I pass it in the early morning when I’m out for my run and I smile when I see it.
It makes things feel simpler, lighter.
It takes me from the frenzy of “okay, I have to finish this paper for tonight and study for an exam tomorrow… rent is due in two days … ugh, I don’t have anything to wear to that event next week … I wonder what my life is going to look like in a year...”
Deadlines. Insecurities. Uncertainties.
They rush around in my head.
And then I see the swing.
And momentarily, I am there again.
I transport myself back in time, onto that worn wooden platform. I can feel my younger hands gripping the course edges of the rope, holding on for dear life. My little legs are pumping, as if their motion of back and forth, back and forth, was capable of taking me to a whole other world. I can feel the exhilaration of that brief moment in the back swing when my body hovers over the seat. Gravity defied. The laws of nature and probability don’t seem to hold me here.
I am weightless, extraordinary, free.
The world feels poetic and I am wildly curious about it – the tree I am swinging from, how does it stand like this? And the rope I’m holding to – what is it made of? And what about the day, how does it know when to end and when to start again?
The world is mysterious and exciting before my little eyes. It feels as if every detail has been set in place and I am grateful to whoever has put them there.
I don’t do this enough these days, just get lost in wonder.
I think too much.
I try to understand everything, control everything.
Curiosity too often escapes me.
Maybe tonight I’ll find a swing to sit on.