Swings Take You Places

When I was a little girl, we had a metal swing set in our backyard that had come from an old school.  The swing set was higher and bigger than the kind my friends had in their yards.  I would sit on the swing for hours, swinging back and forth.  I'd look up at the sky and imagine touching my toes to the clouds. Each swing would bring me just a little closer.  I didn't fear that the swing set would topple over because my father had cemented the frame into the ground.  As I swung, I could hear the swing set groan.  When I went forward, it said, "Ye-e-e-es."  When I swung back to the ground again, it said, "No-o-o-o."  "Ye-e-e-es," "No-o-o-o."  "Ye-e-e-es."  "No-o-o-o."  So close each time, but always defeated by gravity.

My neighbor, Marsha, had a smaller more typical metal swing set.  I remember we would go on the double-swing, the kind that has seats that face each other.  We would stand on each side opening and let the little kids sit on the seats.  We'd swing from side to side and sing a song that we made up.  It went something like this, "We're going to Candy Town, We're going to Candy Town.  There's going to be candy all around, We're going to Candy Town."  We would change the "Candy Town" part to maybe, "Toy Town" at times.  But wherever we were going, when the swing stopped, that's where we'd be. We would walk around her yard and imagine all of our favorite things around us, we could almost taste the candy . . .

I spent much of my childhood on a swing and when I had children of my own, one of the first things I bought was a metal swing set.  I taught them the "Candy Town" song and we visited it often.  We moved from that house when my daughter was 13 and my son was 8.  At our new house we bought one of those wooden swing sets with a "fort" platform attached that took up almost our entire back yard.  While they both played with the fort, it was my daughter who never stopped swinging. Even in high school, her friends would come over and they would sit on the swings and enter their own little world.  She was very upset when we took the swing set down while she was away at college.  But it didn't make sense to have it take up so much of our small yard for the few times that it was used.

We went to visit her recently where she lives now.  She is in graduate school in a southern state and wanted to get a porch swing for the house she rents.  She decided that instead of the more common wooden bench swing, she wanted one of those "Bohemian" net swings that envelope your body as you sit in them.  We did buy one for her and when her father takes her back in August, he will hang it from her porch.  She intends to study in her swing as it bounces and swings from the spring and chain it is attached to.

One of my first memories of swings was seeing a swing in my grandmother's neighbor's yard.  I looked out of a window and could see one of those self-standing wooden swings with a frame built around it.  It only consisted of two benches facing each other with a wooden platform for your feet in between.  Many times I imagined myself on that swing.  Years went by before I saw a swing like that again.  It was at an Amish outdoor furniture store in upstate New York.  I sat on it and swung back and forth.  I wanted to buy it for our little summer home in the mountains, but I couldn't rationalize spending $600 on a swing I would only use a few weekends a year while I still had children to raise.  After all, children are expensive and I was "only" a stay-at-home mom.  So I didn't buy that swing.

But now, another summer  is approaching and I am looking around my small yard at home once again and trying to figure out if there is a place that I could put one of those swings.  Every year I come to the same conclusion, there's no place for it, but that doesn't seem to stop me from looking again the next year.  So maybe this will be the year.  Maybe I will buy myself that swing and sit on it for hours again.  Maybe I will visit places in my imagination and write about them in my books.  "Ye-e-e-es," "No-o-o-o," "Maybe?"

One door closes, another one opens.

So if you've been reading my blog at all, you know that I am soon to be an empty-nester.  My daughter is in graduate school in another state and my son is about to head off to college this fall.  At this time in my life it is easy to get caught up in the past and what I (we) are leaving behind.  It's even getting hard to watch the old videos of when they were little because all it seems to do is bring me to tears.  I spent so much of my life looking forward to being a mother and then actually raising my kids, it's hard to see purpose in my life beyond them.  True, I have my writing and the possibility of getting my novels published someday, as well as finally having the time to really dive into my family history research, but there will never be anything in my life as fulfilling as being a mother.

Now here I am reaching the pinnacle of my life and about to crest the mountain and see what's on the other side.  Time to leave those tears behind and embrace the journey ahead.  After all, those years of raising kids weren't always easy ones.  There were many moments of uncertainty about how to proceed for their best benefit and for mine.  In spite of reading every book I could get my hands on about raising kids, in spite of taking parenting classes, in spite of all of my efforts, I made mistakes.  But in the end, I did achieve what I had hoped I would.  They are both wonderful people.  They are both the type of person that brings "color" to the lives of others.  They are both people who will LIVE their lives and not just stand by and watch as other's live theirs.  I am very proud of them and it is a relief to have all those worries behind me.

I know what you are thinking, you who have adult children, that the worries are never going to be behind me.  Maybe that is true, but it is those years when they are being molded and guided that help them stand up to whatever life throws at them.  Certainly, my husband and I will always be there for them, a safety net spread out below in case they fall.  But I believe they are prepared to lead their own lives now and that they will each leave their mark on this world.  I can't wait to see what they will achieve!

In the meantime, I took my son to get his tuxedo for his prom last night.  I smiled as I saw the handsome man that he had become.  Someday a young lady is going to be really lucky to have him in her life.  He has grown to be a sensitive, smart, funny, and caring young man.  I remember always being aware as I was raising him that I was not raising a boy, I was raising a man.  I am so proud of the man he has become.

Tonight, however, I am flying down to visit my daughter and in a few days we will embark on a road trip as we drive her car back home for the summer.  I will treasure these days and imprint them on my memory to keep them with me for the rest of my life.  This summer she is traveling to the Amazon to learn the language Kichwa and to gain a better understanding of the culture of the people who speak the language.  She's come a long way from the nights when I would tuck her into bed while reading her her favorite book about the rain forest.  She has always wanted to save the animals and trees.  If anyone can do it, she can; and if she can't, I know that she will at least save the memory of what the rain forest was for those generations to follow.  I am looking forward to seeing her spend her life researching something she is so passionate about and sharing her research with young people who will call her Professor.