When was the last time you were on a swing? Can you feel in your body the sensation of flying, of leaning back and pumping your legs until you hit the very highest arc of the swing? The rush forward and backward is a joy, but the best part is that brief suspended moment at the top of the arc, the flash of weightlessness before you inevitably come down again.
What allows you moments in which you pause, however briefly, outside the regular parameters of your life?
When I step out of my house onto my deck before getting into my car in the morning, I often find deer grazing on my lawn or catch sight of some other creature going about it’s business. These living beings are living in a world where fiscal cliffs, mortgages, debts and other things which constantly worry us don’t exist. I briefly become part of that. To be sure, they have their own worries like predators and food. But for a moment, I am above my own little world.
My greatest joy on the swing was not the suspension and weightlessness but the follow through, the power of arcing down with my head back so I could see the sky.