Swinging from a ponderosa
Physical things—like trees and swings—tell our internal senses where we are in this world. Plus: A Neil Gaiman rec and a Ted Kooser poem.
"I remembered that milk after I had forgotten everything else."
– Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane
In the midst of all the craziness of moving this summer, we had a reunion with the two girls we fostered in 2016 shortly after James was placed with us. Lindsey and the girls' mom reconnected on Facebook, started texting, and set up a playdate at a park. And it happened. It really happened. They talked and hugged and played and enjoyed each other. We didn't think this would ever happen. It was amazing and special and healing and deserves way more words than I am going to give it today.
In all of the reunion-ing, Lindsey told the girls that we had moved, and they were a little bit sad about that. Their very first question was about the platform swing, the yellow rectangle one we hung from a branch of the ponderosa pine tree in our backyard. The one that was just wide enough to fit three kids on it.
They needed to know: "Do you still have the swing?"
So there I am. At the house that used to be my home and is now our rental property. I am scrambling to finish last-minute fixes and clean-up before the renter moves in. I am doing it by myself because Lindsey has COVID. It's two days since Granddad Jake died. There I am, on the first Saturday in June, patching holes, painting, re-caulking the master bathtub. Doing very landlord-y things. I am exhausted and disoriented. The last thing I have to do is to take down the swings hanging from the ponderosa pine tree in our backyard.
The last thing I want to do is to take down the swings hanging from the ponderosa pine tree in our backyard.
I wept as I did it. Ugly crying beneath the ponderosa pine tree in our old backyard.
There was a swing for infants with one of those buckle harnesses. There was a normal, every-day swing that all of our kids learned to "pump" on. And there was that yellow rectangle platform swing that all of our kids could fit on when they were 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds and even 6-year-olds.
Have I mentioned the ponderosa pine tree in our backyard? This tree may have been the best thing about our old house. (I'm confused about which verb tense to use. It's not my home anymore, it still exists, and it's more "former" than "old." The tree is still there, but it is now a past-tense thing in my life. Language matters but sometimes language is inadequate.) It is probably at least 150 years old. It takes three of me to hug its trunk. It is stately and grand and much taller than the house and smells like the mountains. My parents, and even Granddad, always said how much they loved that tree when they visited. This is the same tree that provided shade for guests at both of our adoption parties. If Bilbo Baggins had been from the American West, this ponderosa would have been his party tree.
The platform swing hurt the most to take down. All of our kids—foster and adopted—spent countless hours on that swing. We have pictures and videos of our kids lying side-by-side-by-side on the platform swing in pine-tree diffused mid-morning light, about to doze off. Some evenings after dinner, Lindsey and I would stretch out on that swing and look up at the sky through the ponderosa branches or at our kids as they played in the yard. When I think of our first home, of that yard, there's a composite image in my mind of the world seen from my back, with kids running through buffalo grass, and the flowers are bright and the sun is setting through the pine needles. My toe could just reach the ground when I laid on the swing, and I'd push off the bare dirt and feel the space-time continuum slow itself ever so subtly as I swayed, suspended, two feet above the earth.
Humans have five primary or external senses: sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste. We also have three internal senses: vestibular, proprioceptive, and tactile. The internal senses help interpret and monitor the sensory cues we get from the external senses. Tactile should be pretty self-explanatory. But the vestibular and proprioceptive senses are not as well known.
The vestibular system is designed to give us balance and proper orientation in space. It is concerned with keeping us in a right relationship with gravity. The proprioceptive system guides our body's sense of location and orientation and movement of our muscles and joints. It helps us to know where the parts of our bodies are, literally, in relation to other parts of our body. Combined, and when functioning properly, these internal systems help to ground our bodies in reality. They are way-finding signs for our bodies, and thus for our hearts and minds.
Kids from hard places often experience sensory processing delays or disorders. Trauma, neglect, and abuse throw these internal systems out of whack. For these kids, many "behavioral problems" are not behavioral; they are sensorial. Constant fidgeting, touching any and everything, chewing on clothes, seeming generally distracted—these are signs that the child is trying to ground herself in space and time. It is common for kids from hard places to seek (or avoid) unique forms of sensory stimulation because they are trying to kickstart a system that is failing them. And when parents or caregivers react to these actions as behaviors needing to be corrected (or only as behaviors that need to be corrected), they are also failing the kids.
Good reads: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
I recently finished Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Hence the inclusion of a quote at the beginning of my latest post. Ocean was published in 2012 and it has become a modern classic. Having finally read it, I can say that it more than lives up to the hype. Though Gaiman has a handful of super dope children’s books, Ocean is not for kids. It is unsettling and stirring and a thousand other things. Plot-wise, it’s about a man who returns to his childhood home while attending a funeral—and rediscovers memories and events that involved his peculiar neighbors, the Hempstocks. Really, though, the novel swirls around memory and the things that uncover or unlock our memories and take us to places we thought were long gone. Ocean is peak Gaiman: his prose is simple and sublime, and it’s like traveling to a more horrifying Narnia. Get it.
Poets corner: “Tree Removal” by Ted Kooser
I’ve been thinking about this poem quite a lot this summer. Its sentiment was running throughout my post about the swings on our old ponderosa pine tree.
First the boom truck offers its cup
to the sixty-foot elm, just a sip
from a cheap white plastic mug
after all those years of service
fishing for weather. Then follows
wave upon wave of the chain saw,
a hot spray of sawdust.
But the tree makes its exit with grace,
going down slowly, one piece at a time,
hauling in the cool net of its shadow
and patiently folding it
into the boat of the clouds.— “Tree Removal” by Ted Kooser
Poets corner, reprise: “Swinging from a Ponderosa” by Trevor Sides
I wrote this poem back in 2018, a few weeks before our girls came home to us. Honestly, I had forgotten I had written it, and in writing about the platform swing and moving, I remembered that, yes, there is a poem about this sort of thing in one of my old journals. I humbly offer it here, though I do think it’s pretty rough and in need of refining, and not worthy to follow something by St. Ted. But I saved it just for you and the other subscribers. Enjoy.
The momentum
of a 4-year-old
builds slowly,
and as the grin widens
the legs find their rhythm.
Under the green shadow
discovery hangs on hidden vulnerabilities
of roots and water and a seedling
that was planted long before us.
It has led to this moment
when the call for dinner
comes and the metronome
slows
into an outro
and a leap
onto dirt and pine straw.— “Swinging from a Ponderosa” by me
Thanks for being here, friends. ‘Til next time.