As soon as the car stopped I ran upstairs to change out of my church clothes, well worn black shoes and my sister’s hand-me-down blue-checkered dress into my favorite old clothes, summer shorts and red shirt and happily no shoes. Then I bolted down my lunch, cleared the table, washed the dishes, and flew out the front door as fast as I could.
I am in desperate need of quiet and peace and calm and no talking, just thinking and dreaming. This state of being was not simply found or easy to set up when I was growing up on a dairy farm with10 siblings. The noise was constant and our chores were always top priority.
My parents valued cleanliness and chores for every one of their children, believing this was very close to Godliness and heaven.
But I found all the busyness of daily farm life constrictive. Not much time to curl up with a book and read which at this stage of my life was the entire collection of the Little House on the Prairie Series. So when I found the wooden swing unoccupied and empty Sunday afternoons I then and there planned my escape from family. Let there be no mistake, I loved my family, but it was too much at times. Hence the swing escape.
Absolutely nothing beat seeing the blue sky with white fluffy clouds on a hot summer afternoon. This was living large as I watched the airplanes leave white scriggle trails as they soared across the sky. North, south, east or west, high and even higher just small airplane dots that encouraged me to dream of faraway places. I tried to grasp the truth that there were hundreds, thousands, millions of people that lived in the exact moment, at the exact same time as I, right now breathing, living, sleeping, working. What a thought! And this truth has amazed me even today. People everywhere alive and living the same moment as me!
My little legs kept pumping, the swing continued to rise higher and higher and my dreams of the future exploded out of me as I imagined myself traipsing across the sky.
The vastness, bigness and blueness created a hunger to know more, be more and love more. Here I found my magic place in a family of noisy kids, farm chores, garden chores, housework and school days. Swinging on the wooden seat is where I dreamt big dreams, lived large, traveled the world and when the swinging came to a stop my battery was recharged.
