Swinging

I can very clearly remember the first time that I learned how to "pump" my legs on a swing set.

My parents had hung two blue swings underneath the porch of our house, which was high above the ground, so we could dangle from the ceiling, overlooking the hill. I still have one of the blue swings, which was plastic and had a thick yellow rope as a chain, and the other one I sold to my friend at a garage sale a few years ago. Whenever I go to her house, I look through the window and see it just hanging there, and am reminded of the hours I spent trying to swing high on that thing. I didn't get the concept of pumping, since I thought it was was so much easier to just swing without doing any work. My dad tried to convince me that it was better, but I ignored him and kept on getting pushed. Until the day I actually tried to do it...and then I soared.

The way I see it, swings are the closest that a normal human can get to flying. You don't need a plane or some heavy duty equipment or training; all you need is a rope and a place to hang it, and all of a sudden you're flying like a bird. From the moment you reach the pinnacle of your swoop, and can see for miles around, to when your feet brush the ground, scattering bark chips or dirt everywhere, to the opposite side of the arc, where you can just see over the bar and wonder if you're going to flip over the entire set, it's the most simple yet thrilling experience ever. And people have been doing it for hundreds of years. to feel the wind blowing in your face and the adrenaline pulsing through you. It's a perfect parabola, hitting zero somewhere in the middle and then completing the mirror image on the other side-living math while feeling like a bird.

For me, swings bring a new opportunity. Until my swing (one of the swings I used to have) broke off of the wimpy little tree in my backyard (I moved), I would spend hours out there, thinking and kind of talking to myself, writing and narrating stories in my head. It gave me something to do, and I would fly at the same time. Because I don't have a swing anymore, if you see me walking somewhere and talking to myself, that's why. That swing was my refuge.

It's my dream to someday move into a new house where I can have a giant forest of trees in the backyard, where I can hang all the swings I want. It hasn't happened yet. But it will.