The King of the Swings

Don’t wait too long to let go

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Your very first swing has a safety strap, and your parents standing by to supervise. A taste of fun; confined, rigorously tested, approved by playground police and the sensible engineers over at Big Swing.

Then you graduate. Hoisting yourself onto that black rubber, hot as a summer highway. Scorching your under-thighs when your shorts ride up. That sting of skin pinched between the chain links you can still feel if you close your eyes. Total toddler death trap, but you’re seven now. You know what you’re doing.

You dream of flying, over the barricades of that playground prison, swinging for the fences. If only gravity would go away, just for one moment. You’d promise not to tell anyone. Because even swinging with your legs together, your toes pointed like a spear, you’ll never be high enough to fly.

It takes a few years to discover that if you loop your arms in front of the chains, releasing at just the right point in the pendulum, you can catapult yourself farther and faster than any stupid seven-year-old. An early lesson in the principles of physics, in keeping your kinetic energy. Don’t let loose too early. Don’t wait too long to let go.

You jump off the swings, over lines in the sand that you carve with your heel. You see which of your friends can jump the farthest when your parents aren’t looking. The park Moms will get into the good gossip, all those rumours about Mr. Peters and his secretary. The same secretary who parks her car in the driveway and rushes into the house with the top buttons of her blouse already undone. Stays all night and into the morning, too long to be delivering a forgotten dossier.

It’s perfectly distracting. The Moms have no idea you’re risking life and limb, sailing through the air, marking your distance to determine the real king of the swings.

One day the playground is just you and the strange kid who chews grass when his mom forgets his lunch. None of your usual friends, and this lawn-eater has an idea. Instead of leaping from the seat, he tells you to grab one of the chains with both hands on the backswing. Now you’re holding on like a jungle vine, letting out a mighty “AAAaaaAAAaaaAAAaaa!!!” before you release.

It’s a special club of thrill seekers who have experienced the feeling of going full Tarzan. Even before you hit the ground, you know you’ll be doing this again.

That’s what it’s like the first time you snort cocaine.

This metaphor is brought to you by At The Break Of Day. I stole the whole analogy from him, scribbling away until this came out.