Hammock

I have several things headed my way via shipping companies, little things I got from Etsy or monthy supplies I can only get from amazon. One package, though, that I was not expecting to arrive quite so soon was my Pawley Island hammock from Levenger.  I only ordered it a few days ago, so when I was going through my email this morning and checking on delivery dates for some other things, I was astonished to see that the "Satans in the White Vans" were due to drop it off today.

I looked out at the untidy state of my yard and shook my head.  The bahaia grass has just about taken over my front yard, its untidy v-shaped heads sticking up everywhere.  Between a flat front tire that needed air and sporadic rains, I haven't mowed lately.  I knew I would need to tame the jungle before I relaxed in my new hammock.  

Roux informed me her great nemesis had arrived sometime while I was still getting dressed, which is about par for that course.  It doesn't matter how early I get up, they are always going to arrive at the least-convenient moment possible.  If they can catch me still asleep, changing clothes, or just out of the shower, they do it.  I think they have some kind of detector.  I didn't even try to go to the door, a process that would have involved falling over several animals half-clad.  The delivery driver knocked, leaned the huge box with the hammock in it against the porch wall next to my door, put a totally redundant post-it on my storm door, and left.  When I finished dressing, I dragged the box inside.

This afternoon when Dad got home, he came down with the air tank to fix the lawnmower and his cordless drill to help me hang the hammock.  After a little trial and error (the suggested measurements of height didn't quite fit our situation, of course), we got it at the perfect height.  It was gorgeous.  All I wanted to do was lie back in it and stare up into the shifting canopy of the tulip poplars above me.  I resisted, though, and got on the Husqvarna.....

After the grass was cut, I came back to the little outdoor room I'm making there under the tree.  The beginning of it is a small concrete pad poured long ago to be the foundation of my Granny's chicken house.  While I was growing up, it was a picnicking space, and then my grandfather kept the huge metal smoker he used to cook hams and turkeys for the holidays on it.  Now, it's been swept clean.  The hammock has been hung. One of my bottle trees is out there.  There's the big  outdoor lounge chair  for if anybody else ever decides to come visit.  The silly blue metal flying pig I bought at Prairie Arts that was the first of my metal menagerie guards the corner making a space that is very much me, very much relaxing.  I climbed into the hammock and managed not to flip myself out the other side. I thought that was a very grand accomplishment for my first time in one in about twenty years.  

The hammock is fantastic.  It's made to be a two-person hammock, but I'm here to tell you that while it's possible to get another person it it with me, and that the construction would certainly hold somebody else, I'd have to know that person very, very well, and like that person very, very much before I'd let them lie in it with me.... Let's just say it's a piece of furniture that would sort of create intimacy. Even though the light was going, I read for as long as I could see.  If I'd been wise enough to bring out my little booklight and clamp it to the top of my Kindle, I could have read longer.  Maybe tomorrow night.  

I took off my glasses and laid them and the Kindle aside.  The whole world eventually faded to frog song and night noises.  Fireflies glittered randomly at the edges of the woods, not quite the mini-pyrotechnic display they put on at some times of the year, but occasionally one of them would streak across the yard flashing on and off like a miniature low-flying comet.  There was a bat darting around in the open spaces between the treetops.  I could have slept there all night.  It was a place that was full of peace.

I've wanted this hammock for years, loved them since I was a little kid and we had one at home, since my cousins had one and we all piled in it together, since there used to be one strung between the trees here so long ago, since I spent long summer afternoons on my Nana's porch reading in one.  I can't wait for the sweet golden days of autumn.  Then, looking up into that tree will be like looking up into a ceiling of pure gold.  

It's lovely to find a refuge in one's own backyard, lovely, unexpected, and so very necessary.  I don't know why I always wait to look.  If you need me and can't find me or happen to need some peace of your own, swing on by and come around back.  If you're really lucky, I might even get out and let you take a turn in the hammock.