One doesn’t generally think of going to Adventure Island as a profound experience. The 36-year-old local water park was probably my favorite place in the world when I was growing up, and since becoming a mom I’ve looked forward to going back with my own kids. I knew it would be fun, but I didn’t expect to be enlightened.
For one, Adventure Island is a great equalizer. In this heightened, racially and politically charged climate, water parks remind us of our basic common humanity. It’s a microcosm of tattoos and hammer-toes and scars and every skin tone and body type just trying to get its waterslide on.
We stand in line for long stretches, getting a more-than-usual eyeful of each other’s moles and skin tags. We cheer on each others’ scared kids. We inevitably engage in conversation with our linemates — with our collective bare skin, wet hair and happiness — because we’re holding a giant innertube and we know when we go down that slide we’re not thinking about bills, work, biopsies or getting shot just for being in the wrong place. It’s nice.
I mean, there’s occasionally some rando who needs to micromanage everybody so he can have the slide he wants or ride with whomever, but microcosms are cosms, right? Including control freaks who take their waterslide experiences pretty seriously. (And boogers and Band-Aids in the water. But we try not to think about that part.)
The other eye-opening part of going to Adventure Island as a grown-ass woman is that that place doesn’t pull any punches. Yes, we all remember how, by the end of the day, the bottoms of our feet are torn up and raw like like Captain Crunch Mouth, but this last time the water park went all Ronda Rousey on me.
But then, anyone can slip on a slimy stair and sprain and bloody a toe or two, as I did, right? Anyone can pick up some serious speed on the runaway rapids and end up slamming their left ear, possibly perforating their eardrum, right?
Adventure Island showed me that I am a full-fledged grownup, in mind and in body. The observations and appreciation of humanity’s core commonalities at the park never would’ve crossed my 8-year-old mind; and when I weighed half of what I do now, I didn’t fall so hard, and I bounced back more quickly, which was way cooler. But life is give and take.
Adventure Island ain’t for sissies, and neither is being an adult. Both are a mix of thrills and pain, strangers who become friends, and a lot of waiting. Deep pools and deep thoughts, man.
This article appears in Aug 11-18, 2016.