I asked to go on the ferris wheel again, because it was my favourite ride. It wasn’t fast and it certainly wasn’t known for being frightening but it gave me an exhilaration anyway. A moment where I was on top on the world, but not like the jolt of the hair raiser where you were suspended one moment and slammed down the next. In the carriage you were slowly rising up and up there, I could relish the moment, the feeling. The view was somthing to behold, at a certain height the carriage seemed to be half in the park and half in the sea. So, there was a fear element to it, if it broke and you came crashing down, from memory it looked like you might fall into the big blue sea. I may have thought about that, the first time on the wheel that day and so I held onto my friend’s hand and yet I continued to look onto the view, into the ocean.

Usually people who come to the amusement park are not afraid of this particular ride. Often their looking forward to the thunderbolt, mouse trap, hair raiser or the volare. We certainly were of that bunch- well my friends more so than I, we were seventh graders eager to make the most of this excursion. To tick off many rides as experienced. Yet, the ferris weel remained my favourite. Well atleast in that park. I would come to try more rides since then. But, the simplicity of that feeling- suspended in air with a beautiful view, on a carriage that shakes back and forth, a bit at every degree it rotates. It was a beautiful, simple, innocent moment. Turbulent, eventful and over quickly. In a way it symbolises the whole of seventh grade.

Oh to be young again.