vacation days well spent

There is something about a porch swing that ceases any inclinations of further motion. The hypnotic lull of the back-and-forth erases ambitions of progress and makes work but a distant memory. No sound is as sweet as the gentle creaking of the springs, no cushion as comfy as that sun-faded, flowery polyester.

There's a southerly breeze blowing over your shoulder that smells faintly of childhood. Cool sweat drips down your glass as the ice cubes melt within. You take a sip of your iced tea and find yourself remembering the giant maple that stood in the backyard of your youthful summers, the one with the rope swing that kept slipping until the seat was an inch above the ground, the one with the stray plastic dinosaur lodged in its branches.

As the porch swing sings of its desire for a few drops of WD-40, you pick up your book. Eight hundred and seventy pages chock full of intrigue and adventure await you and you purposely overlook the fact that the intended audience is a gaggle of pimply, hormonal fifteen year olds. After all, this practically is your second childhood. You utter a prayer of gratitude into the breeze, thankful for an improved complexion this time around.


You've been rocking on that very spot for a week now, absorbing word and sun alike, interrupted but once by an afternoon spent laying on the banks of a Great Lake, where you continued your absorption of word and sun alike. Phrases of thoughts drift through the back of your mind like the waves of a distant storm rolling ashore. "There was this thing... back in that place where I live... something I had to do...." But the tide carries the driftwood all back to sea, and you wrap yourself up in a cocoon of carefree summer days. "Whatever the worries, they can wait. This is just too perfect to taint."

Birds flutter and tweet in rhythm with the swing and the potted plants dance about. They can sense that your leisure time is running out, that your departure is imminent. They mourn for your loss, but they keep it to themselves, happy to keep your stresses at bay until their powers become ineffective in time.

At last, the hour arrives to pack up your temporary world of magical idleness and trade it for one of predictable schedules and constant vigilance. The real world awaits, freedom abates. The porch swing haven must be vacated. You're hesitant. If only you could just remain here, rocking and dawdling. Or package it up and take it with you. What more could you possibly need than everything right here in this moment?