I spent some time on a gorgeous, sun-yellow, swing tonight. It was snowing: thick, heavy, flakes–swirling white in the ambicked my legs, swinging higher, and higher. Then, in that downward whoosh that follows, I found myself recounting, out loud, an afternoon experience only a few hours old, set in the same swirling snow.
…
“I was walking from the SUB to the SOB Barn. Two hours ago, I had walked across campus in my t-shirt. Now, I pulled my coat’s zipper tight, setting my shoulder against the miserable, blustering snow. My eyes squinted, instinctively, trying to see ahead without being blinded by the blizzard’s gales. I hadn’t brought my gloves with me [which is why, incidentally, I had two pairs with me tonight]; I trudged along: head down, eyes squinting and averted, my hands jammed in my pockets.
And then–perhaps a glittering snowflake caught my eye–I lakes settled on my jacket and beanie. My eyes focused. All at once, no!—I wasn’t cold. I was flushed with life. The wind wasn’t driving. It was correspondent–vivacious, tempestuous and strong.
I paused for a moment, stunned I had overlooked something so wonderful. Something so arrestingly tranquil. “I must … have been caught off guard by the snow,” I thought. Too caught off guard to comprehend or appreciate the forceful beauty of it all–pouring down all around me. Snow, falling in a tremendous deluge–white, gray, silent, soft. Water turned crystallized solace. How could I be trudging, cold and off-put?
So I looked up. And, in a moment, I walked on–my head up, hands out, eyes open. Yes–the snowflakes stung my eyes, causing momentary blindness. Yes–snowflakes settled on my cheeks, my hands. They must have been cold. By the time I reached the Barn, I looked of a snowman. But I enjoyed every step of the way. I enjoyed the cold and gusts and blindness–a small price to pay, rather than take for granted being alive and well–walking and laughing–amongst so much white and wonderful beauty.”
…
There I was, on the swing, swinging forward, faster, higher! Suspended–instantly but infinitely–in the swing’s apogee. That moment–motionless, floating, and flawless in mid-air. The swing’s chains go slack in your clutched fists; you’re weightless, unrestrained and free.
Then, even before awareness of its absence, gravity, jealous gravity, finds you. Pulls you back down. You fall, but the swing catches you, carries you down in its swinging arc. Down and back. You tuck your legs, go up, reach apogee, then whoosh. You’re down again, but screaming up and forward–up into that moment of being infinite, invincible and unrestrained.
Suddenly a god, I became aware that I had said something beautiful. And then, knowing full and well what I was about to do, I ruined it. Soiled it, made it worthless, black and bitter. I became moralizing–forcing meaning (hate, rancor) on something that, if I had just shut the fuck up, would have been meaningful and true.
“And I guess this is the part where I would say something profound,” I blustered, insipidly. “Something like, … ‘That moment of realization was just like life. Sometimes we’re not ready for change, so we miss the beauty in it. We suffer needlessly because we adjust our expectations too slowly–and all the while missing what’s wonderful and life-giving about change.'”
…
Tuck. Back. Up. Fall. Down. Kick. Forward.
Then–disgusted–I screamed. “But, bull SHIT.”
UP. With the last “T”, the swing’s chains went limp. But instead of grasping tighter–in that moment, suspended and weightless–I finally did what I’ve been trying to do for months: releasing the chains, I jumped.
…
And, in that moment–I didn’t know it–but I was free. Weightless, chainless (unbound!), and flying. The world before me beckoned, clawed, but I was in absentia. And–in that moment–in assumptio.
