My grandparents’ home is much different than my simple suburban cutout. It is out in the National Forest of Tallahassee, eight hours away. The home itself is surrounded by towering pine trees and all types of forest animals. I’ve seen white rabbits, beautiful deer, a curious owl, fireflies that light up every summer evening, fuzzy tarantulas, delicate hummingbirds, and every bug imaginable, but 10 times bigger, all on their 14-acre property. There are bright wildflowers, hot pink, deep fuchsia, and bright orange, that the bumblebees love to spend time around, scattered throughout one of the fields of grass. And in the middle of it all, is a giant oak tree. Its circumference was too large to hug and meet hands behind it, and its leaves covered a large sum of the acres wide property, like a green dome. On one of its strong and trustworthy arms were the rope strings of a single swing.
The swing’s ropes towered over my small body and I always needed a helping hand to prop me onto its wooden seat. I would beg and beg, calling out to the adults on the porch to push me. Eventually, one of the rickety rocking chairs would stop its swaying motion and my dad would walk out slowly to the big oak tree, ready to push me. I would wait impatiently, tracing my hand along the oak’s tough bark. And when my dad finally reached me, which felt like an hour-long wait, I felt the butterflies beginning in my stomach as I prepared for blastoff. He would count down ominously as my grip tightened on the rope and my whole body clenched.
“Five… Four… Three… Two… One!” he yelled, finally giving my back the firm push it took to ascend into the leaves. I saw my red hair fly up and then back behind me again. I felt my stomach jump. I felt my smile widen. I heard my mouth squeal. I had made it to the top. I wanted to let go. To reach out and feel the leaves only a few feet away from me. I felt like a branch, a part of the tree, able to see everything in miniature, taking it all in peacefully. I was able to see my family members laugh while they gossiped on the ancient rocking chairs, the rainbow assortment of flowers my grandma had planted, and the dogs laying innocently on the heated asphalt. It felt like I was floating like a bird, looking down from an aerial view. But like all things in life, everything comes to an end, and gravity pulled me back to where I started. I wondered if the tree could relate — happy to observe, but humbled by the inability to interact.
This single swing was able to teach me perspective. Everything seemed so much smaller from the top of the swing, but when I was on the ground, the same things seemed to tower over me. I learned to imagine myself on the swing whenever I faced something that I thought was a large obstacle because, in reality, it is never that large or deep. The high and low points that the swaying of the swing took me through taught me that my lowest points are never permanent, and to savor the feeling of my highest points because they will also not last.
Even the oak tree did not last. Its energy was returned back to the soil after a hurricane killed it brutally. Even though it is not there physically, I will never forget how my swing in that tree made me feel, or how beautiful the view was from the top of its dome. Its spirit is still ferociously present in the four feet long stump that sits in front of my grandparents’ home, begging to be felt, remembered, and listened to.
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