the judges ever somersaulted, too. I didn't make the cut to perform in the big show. That's okay. I still loved watching the other children sing, dance, and share their talents with the school. I also consider myself a really good talent-watcher. Perhaps we all have our own different definition of talent. "Talent- a skill of any kind, performed at any level that produces joy so big you just can't stop smiling." That's mine. And for the record, I never stopped somersaulting. Still do every day.