I do my best thinking on the merry-go-round. Not A+ work all the time, it isn’t a miracle worker, but I’ve learned that if I go just fast enough to make everything a blur but not so fast that I get sick, I start thinking from new points of view, different angles, and the blur becomes more defined.

     Walking home from school yesterday, as I normally do on non-rainy days, I passed the bush of berries. There are getting to be fewer and fewer berries, as the berry season ends and more and more guys find out about them. The berries grow on Mr. Finn’s lawn. He’ll chase you off if he sees you, but he doesn’t come outside all that much, except to get his mail, which is usually the exact time I’m walking by his house. I set this as a marker for thinking upon today, for my thinking schedule. I don’t keep a calender for my schedule because I want to practice my ability to remember. I usually just remember what I need to think about when I start to spin. 

   Thoughts last as long as it takes before I either have to spin myself again. I grabbed the bars coming from the center and counted my steps as I got up to two full rotations I jumped on and got as close I could to the center. I set to thinking about the berries. About how Mr. Finn protects them, he owns them, because they are in his yard. He waters his yard, with his water. He spends his time on those berries. Dedicates his free time to helping them grow. What does he get from those berries but a sweet taste once a day. He doesn’t eat them for dinner. All that work, all that water, time, protecting them, just for the taste of them.

     The ride starts to slow and I stand up. Grab the bars and run as fast I could. This time I forgot to count from the start, went faster this time in the two rotations around, harder to jump on. Harder to get to the center. Does he own them? What does it mean to own something? If I came and planted berries on Mr. Finn’s yard, came by every day and protected them, watered them, ate a berry, would I think own them, or would they still belong to Mr. Finn? Does he just not want people close, in his yard? If the President came and wanted to take a berry, would Mr. Finn still own the berries? Mr. Finn is nice, he’d share if I asked probably, but even sharing, I want to own them and share them, not just take his. 

    Stopped I don’t have time for another full thought. I spun the wheel with my free arm as I got off and walked in the direction I thought was home. Sometimes the thinking stays with me, on my walk home, sometimes it stays with me until the next day. It gets weaker until I spin again. I’ve heard people dance in circles, spin, trying to see God. Thinking is like meeting God. I’ve thought about that. Spinning is like a science. You need balance in your thoughts, energy to spin. It is best to be at the center.

   The berries are as dark and as big as they are going to get. Mr. Finn is outside at his mailbox. As the paper slides against the metal box, it makes the sound of a thought. He looks at me, standing right next to his berries and he knows it sounded like a thought. I turn my head look right at his berries. The smell of the wine mom drinks or a scrapped knee comes up from the ground. The mail in his hand he starts walking toward me. Each step the mail is raised higher in the air. The thought attacks me. As he reaches arms distance, i start spinning on my feet, in the tightest circle I can. I look up into the sky.

     He is stopped hands at his side. His look feels like he is smiling without knowing why. A cough or laugh comes out of his mouth that feels like a tear. He watches me with his hands at his sides. As I’m spinning my hands begin to rise from the force, pushing them up. He takes a step back. He is worried I will touch him. He steps back again. Stumbles off the curb, into the side of the street. He stares at me with a worried smile. He looks up and raises his hands out as far as he can. He is thinking about the mail he is holding. He drops the thought with the mail on the curb. I can feel him cry and laugh at the same time. I am spinning as fast as I can next to his berries. Holding on to my thoughts in the center. The process is much harder without the merry-go-round.

    He starts spinning. I knew, not sure when I knew, that he would spin with me. “They’re still ripe. Ripe.” He says as I slow down, come to my stop from spinning. He starts to pick up some speed, his arms out at his side, not because force, because he pushes them far out as he can. His spin is slower, like a dance. “Can I own them?” I asked him at the moment I thought he liked me the most. “No.” He said as if it wouldn’t insult me. “From now on, no one owns them.”

   I started walking before he stopped. He looked at me, like I did something wrong. My feet started running, this time, not in a circle. He’s head moved, followed me, while he stayed still. I was gone before he made a move, picked up his mail.

   The next day as I walked by he was building a fence. Around his whole yard there were posts, for the upcoming fence. We say each other, but I kept walking, didn’t meet his eyes and he wasn’t trying to meet mine. He felt sad to have me near. He lifted the fence as I walked to show me the fence was bigger than me, bigger than I could ever become, bigger than himself. I saved a though for my schedule about how much fence Mr. Finn will really need.

  Days later, the fence was built. I started staying later in school. Summer came and I never passed Mr. Finn’s yard. I grew to the size of Mr. Finn’s fence and I had another thought scheduled in that became a letter I wrote Mr. Finn. A letter I hand delivered to his mail box an arms length away from where he spun, between his spinning and the fence.

         Dear Mr. Finn,

               I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how big your fence needs to be in order to keep others out. I thinking you should build it bigger and I wouldn’t mind helping, although I can only hope I don’t end up with a fence around myself. I wanted to write you to tell you that I still spin. I spin every day, so that others might understand like you did, even if it is only for a moment before they build a bigger fence.

                                      Your friend.