When I was 5 or 6, we lived in a small town near Lyon, in the South of France, for a year.
I remember it quite well given my age at the time. We lived in a big house that was old, so old that my mother always complained that an hour after cleaning it a layer of dust would be back on the furniture.
I remember the school quite well too. There was this one girl whose name was Marion, that I hoped I would marry some day, and also a kid called Nicolas who was my best friend.
It was a simpler time.
I also remember physical education class, which required us to do all kinds of exercises. Usually the teacher would play music and ask us to jump to its rhythm. One great classic was the popcorn song, which I think is an international staple of kindergarten PE the world over.
Overall, whether at PE, math or French, I think I was a pretty well-rounded student.
Still, one day, I remember my mother was called in after PE class to talk with my teacher.
After talking with them for a while, she and the teacher told me I would be meeting with a man called Daniel once a week to do a little bit more exercise.
Sure enough, about a week later, one of the school staff came to pick me up from class and took me to see man they called Daniel.
I walked into a room that was set up with all kinds of playground items such as giant foam cubes, exercise balls, barrels, tubes, etc. Daniel was quite young for an adult, probably in his 30s, if I had to give him an age based on my childhood memory of him. He greeted me, told me the whole room was available for me to use, then sat behind a desk in the corner.
He asked me a few questions. I answered them candidly.
After a few minutes, without much explanation, he got up and showed me the space. After giving me the dime tour, he sat back down behind his desk and told me to start playing.
I did.
For an hour, I played with pretty much everything. I asked Daniel, can I jump on this? Can I get into this barrel? Can I crawl through this tube? I felt the urge to ask, because it felt like I was misusing furniture. Those were all activities that would have gotten me in trouble under any other circumstances, but Daniel kept telling me, sure, I could do anything. He just nodded and took notes, still sitting at his desk.
I remember thoroughly enjoying that session. I also remember making incredible discoveries: did you know that, it you crawl into a tube, and roll inside it, the tube rolls along with you? It seems obvious now, but it was quite a discovery to me at the time.
I remember telling Daniel about it. I was very proud of myself.
Daniel smiled, nodded, and took another note in his pad.
I couldn’t believe my luck, and really didn’t understand what got me this incredible perk, to take an hour off class in order to just jump and crawl around, and essentially get to use a custom-made playground all to myself.
After the first session, I couldn’t wait for the next one. I was told Daniel would be back the following week.
I was very happy to see him again that second time, and enjoyed it just as much as the first.
But the privilege didn’t last long. After a couple of times, I was told Daniel wouldn’t be coming back. I was a little sad at that thought, but at the same time, I didn’t have to complain. After all, it wasn’t fair to the other children. I’d asked them about Daniel, and none of them had met him, let alone got to use his incredible playground.
Years passed, and I never really thought about Daniel or these sessions again. It must have been a good 5 to 10 years later that my mother shed light on the whole issue. She mentioned, one day as we were talking about something else, that when I was around 5 or 6, during a physical education class, my teacher realised that I couldn’t jump backward.
While all the kids in PE class could jump in all directions, it seemed that my brain couldn’t compute the act of jumping back.
At the time, the school called my mother to have a chat with her. She told me, on her way to school, based on what the teacher had told her, she worried I might have a serious cognitive or motor impediment. As soon as she arrived, the school staff reassured her, telling her it was most likely due to me being quite tall for my age, much taller than average.
As a remedy to my inability to do basic PE exercises, they prescribed sessions with a physical educator, the aforementioned Daniel, so he could assess the situation and hopefully unlock my full athletic potential.
In the end, the fact that I only met Daniel a few times means I must have caught on fast. I have to give credit to my mother and the teaching body at the school, because never at any time did I feel like there was anything wrong with me.
That, or, maybe I was indeed a bit slower to catch on than the average kid.
Years have passed, and I’ve fully caught on (hopefully). A few years ago, I met a girl in Shanghai. We went out on a date and I immediately realised I liked her. I remember I was nervous, and I tried to make her laugh, without much success at first.
As the evening went by, somehow this story came back to my mind and I told her. It was a huge hit, and it was one of the first times I made her laugh. Now she is my wife. I’ve made her laugh many more times since, but I’ll never forget the first time I saw her laugh as I told her the story.
Sometimes embarrassing situations can turn to your advantage if you let enough time pass by.
In the end, things didn’t turn out as I’d planned them as a 6-year-old. I didn’t get to marry that Marion girl. God knows where she is today. I even lost touch with Nicolas soon after our family moved to another part of France. But in the end it worked out for the best. I have plenty of friends, and I got married with the girl I wanted to marry, not the least thanks to Daniel and his story.
Once in a while, I remember this story and smile.
And just to make sure, once in a while, I try to jump backward.
Turns out I still got it. So far so good.